Breakthrough at Mascoma holds potential for 60 percent drop in production cost of cellulosic ethanol; ‘golden dream’ of CBP is closer than thought

In Massachusetts, Mascoma will announce later this morning a breakthrough that is reducing the cost of cellulosic ethanol production by up to 60 percent in lab tests.

The breakthrough relates to consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) – a transformational technology which the DOE/USDA 2006 Roadmap called “the ultimate low-cost configuration for cellulose hydrolysis and fermentation,” and which reduces or eliminates the need for added enzymes to process pretreated lignocellulose into ethanol.

Mascoma is reporting that, in the lab, based on multiple runs with reduced enzyme requirements, it is seeing normalized per gallon operating costs in March at just under 40 percent of  the  June 2008 baseline.

Digest readers will remember that last week there was a link to a Forbes story, “Biofuels Battle: Chemistry Versus Biology”, in which NREL research associate Helena Chum described consolidated bioprocessing as “The golden dream. All of the processes in one super-organism. That would be the lowest cost possible.” Forbes commented that it was “the further from success.”

Mascoma’s results are demonstrating that CBP is much closer than thought, and we will continue to track this development closely to see how quickly proof of concept in the lab can be translated into production results at the plant.The goal of CBP is to combine the enzyme production, cellulose hydrolysis, and fermentation of the C5 and C6 sugars in one consolidated process.

Mascoma, which has been investing in research in CBP on bacterial and yeast platform platforms, reported on its results at the 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals in San Francisco, CA earlier this week.

The highlight of Mascoma’s report is in the yeast platform, where Mascoma has developed a recombinant celluloytic yeast that eliminates the need for added enzymes in the rapid production of ethanol from paper sludge, and a 2.5 fold reduction in enzymes in rapid production of ethanol from pretreated hardwood. Mascoma reported a 3000-fold increase in enzyme production rates.

In short, Mascoma has developed a proof of concept consolidated bioprocessor. It is thought to be the biggest R&D-driven advance yet achieved in the cellulosic biofuels field.

Martin Keller, Director of the BioEnergy Science Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, called it a “significant breakthrough” and added “proofing consolidated bioprocessing is a major achievement towards a sustainable biofuels industry. This major milestone of achievement brings us so much closer to show that we can develop technology to achieve this goal. This also demonstrate the potential next generation biological research has to our energy security and also justifies the increased research funding in this area.”

Dr. Bruce Dale of Michigan State, a member of the Mascoma science advisory board and a frequent commentator on cellulosic ethanol in the Digest, also termed it “a very important breakthrough. You can have the most beautiful synthetic biology in the world but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t get affordable sugars. The development of cheap sugars, on the other hand, opens up many possibilities, for example, in the production of low-cost synthetic  jet fuels.”

Mascoma is currently operating at pilot-scale at its facility in Rome, NY, processing up to 20 tons of wood per year, and is developing its 40 Mgy project at Kinross, Michigan.

The Department of Energy announced last October that it would provide $26.0 million in funding for the facility, and the state of Michigan will add $23.5 million. The proposed facility will produce 40 Mgy and is supported by General Motors and Marathon Oil, which are investors in Mascoma. Michigan State and Michigan Tech Universities will partner with the project to tailor Mascoma’s technology and supply chain options for the specific Michigan feedstocks used in production.

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