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The second EPOBIO Workshop was held near Athens in May 2007. The Workshop reported the outputs of the EPOBIO project in the Flagship areas of plant cell walls in relation to biorefining, plant oils as industrial feedstocks and biopolymers. It also looked at the future strategic development of biorefineries, relevant science and policy issues and was set in the context of industrial perspectives on sustainable developments.
New Material added/updated since 5 June 2007
331 Kb PDF) About the Workshop
15 Kb PDF) 6077 Kb PDF)For further information email: workshop@epobio.net
Or post/fax to: The EPOBIO Administrator, CNAP, Department of Biology (Area 15), University of York, PO Box 373, York YO10 5YW, UK. Fax: +44 (0) 1904 328801
The development of the bio-based economy is vital to society given issues of paramount importance such as climate change and the environment; the availability of supply, security and cost of fossil resources; and, increasing global demand for products and services. The potential of green plants to use solar energy and manufacture raw material feedstocks offers a way to address these issues and to deliver the sustainable development needed to underpin future societal needs and demands.
EPOBIO, a science to support policy Consortium, takes forward the work of the EC-US Taskforce on Biotechnology Research which identified three Flagship themes representing important areas for international R&D. Within the three themes – plant oils, biopolymers and plant cell walls in relation to biorefining – the EPOBIO team of desk researchers is defining the science needed to realise the full potential of agricultural feedstocks in the bio-based economy. The EPOBIO process provides a framework for validation of research priorities and a thorough evidence base to inform decision-making.
Reports published during year 1 of EPOBIO are available in the Publications section of this website.
Representatives from DG Agriculture and DG Research of the European Commission, as well as from the USDA led this international workshop along with the EPOBIO Consortium. The Workshop had wide-ranging content, appealing to researchers, policy makers, industrialists and research funders. The focus was on the development of second and third generation biorefineries using zero-waste feedstocks, producing multiple products from a crop and providing new opportunities for biochemicals and biomaterials.
The Workshop also reported the outputs of the EPOBIO project, specifically the optimisation of industrial crop platforms for biofuels, biochemicals and biomaterials through the use of advanced biorefineries. The future strategic development of biomanufacturing through biorefining, as well as the relevant regulatory and policy issues will be set within a global context and industrial perspectives for sustainable development.
| Further information, references and contact details for many of the speakers can be found in the Abstract Booklet ( 101 Kb PDF) |
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| Tuesday 15 May - Morning Session | |
| Scene Setting Co-Chairs: Alfredo Aguilar Romanillos (EC) and Judy St John (US) |
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| Welcome and opening remarks Professor Demetrios Kyriakidis President of the National Hellenic Research Foundation |
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Global vision: zero waste and sustainability Society is in transition: moving from a dependence on oil and fossil reserves to an economy that will be
based on biorenewables and the use of agricultural feedstocks for industrial production. The strategic vision
for long-term sustainability is under development. The move globally to replace the use of existing transport
fuels with biofuels is a clear indicator of this transition and the increasing global commitment to sustainable
development. However, the bioeconomy is far broader than the energy sector and offers major opportunities
for the production of chemicals and materials for many different sectors of industry. Ultimately, the aim will
be to use biorefineries in a way comparable to that in which oil refineries are currently used. This will enable Feedstocks will increasingly be used from the agricultural, forestry and waste sectors as well as from marine
resources. The achievement of maximum utility from the biorenewable feedstocks is likely to necessitate
integrated supply chains. Stakeholders from the growers to the industrial users must be linked if efficient Realising this potential of a global bioeconomy will raise major issues of land-use, security and quality of the food chain, and availability and use of water resources. This will require the application of sustainability criteria to assess the new developments. In turn, this need will bring the research community from many different disciplines together with the industrial and business sectors, to ensure a decision-making process for new energy and non-energy products that reflects both the market and is acceptable to the policy-makers and the public. |
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Agriculture: the essential underpinning for the bio-based economy Alternative uses of what the land produces have been at the center of attention since the European Commission presented its Energy Package with ambitious targets for expanding renewable energy sources. The European Council endorsed in March the proposal that the EU should set legally binding targets for 20% of renewable energy and 10 % of transport biofuels by 2020 in overall EU energy consumption. The energy package was adopted together with a Communication on policy options for limiting the global climate change to 2° Celsius, emphasising the integration and interdependence of climate and energy policies. The targets for renewable energy are seen as good news for European agriculture: they promise new outlets and a positive development of demand and prices at a time when farmers are increasingly faced with international competition. Biomass is the main source (65 %) of renewable energy in the EU, which means that agriculture and forestry are the main contributors to a more secure and sustainable energy and climate policy. Furthermore, expanded uses of agricultural biomass can create value-added production and support economic fabrics of rural areas. As renewable energy is promoted to achieve a more sustainable energy future for Europe, concerns have been raised about the sustainability of increased production and use of biomass for energy. Questions are asked about impacts on the agricultural environment, deforestation and biodiversity, as well as about impacts on prices of food and feed and availability of bio-based materials for other non-energy uses. The Nuremberg Declaration, which the German Presidency addressed to Council, emphasises the ambitious targets for renewable energy while calling for realising the full potential of renewable resources – including the expansion of their industrial utilisation. Networking between scientists, industry and policy-makers is necessary for realising this potential, as there is still some way to go towards a full bio-based economy, not least because of the relatively high costs of most bio-based products. The Common Agricultural Policy includes some specific support measures for the production of energy and other non-food crops. In the development of a longer term vision of the CAP, the best possible integration of energy and climate policy into the policy instruments will be continuously assessed, while eyes will be kept open for the balance between the food, feed and non-food markets. |
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Toward a sustainable bioeconomy: How can emerging bioproduction systems
promote environmental quality? Mature technologies for converting biomass into fuels and chemicals mature are expected to utilize a high degree of internal material and energy recovery. Although they make facilities more complicated and are capital-intensive, refinements such as heat recovery and integration help optimize plant efficiency. A review of developments in grain ethanol production technology shows that this trend is already well underway. As resource constraints become more limiting, biomass utilization systems will be required not only to be energy efficient, but ecologically efficient. Such systems will be optimized to provide a wider range of the ecological functions that agricultural and natural lands currently provide, including nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, and the protection of soil and water resources. Conceived of in this way, advanced production methods, such as cellulosic biofuel technologies, will be able to offer more than energetic, economic and climate change mitigation benefits (Lynd et al. 1991, Farell et al. 2006). One can identify hints of these trends as well in the maturing grain ethanol industry and the nascent cellulosic ethanol industry in the United States. It is important to look for opportunities to design biorefineries not only for high economic return and energy efficiency, but as integral parts of the agricultural and industrial ecosystems. Such "ecologically intensive" systems of bioproduction hold the promise of promoting environmental quality rather than adding additional stresses to soil, water, and air resources that are already under heavy pressure from agriculture and industry. |
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The poplar genome – accessibility to woody species
Poplar is one of the most intensively planted commercial forest tree species, mainly because of its fast growth, its ease of vegetative propagation and the strong hybrid vigour of interspecific hybrids. For the same reasons, and additionally because poplar can be easily genetically modified, poplar has become the model of choice for molecular geneticists. This common interest has culminated in the sequencing of the poplar genome, the first genome of a forest tree. The increasing awareness that lignocellulosic biomass from fast-growing trees, such as hybrid poplar, holds great promise to become an excellent renewable carbon-neutral raw material for conversion to bioethanol, urges for accelerated genetic improvement of trees by smartly combining conventional and biotechnological breeding tools. There is large potential in conventional breeding, because poplars, as all trees, are still largely undomesticated. Genetic modification, on the other hand, can circumvent the long breeding cycles and allows tailoring wood quality to the need of the industry far beyond the possibilities nature can achieve. This paper will present an overview of the genetic improvements in poplar made so far and provides a research agenda that addresses how information from the poplar genome sequence combined with knowledge on the genetics and molecular biology of poplar, can result in step-change improvements in the quality of woody biomass to meet future bioenergy demands. |
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Oil crops – biofuels and beyond Professor Ian Graham CNAP, University of York |
| Tuesday 15 May - Afternoon Session | |
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EPOBIO process - Industrial crop platforms for biorefining Co-Chairs: David Clayton and Dianna Bowles (EPOBIO) |
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Optimising plant cell walls: the lignocellulose platform
Cell walls are the main components of plant biomass on Earth and represent a largely untapped renewable resource for bio-based products. For the successful development of the bio-based economy it is important to consider a range of crop platforms that can provide the feedstock for cell wall biorefineries. The EPOBIO report "Crop Platforms for Cell Wall Biorefining – Lignocellulose Feedstocks", analysed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of four sources of biomass of relevance to Member States of the EU as case studies. These were poplar and willow, Miscanthus and wheat straw, which have been chosen as representative of woody species, grass and a co-product from arable crop cultivation. The analysis has shown that the science base of poplar and the fact that its genome sequence is known, provides an excellent foundation for the development of woody species for biorefining. Together with willow, short rotation coppicing of poplar offers many opportunities for the agricultural sector, providing initial investment costs and the timeline to investment recovery are acceptable. Information on the synthesis and organisation of cell walls in these species with targeted studies to define properties of direct relevance to ease of hydrolysis would be highly beneficial as these crops are developed in the longer term. Miscanthus undoubtedly holds great promise as a bioenergy crop for the future, because of its high biomass yield and the low agrochemical inputs needed. However, studies are only beginning to understand the molecular features of the grass, its cell walls and its optimisation for large-scale commercial cultivation. The decision to undertake the very considerable amount of R&D needed to bring Miscanthus up to speed must be a strategic commitment to perennial grasses as an industrial crop platform in the EU. Agricultural co-products as feedstocks for biorefining have the advantage of adding value to the main use of the crop. These feedstocks are already available now; however, improvement of the functionality of these co-products for biorefining whilst maintaining the high quality bred into the crop as a food feedstock over many generations may prove problematic. It will be a strategic decision, in terms of development of new feedstocks for energy and chemicals biorefining, whether to disadvantage use and yield of crops for food production. |
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Biopolymers: Crops for biopolymer and
platform chemicals
The second report of the biopolymer flagship for the EPOBIO project analyses the suitability of the three crops, sugar beet, tobacco, and Miscanthus, for the production of platform chemicals and biopolymers. Most applications in this theme are in an early stage of development, necessitating a longer lead-time to market (10/15 to 20 years). The strengths and weaknesses of developing each of these three crops as future industrial crop platforms turned out to be quite different. Sugar beet has the highest biomass yield of all conventional crops, and was very profitable prior to the CAP reform. Industrial utility of sugar beet would be greatly enhanced if new breeding targets aimed at industrial applications were undertaken. Beyond bioenergy, there are clear opportunities for using beet to produce novel chemicals and biopolymers. However, social acceptability of transgenic beet for this purpose and the problematic gene flow situation are likely to play a major determining role in decisions. Tobacco is a conventional crop that offers interesting potential as an industrial crop. It has many strengths for high yield production of designer compounds by GM and the possibility for development into a relatively high yielding biomass crop, if breeding targets are changed. As a non-food crop with limited risks of outcrossing it stands a good chance of being accepted by the general public in European countries. Miscanthus undoubtedly holds great promise as a bioenergy crop for the mid- to long-term future. This promise can only be realised once the grass has been optimised for large-scale commercial cultivation. Miscanthus offers potential for coproduction of added value products in parallel with biomass for biofuels, once genetic transformation has been established. Central issues are the future acceptance of GM-crops, especially in the case of sugar beet, fitting the new
crops in the existing supply chains, and integrating the crops in existing or future processing schemes. |
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Optimising the plant oil platforms
Our society has become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels not just as an energy source for transportation and heating but also for the provision of industrial feedstocks for a multitude of products that we use in every aspect of our daily lives. Despite the tremendous positive impact that crude oil has had on the advancement of human society, our current utilization of crude oil is unsustainable since this dominating feedstock is a limited resource as well as a major cause of climate change. Fossil fuels thus need to be replaced with alternative sustainable and environmentally friendly sources of energy and industrial feedstocks such as plant oils. However, the successful development of oleochemical-based products for global markets is critically dependent on the effectiveness and cost competitiveness of the strategies chosen for