10/29/08 Making it economically

A team leader at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Dr John Ashworth says there are a couple of big sticking points in cellulosic ethanol production. One is the difficulty of breaking the cellulose down to get the sugars. The second is the cost of the enzymes used to break the sugars down. Ashworth says that's why the Department of Energy has spent seven years working with the enzyme industry to drive costs down. ASHWORTH "This 40 million dollar research program it's been very effective. Its driven down the cost of the enzymes by 95 percent." But the enzymes are still more expensive than corn based ethanol and Ashworth says the organisms that make the enzymes do it slowly. It's a white rot fungus that produces the enzyme that breaks apart cellulose slowly. ASHWORTH "In the forest a tree falls, 20 years later the tree is gone. That's the fungus. It's attacking that material. We want to do it in one day. So what they've been working on is trying to speed up the process, requiring less enzyme per ton and then also just make the whole process more effective." But he notes this is a work in progress. As the industry builds Ashworth says the infrastructure to supply the enzymes will build and they'll also get cheaper and more efficient. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott