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UK Farmland Value Increases
Taylor Scott International Continue reading
Time For Europe To Embrace ‘Affordable, Sustainable’ Energy Solutions
Published 29 May 2013 The European Union should embrace new renewable solutions such as gas fermentation technologies to advance towards a low-carbon economy, argues Jennifer Holmgren. Jennifer Holmgren is chief executive of LanzaTech , which has developed a biological fermentation process that transforms industrial waste gases and residues into fuels and chemicals. Pressed by Europe’s economic crisis, EU leaders at a recent summit called for “affordable and sustainable energy” to underpin the EU’s “competitiveness, jobs and growth”. Many see this as wishful thinking, and argue for a relaxation of the club’s ambitious 2020 energy and emissions reduction targets. If the EU is to weather the crisis and emerge stronger and more competitive than ever, energy policies need to be looking resolutely forward, not back. Technologies are advancing faster than the policies designed to harness them. The EU is debating amendments to the Renewable Energy Directive and Fuel Quality Directive to include sustainability criteria. These criteria could help determine whether Europe can indeed meet its 2020 targets. If policies can catch up with science, sustainable energy can fuel Europe’s growth. Researchers in many different fields have made working out the conundrum of affordable and sustainable energy their priority for years now. Their investments are paying off. A number of new technologies are questioning our perceptions of waste for example, by turning greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into a valuable resource, and the potential is vast and varied. It is part of a growing trend among researchers who say why capture and bury these gases – a technique supported by EU policies– when you can recycle them into valuable commodities? The EU’s 2020 target to source 10% of Europe’s transport fuel from renewables, is reachable by deploying a variety of existing and new technologies, including gas fermentation which captures carbon-rich waste and residues from European manufacturers and recycles it into biofuel in a closed loop system. These processes allow industries not only to reduce their carbon footprint, but moreover to convert this liability into a valuable green commodity, and be at the forefront of a greener, more sustainable economy. This kind of economy supports green growth for industry, preserving and creating jobs across Europe as manufacturers and industry invest in green technologies while maintaining a healthy bottom line. The old argument that a cleaner, greener economy and job-creation are mutually exclusive just doesn’t hold water anymore. Greening a traditional industry by deployment of a gas fermentation facility at a steel plant for example can create 40 to 50 jobs. CleanTech also boosts foreign direct investment, with global supply chain partners and customers ready to finance and build plants in Europe. Furthermore, increased efficiency and reduced dependence on fossil imports reinforce energy security, and help reduce costs. It is crucial that Europe, in its role as global leader in the fight against climate change, embrace these technologies. Looking beyond 2020, they are an important part of the equation if the EU is to meet its commitments to reduce GHGs 95% by 2050. As Commission President José Manuel Barroso said at the summit, however, there is no silver bullet solution. In its drive for a more sustainable economy, Europe needs to assess all technologies over time and not stop with one policy. There is a high risk for policies focusing on one or a few technologies that may not work in the long run or produce unintended consequences in the future. There is a need to de-risk those policies by diversifying but also coordinating the different policies to further support deployment of clean technologies. Many policymakers and researchers have rightly argued that the solution to climate change requires a wide range of measures. Why not expand the concept of renewable energy beyond solar, wind and other means of harnessing the forces of nature? You need carbon to produce liquid fuels and chemicals – and we can source this from wastes and residues from industry in Europe today. Why not look at what up to now has been seen as a burden we’d just like to go away or bury, and see greenhouse gases as an opportunity, as one solution in a complex equation to ensure a more sustainable, growing economy? Continue reading
Promising Technique Improves Production of Biofuels from Lignocellulosic Biomass
Published on May 16, 2013 at 5:01 AM The production of biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass would benefit on several levels if carried out at temperatures between 65 and 70 degrees Celsius. Researchers with the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) have employed a promising technique for improving the ability of enzymes that break cellulose down into fermentable sugars to operate in this temperature range. Energy Biosciences Institute researchers substantially improved the thermal stability of Trichoderma reesei EGI, an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of cellulose, through a technique called “B-factor guided mutagenesis.” Using this technique, they successfully engineered a high-temperature enzyme variant with greater activity and stability over the desired temperature range, and have shown that not all microbes are alike when it comes to making enzymes with improved properties. The EBI research team, which includes Douglas Clark and Harvey Blanch, who hold joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and UC Berkeley’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, and postdoctoral researcher Harshal Chokhawala, used a strategy they call “B-factor guided mutagenesis.” They used it to enhance the thermal stability of TrEGI, an endoglucanase enzyme produced by Trichoderma reesei, a fungus considered to be the gold standard for secreting cellulase enzymes. “Lignocellulose hydrolysis using cellulases at high temperatures offers several potential advantages, including higher solid loadings due to reduced viscosity, lower risk of microbial contamination, greater compatibility with high temperature pretreatments, enhanced mass transfer and faster rates of hydrolysis,” Clark says. “However, T.reesei cellulases are not very stable at temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius. We’ve shown that we can improve the thermal stability of T.reesei cellulases with the B-factor approach.” Like all proteins, cellulase enzymes are comprised of chains of individual amino acids that are linked together into uniquely shaped structures. Every amino acid in a given enzyme has a “B-factor” value that corresponds to the flexibility of that amino acid. The higher the B-factor value, the greater the amino acid’s flexibility. “Just like the loosest knots in a rope will unravel first, the most flexible amino acids in an enzyme are the most likely to fall out of place when the protein is thermally stressed,” Clark says. “Tightening up these portions of the enzyme by mutating the amino acids and decreasing their B factor values represents one way to shore up the structure and increase the thermal stability of the protein.” In a presentation at the recent American Chemical Society national meeting in New Orleans, Clark described how he and his colleagues screened some 11,000 mutant versions of TrEGI then used a heat treatment at 50 degrees Celsius to identify some 500 variant candidates. Applying the B-factor guided mutagenesis, they engineered a TrEGI that was up to twice as active on insoluble lignocellulosic substrates as the native enzyme at temperatures ranging from 50-65 degrees Celsius. Engineered TrEGI expressed in the model fungus Neurospora crassa was able to hydrolyze lignocellulosic biomass at 60 degrees Celsius as efficiently as the native TrEGI at 50 degrees Celsius. By comparison, TrEGI mutants expressed in extracts of Escherichia coli or in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae had much lower activity at the higher temperatures. “Our results demonstrate that the host used for recombinant cellulase production can have a profound impact on the activity and stability of the expressed enzyme, which means favorable mutagenesis results observed for one host may not carry over to another,” Clark says. “So far the mutants we’ve produced in N. crassa exhibit very favorable properties and the results we’re getting will help guide further efforts in engineering optimal enzyme performance for biofuels applications.” The EBI, which provided the funding for this research, is a collaborative partnership between BP, the funding agency, UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Source: http://www.lbl.gov/ Continue reading