the production of the industrial oils. In this respect it is evident that the choice of robust crop platforms for the production of feedstock oils is a critical decision. The latest report from the EPOBIO plant oil flagship titled “Oil crop platforms for industrial uses” addresses the establishment of such industrial crop platforms for oil. Three crop platforms are considered. The first, rapeseed, is already a major crop globally that is used primarily as a source of food and feed, but is increasingly utilized as a source of biodiesel; the second, oat, is explored as a potential new oil crop platform for Europe, since variations in existing germplasm suggest that starch to oil ratios may be further manipulated to increase oil content; the third, crambe, is relatively undeveloped compared to rape and oat but also holds significant potential for production of industrial oils, since it is a high yielding oil crop that is excluded from the food chain. Each of these crops was evaluated as a potential source of renewable industrial oils and fuels, and research required for optimization of each crop platform will be described. |
| Wednesday 16 May - Morning Session | |
 Research issues for zero-waste biorefineries Co-Chairs: Yves Poirier and Markus Pauly |
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The lignocellulosic bottleneck:
material properties, architecture and
pretreatment
The lignocellulosic (lc) resource is geographically diverse, of a very large magnitude, and is very variable in physical form. While cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, the major polymer families in wood and straw are the majority of the lc material, there can be significant amounts of mineral matter, and non-structural materials often called extractives. The chemical composition of the lignin and hemicellulose is variable with season, bulk material storage and microbial attack. The challenge and opportunity, is to isolate the carbohydrate components for biochemical conversion in a cost effective manner, while adding value to the remaining components that range from 25% - 40% of the lc feedstock. Traditionally the plant components that have been used for fuel production are the storage compartments such as cereal grains, while the lc has been used as combustible fuel. The major barrier to biotechnical exploitation is that trees, straws and stalks are all structural materials – assembled to resist mechanical stress and biological degradation. Deconstructing these materials ideally should take place in the context of an understanding of their architecture. In the last 20 years and particularly since the sequencing of Arabidopsis the exquisite mechanisms of cellular construction in plants are being revealed. Contrary to the given wisdom from many years of studying pulping, it now appears that there is genetic control over the production and placement of lignin in the plant cell wall. This and evidence from genetically engineering plant tissues suggests that there may yet be a biological pathway towards deconstructing the lc cell walls. In the meantime the strategies are a combination of the physical treatments (attrition, heat), and chemical reactions via hydrolysis and solvolysis of weak chemical bonds which bind the hemicellulose and lignin to the cellulose. The control of the chemistry of deconstruction is a challenge as the reactivity of the bulk polymeric materials is far less than that of the carbohydrate oligomers and monomers that are released during the solvolysis. As a consequence the yield of desired polymers and oligomers is reduced by the production of degradation products from the dissolved polymers, some of which have been demonstrated to be inhibitory in downstream biological processing. Industrially feasible pretreatments are commercial today, but the material challenge remains and its resolution would enhance the feasibility of the lignocellulosic resource as a major feedstock for biorefining. |
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Challenges of the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into liquid transportation fuels
Commercial implementation of a biomass to liquid transportation fuel process has been hindered by a number of challenges. First, biomass collection and transport have issues pertaining to cost and abundance. Second, preprocessing or “pretreatment” of the raw material is required to make it more digestible by enzymes and this process tends to be very capital intensive. Third, enzymatic saccharification of the pretreated material is difficult and expensive due to the natural recalcitrance of plant cell walls to biological attack. In addition the presence of non-carbohydrate molecules like lignin have an impact on digestibility. Finally, conversion of biomass sugars to alcohol is made difficult due to the mixed nature of the sugar streams. Diversa Corp. has pioneered the discovery of novel, highly active enzymes from the environment. In addition we have developed technologies to optimize biomolecules for specific industrial purposes. This presentation will cover the discovery of these enzymes, the development of specialized automation technologies to evaluate enzyme activity on insoluble substrates and the performance of various enzyme cocktails on various feedstocks. |
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Oil modification and oleochemicals
Temperate oilseed crops typically comprise five main fatty acids in the triacylglyceride that makes up the seed oil. Tropical crops might add one or two more. Each crop is individualized by the proportion of these fatty acids but they are all characterized by having multiple fatty acids. The modification to the standard carbon backbone that gives rise to the different fatty acids is the number of double bonds present. The number of double bonds controls physical properties of the vegetable oil and its chemical reactivity. The exact properties of an oil that are imparted by double bond number make an oil useful in some applications but undesirable for others and these varied properties can be opposing even within an oil use. A relatively high number of double bonds (unsaturation) is a desired nutritional property but an undesirable characteristic in food processing. For industrial uses that require chemical reactivity such as drying oils for inks and paints, a moderately high degree of unsaturation is required while for fuel and lubricant uses the lowest degree of unsaturation consistent with solids requirement is desired. Plants that were not chosen for domestication for food use as food crops produce a much wider variety of fatty acids in storage lipids. In some cases those fatty acids have desirable industrial properties and might make valuable chemical intermediates if they can be economically produced. We have the ability to modify the fatty acid profile of temperate crop plants through traditional breeding and through the application of genetic modifications that result in changes to the fatty acid synthesis pathway. Conversion of these modified plants into economically viable crops must take into account all of the conflicting use requirements described above in addition to remaining within limits of the type of fatty acid or the amount of any one fatty acid accumulated that are imposed by the required physiological function of lipids containing these fatty acids in the plant. Compromises are possible but these must also fit into a commerce framework that functions efficiently with large scale commodity crops to provide cost effective raw ingredients for both food and industrial uses. Smaller scale crops must have the demand and value to support higher production cost since they do not readily fit into the large scale. |
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Phytochemical genomics for manipulation of plant secondary products
Since ancient times, plant secondary products have been used as medicines, pesticides, flavors, dyes and other industrial materials. This is still true even in the modernized societies. New plant products potentially leading to the innovative drugs are being discovered from plants. Often we are astonished by the fact how much man enjoys the benefits of the huge chemical diversity of plants for those non-food materials. More recently plant biotechnology based on phytochemical genomics offers new possibilities for developments of more beneficial bio-products such as pharmaceuticals and their feasible production. In this seminar, I will discuss on the elucidation of the genomic basis of chemical diversity of plant secondary products for rational manipulation of their complex pathways, by exemplifying our recent case studies on Arabidopsis thaliana and an exotic plant producing camptothecin, a clinically used anti-cancer compound. |
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New tools for plant breeding National and international institutions have been engaged in large programmes aimed at improving the nutritional or functional properties of the harvested plant for use in food, animal feed, or industrial products. This far, these efforts have been mainly carried out through breeding. Over the last two decades, knowledge of plant growth, development and the molecular composition of plant organs has increased tremendously. The genes that control the function of the biological mechanisms involved are in many cases identified and well characterised. Unfortunately, development of technologies to manipulate plant genomes has not matched that progress. GM is the only current way to carry out this task but is currently rejected by the consumer. Consequently, exploitation of the wealth of information available to scientists to modify output traits in crops is still far from expectation. TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes; Colbet et al, 2001), offers an alternative way to manipulate endogenous genes for functional evaluation and improvement of crops without GM. This target gene modification system has additional merits. First, it can be automated in a HTP mode, which is an absolute necessity to match the speed of candidate gene discovery. Second, it is an efficient way to isolate an allelic series in a specific gene and consequently identify alleles with a higher potential agronomic value. Third, it is very effective for identifying mutants in redundant genes, which is extremely difficult using phenotypic screening as in classical breeding. In URGV we have set a TILLING platform on different crop species. In this workshop I will review the importance of TILLING in breeding using examples of TILLED genes that have impact on functional properties of the harvested crop for use in food, animal feed, or industrial products. |
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The Interface Between
Biology, Chemistry and Engineering:
Realistic Processes for Conversion of
Cellulosic Biofuels
Concerns about global warming and national security, combined with the diminishing supply and increased cost of fossil fuels are causing our society to search for new sources of transportation fuels. In this respect the only sustainable source of renewable carbon that could be used to produce liquid transportation fuels is plant biomass. Currently cellulosic biomass is significantly cheaper than petroleum (at $15 per barrel of oil energy equivalent) and abundant (have the energy content of 60 % of our domestic crude oil consumption). However, the chief impediment to the utilization of our biomass resources is the lack of economical processes for conversion of biomass resources into fuels. To develop these processes, it is necessary to understand and overcome the key biological, chemical and engineering barriers, and develop the enabling technologies that will allow us to efficiently use our biomass resources. A major 21st century goal foracademia, industry, and government should be the emergence of efficient and economical utilization of biomass resources. We will compare and discuss strategies for green gasoline, green diesel and green jet fuel production (www.ecs.umass.edu/biofuels). These strategies include: selective thermal processing of cellulosic biomass, utilization of petroleum refining technologies for biofuel production, aqueous-phase processing, and syn-gas conversion. Recent advances in theoretical chemistry combined with new in-situ catalyst characterization methods allow us to understand chemistry at a fundamentally new level. Combining fundamental chemical understanding with new methods to synthesize nanostructured catalytic materials, the ability to design and simulate complicated reaction networks, and the ability to perform conceptual design and optimization problems allow us to engineer efficient and economical processes for biofuel production. While biology is important in biofuel production, chemistry, chemical catalysis and engineering will be equally vital to make lignocellulosic biofuels a practical reality. |
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| Wednesday 16 May - Afternoon Session | |
 Planning the biorefinery future – global policies/national impacts Co-Chairs: Sarah Hake and John Dyer |
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Lessons learnt from the bioeconomy – policy in partnership with research
Governments in many countries are putting in place targets and policies to encourage the production of biomass from agriculture, forestry and waste for energy and materials. This paper focuses in particular on policies related to the agricultural sector. Policies to increase biomass have been driven by concerns to increase energy security, reduce greenhouse gases and to widen the diversification of income sources for primary producers. Studies to date in OECD and elsewhere suggest that in many countries agricultural feed stocks for bio energy are not currently economically efficient without subsidies, and it is not clear if there will be improvements in overall environmental performance, particularly when considered on the basis of a lifecycle approach. However, the assessments depend on a number of key assumptions related to fossil based energy prices, bio refinery costs, crop yields and prices, and land availability. Three key issues are stressed in this paper: policies to promote bio energy are often running ahead of the underlying economic and environmental research; there are secondary impacts on agricultural, food and land markets – as well as environmental impacts not only on greenhouse gases but also on water, soil erosion and biodiversity - that are not always taken into account; and there are many uncertainties concerning the development of future costs and prices, in particular in relation to second generation bio-fuels. An important issue concerns the coherence of policies related to energy, agriculture, environment and taxation. The paper points out that there can be significant risks of misallocating resources through locking-in policies that can also lead to unintended consequences, and that closer linkages between the research and policy communities would be desirable. |
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Policy drivers leading to the bio-based economy - US Perspectives In 2001, the President put forward his National Energy Policy with over 100 recommendations to increase domestic energy supplies, encourage efficiency and conservation, invest in energy-related infrastructure, and develop alternative and renewable sources of energy. Then in 2005 the President signed the first comprehensive energy legislation in a decade. The Energy Policy Act mandated strengthening America’s electrical infrastructure and reducing the country’s dependence on foreign sources of energy, increasing conservation, and expanding the use of clean renewable energy. The next policy driver in the US was the Advances Energy Initiative announced by the President in the 2006 State of the Union Address. This Initiative, lead by the Department of Energy, set a national goal of replacing more than 75% of US oil imports from the Middles East by 2025. The most recent driver is the Administration’s recommendation for Title VII "Research and Related Matters" of the proposed 2007 Farm Bill. The recommendation calls for establishing within the Department of Agriculture an Agricultural Bioenergy and Biobased Products Research Initiative with$500 million over 10 years to advance fundamental scientific knowledge for the improved production of renewable fuels and biobased products. |
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Policy Drivers Leading to the Bio-based Economy – EU Perspectives
The various policy drivers in place for the bioeconomy – biofuels, bioenergy and the non-energy bioeconomy – will be considered in this presentation. The speaker will examine the risks that policies are intended to address and consider the effect of those risks and policies on the development of the bioeconomy in Europe. The impact of support for the agriculture sector and policies affecting other potential feedstocks will be considered. Key policies for the successful delivery of the bioeconomy will be outlined. |
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Biorefinery and Bioenergy in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Renewable biological resources are the basis of a European knowledge based bio-economy (food, feed, agriculture, forest based, fisheries, aquaculture, biochemistry, etc.) that today has an estimated annual turnover of more than €1500 million. The increasing demand for biological resources, both in quantity and quality, can only be met through innovation and advancement of knowledge in the sustainable management, production and use of these biological resources (micro-organism, plants and animals). |
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Biorefineries in China: policy, R&D capacity & resource China's R&D capacity will be discussed in relation to government policies at local and national level together with China's research efforts on biorefineries. Development of a domestic biofuels industry will be debated in terms of feedstocks, climate, geography and food security. For more information on the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Science and Innovation network in China, please visit www.uk.cn/science |
| International case studies Co-Chairs: Piero Venturi (EC) and Eileen Herrera (US) |
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Jatropha in developing countries
This presentation will discuss the actual agricultural data and potential of Jatropha curcas in developing countries. It will present some of the current yield data, information on climate and soil fertility and pest and disease factors. It will also give some clues on how to further the potential of J. curcas. This requires research and development in the plant genetics as well as in the best agronomic practices. The potential of J. curcas is quite high and can be delivered under good policy measures. |
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Sugarcane: A Crop with the Potential to Function as Both a Biofactory Producing
Industrial Chemicals and as a Large Scale Source of Carbohydrates for Future
Biorefineries
Sugarcane (Saccharum sp. hybrids) has the potential to be a key crop for biofactory production of industrial chemicals. It is the second fastest growing tropical grass, produces a large biomass (90-250+ tonnes/hectare), partitions carbon into sucrose at up to 42% of the dry weight of the stalk, has a mobile pool of hexose sugars through most of its life cycle, is vegetatively propagated, and can be harvested multiple times before replanting. Sugarcane industries all ready have in place the infrastructure to haul the enormous biomass from the farms to the sugar mills for processing and the mills generate their own energy. The PHB biosynthesis enzymes of Ralstonia eutropha, PHAA, PHAB and PHAC, were targeted to plastids of sugarcane variety Q117 (Petrasovits et al. 2007). Epifluorescence and electron microscopy of leaf and stem sections from these lines revealed that PHB accumulated in plastids of all vital cell types except mesophyll cells. The concentration of PHB in culm internodes of plastidic lines was substantially lower than in leaves. Western blot analysis indicated that expression of the PHB biosynthesis proteins was not limiting in culm internodes. Epifluorescence microscopy of culm-internode and node sections and electron microscopy of node sections from plastidic lines showed that PHB accumulated in all vital cell types except photosynthetic cortical cells in the rind. Six PHB-positive lines were further studied in a replicated glasshouse trial using a randomized block design. These lines accumulated PHB in leaves to a maximum of 1.77% of dry-weight, without incurring an agronomic penalty. There was a PHB concentration gradient from the top to the base of the plant as well as a gradient from tips to the bases of individual leaves. The pattern of relative PHB accumulation was the same in all lines with marked differences in absolute PHB concentration (Purnell et al. 2007). There were good correlations between PHB concentration and the abundance of the biosynthetic enzymes, but not between the biosynthetic enzymes and their respective transcripts. The overall highest producing line (TA4) produced PHB at ~2.5% of leaf dry weight. Although moderate PHB concentrations were achieved in leaves, maximum recorded total-plant PHB yield was only 0.26% (11.9 g PHB in 4.60 kg fresh-weight). Sugarcane was also evaluated as a production platform for p-hydroxybenzoic acid using two different bacterial proteins that both provide one-enzyme pathways from a naturally occurring plant intermediate (McQualter et al. 2005). The sugarcane line producing the highest levels accumulated a glycosylated form of pHBA in the leaves at 7.5% of the dry weight and in the stems at 1.5% dry weight (McQualter et al. 2005). In addition, sugarcane was transformed with a gene encoding sorbitol-6-phosphate dehydrogenase to generate plants expressing Sorbitol in leaves and stems (Chong et al. 2007). In the leaf, the mean sorbitol levels (across the entire leaf blade minus midrib) for six biological replicates was 12 % of dry weight. In the stem, the mean sorbitol (transverse bore sample, i.e. rind-pith-rind) for six biological replicates was 1 % of dry weight. |
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A Canadian appoach to biorefining
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Is micro-algae a future bio-fuel?
Imagine if we could:
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| Thursday 17 May - Morning Session | |
 Bio-opportunities, sustainability and the role of industry in the bio-based economy Co-Chairs: Dianna Bowles (EPOBIO) and Antoinette Betschart (US) |
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Society’s view of the ‘Bio-opportunities’
It is generally recognised that public opinion is a main contributor to the social trajectories of novel technologies. Following the recent technological developments in the field of industrial plant exploitation for energy production and manufacture, the aim of this study was to identify public attitudes towards the projects and products identified by EPOBIO, which are expected to build the bio-economy of the near future. For that purpose, a survey with national representative samples of seven EU countries and an electronic survey were carried out in the period October-November 2006. The findings provide a valuable tool for the development of a proactive communication strategy and could assist policy makers and investors in understanding the social parameters which could help secure public acceptance of the new technological projects. The questionnaire which was used in the survey examined opinion on plant oils, biopolymers and the biorefinery alongside with attitudes towards special issues and background information. The survey findings suggest the following ideas:
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Challenges for Sustainable Feedstock Production
The strategic development and realisation of biomanufacturing through biorefining is an increasingly important area for the sustainable development of useful industrial products. It is already clear that very many useful materials can be produced from plant derived biomass, although only a limited number will be economically viable in the near term. Process Technology breakthroughs can be expected, but the economic challenges will definitely mandate use of agronomic systems that deliver high yields of the plant feedstocks. The challenges facing agricultural production are immense. Simply to feed the 2050 world population will require average yields 50% higher than today. Competition for the same high quality agricultural land to grow biofuels as well as to produce chemical feedstocks and other products intensifies the challenge. Maintaining high yields as well as promoting biodiversity, soil fertility and managing water resources are issues that need to be tackled. Success will require us to build on established methods of agronomy, crop protection and conservation agriculture, but also to embrace modern methods of plant biotechnology to develop new varieties of Plants for the Future. |
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Engineering Novel Platforms for Terpene Natural Product Biosynthesis Terpenes comprise a large and structurally diverse class of natural products that serve a vast array of biological functions in nature from microorganisms to animals. In plants for example, they serve as insect attractants, defense compounds against pathogenic microbes , or as herbivore repellents. Terpene molecules have been of interest for thousands of years because of their flavor and fragrance properties and their cosmetic, medicinal and anti-microbial effects. In the Flavor and Fragrance industry alone, the world annual consumption of volatiles terpene molecules represents 1000s of tons. Terpenes, like most natural products, are often biosynthesized in small amounts and as complex mixtures by plants and microbes and are thus in limited supply and/or too expensive. In addition, because of the often-complex structures of these molecules and because of the requirement of enantiomeric pure molecules, synthetic approaches are often too costly or inefficient. Therefore, efforts to genetic engineer high yielding production platforms in microbes and plants have been sought. The strategies employed to construct biosynthetic production platforms for the production of terpene molecules for flavor, fragrance and other industrial applications will be presented. This strategy implies the isolation and characterization of key biosynthetic enzymes and the metabolic engineering of microorganisms and plants to construct platforms for industrial production of volatile terpenes. The strategies and potential of engineering plants, relying on the diversion of carbon flow from isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) biosynthesized in either the cytosolic or plastidic compartments of plant cells, will be discussed in details. These developments provide new precedents for engineering natural product biosynthetic pathways into plants, and specifically a means for generating high levels of terpenes that until now has not been available for scientific investigation, industrial production, or therapeutic applications. |
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Making Cellulosic Biofuel Feedstocks a Commercial Reality The US Government has set goal of generating 35 billion gallons of biofuel per year by 2017. To achieve this will necessitate not only continued production of ethanol from corn starch but also the generation of ethanol, or its equivalent, from cellulose. The latter is much more energetically efficient. To achieve the production of a biofuel from cellulose needs very large sustainable supplies of plant feedstocks transported to biorefineries where conversion of the cellulose to sugars and then fermentation to ethanol or thermochemical conversion can be performed efficiently. At present, costs of the whole commercial chain need to be reduced but this is happening as more people address the technical issues. The leading contenders to be the most suitable feedstocks are the C4 grasses, including the perennials switchgrass, miscanthus and sugar/energycane. More than 50% of the cost of the feedstock at the biorefinery gate is due to harvesting and transport. This means that high density of plant material in the field is a crucial goal for germplasm selection, plant breeding and production. The conversion efficiency of this material to a biofuel is also particularly important to optimize. The shortage of time for optimized feedstock development to meet the political goals means that the best germplasm needs to be urgently selected and then imaginative breeding programs adopted with all the efficiencies that can be gained from molecular comparative genetics. Ceres has initiated programs to develop and commercialize biomass energy crops with high conversion efficiencies using carefully selected starting germplasm but also incorporating its leading gene-trait knowledge base and composition analytical skills. Its strategy and progress to achieve the commercial objectives will be summarized. |
Concluding panel discussion |
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© Copyright 2006, CNAP Policy Statements
Updated
27 February, 2008
by CPL Press - web@epobio.net
