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FUELING UP WITH CORN
FACILITY AT
SIUE BOOSTS REGION'S "BIOBELT" BASE.
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BY PETER DOWNS
If microbiologist Rodney Bothast is right, ethanol has the potential
to act as a “miracle drug” to cure the nation’s energy insecurities,
global warming, and farm depressions, while simultaneously boosting
the St. Louis region’s reputation as the nation’s “BioBelt.”
The main bar to success is the high cost of making ethanol, which
is high compared to the cost of oil.
“Research
here will open new doors to efficient and affordable
ways to produce alternative transportation fuels.”
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James
Walker
president, SIU
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That’s where metropolitan St. Louis, and particularly the Southern
Illinois University in Edwardsville (SIUE), comes in. SIUE is home
to the brand new National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Pilot Plant,
the only facility in the nation dedicated to improving the efficiency
of the ethanol making process. “Research here will open new doors
to efficient and affordable ways to produce alternative transportation
fuels,” says SIU President James Walker.
For Bothast, considered a world leader in the field, the completion
of the corn-to-ethanol pilot plant in April will be an important
milestone in the history of ethanol. In 30 years as a researcher,
much of that time in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bothast
developed many ways to improve the ethanol yield from fermentation,
but he says he could interest industry in none of them. Why? He
could demonstrate neither that they would work on an industrial
scale, nor that they made financial sense.
As the first director of the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Pilot
Plant, Bothast will have the opportunity to take research results
from laboratories and scale them up to see if they will work on
the level of actual production processes. One of the companies he
plans to work with is St. Louis-based Monsanto, which has a “biofuels”
program that is seeking to develop corn hybrids that will produce
more ethanol per bushel of grain than current varieties.
There is a lot riding on the success of the National Corn-to-Ethanol
Research Pilot Plant (NCERPP). Current U.S. energy policy calls
for maintaining a rapid rate of growth in ethanol production as
a way of reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil, and increasing
homeland security.
According to USDA researchers Hosein Shapouri and James Duffield.
Every gallon of ethanol produced domestically for fuel displaces
seven gallons of imported oil. Starting from practically zero in
the late 1970s, the ethanol industry grew to produce one billion
gallons in 1994, and, according to Bothast, reached a record two
billion gallons in 2002. The goal for 2012 is to produce five billion
gallons of ethanol.
The chief hurdle to the expansion of the ethanol industry is the
profitability of the production process. The fermentation process
that produces ethanol also produces a dry product that is used as
animal feed. Processors make money by selling both products. The
problem, Bothast says, is that a glut of animal feed on the market
has driven down the price for the dry product. Any increase in ethanol
production will exacerbate that glut and the downward pressure on
processor incomes.
“I
think it is very important that there is a facility
like this one at SIUE. It will have a dramatic impact
for the BioBelt because of the capabilities that facility
has.”
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Lee Quarles
spokesman, Monsanto
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As Bothast sees it, the mission of the NCERPP is to demonstrate techniques
that either produce more ethanol and fewer dry products, or produce
higher value dry products.
That is where Monsanto comes in. Monsanto has a “biofuels” program
in which it is trying to develop corn hybrids that produce more
ethanol. Currently the company contracts with commercial ethanol
producers to test the exact components of its hybrids.
The SIUE facility also will examine the effectiveness of new bioengineered
yeasts and bacterial enzymes at improving the efficiency of ethanol
fermentation. The Department of Energy recently spent $14 million
to evaluate bacterial enzymes for increasing the output of ethanol
from a bushel of corn. None of them, however, have yet been proven
in industrial scale production. Additional grant money will be available
through the Bridge to the Corn Ethanol Industry Program of the DOE’s
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
“I think it is very important that there is a facility like this
one at SIUE,” says Monsanto spokesman Lee Quarles. “It will have
a dramatic impact for the BioBelt because of the capabilities that
facility has.”
Those capabilities might extend beyond ethanol as there are many
other chemicals that can be extracted from plants by fermentation.
The center of the SIUE facility is designed to be very flexible
and convertible, says Bothast, who added that he is working with
representatives of the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Donald Danforth
Plant Science Center, and other plant and life science research
groups in the area to pursue the potential utility of the NCERPP
in demonstrating the industrial potential of bioprospecting—extracting
medicines and other compounds in useful quantities from native plants—and
the nascent nutriceutical industry—which involves bioengineering
plants to produce greater quantities of medicines and other beneficial
compounds.
In addition, Bothast has demonstrated in his research the ability
of similar processes to extract acrylic acid and butanol from plants
for the plastic industry. He calls such processes “biorefining.”
The prime focus of the facility is ethanol, however. If Bothast
and the NCERPP successfully demonstrate techniques that will increase
the profitability of the ethanol industry, the benefits to farmers
could be tremendous. Ethanol production in 2002 absorbed nearly
eight percent of the domestic corn crop, Bothast notes. At current
harvest levels, if the ethanol industry reaches its production goal
for 2012, it will absorb about 20 percent of the corn crop.
GARRY NIEMEYER
past president, Illinois Corn Growers Association
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The higher demand for corn should raise the average corn price,
increasing farm incomes while reducing federal farm aid payments.
That will be good for Missouri and Illinois, both major corn-producing
states. According to Garry Niemeyer, past president of the Illinois
Corn Growers Association, corn growers near an ethanol plant can
already expect to get five to 10 cents a bushel more than growers
elsewhere.
The positive effect of the ethanol industry on rural communities
is greater than just such a price increase indicates, however. The
ethanol industry, which was once dominated by large corporations,
now is dominated by small, farmer-owned cooperatives, Bothast says.
A small ethanol plant, according to Niemeyer, will spend more than
$56 million annually on goods and services in a local community.
That same plant creates nearly 700 jobs and generates $1.2 million
in new tax revenue for state and local governments. In short, ethanol
can play a key role in revitalizing Illinois and Missouri farm communities.
Niemeyer made his comments at a Southern Illinois Energy Meeting
in Edwardsville last October. The meeting was sponsored by DOE’s
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
And what about global warming?
Burning ethanol instead of gasoline produces less carbon dioxide,
the prime culprit in global warming, Bothast says. “So the net environmental
effect is very positive.”
SIUE expects the NCERPP will have a permanent staff of 10 to 12.
The concept behind the facility is that much of the time companies
will rent it to do their own research, and bring in their own staff.
There is a lot riding on the success of the NCERPP. And Bothast is
well aware that with hope and responsibility comes attention. “This
is a national facility that is international in scope. The world
is watching,” he says. Stories about the facility already have appeared
in national and international journals, and calls and emails have
come in from researchers in Canada and Europe, who are interested
in what they can do there.
Internationally known authority, Bothast recruited to region
as head of National Corn-To-Ethanol Research Pilot Plant
Rodney Bothast, Ph.D., the director of the new National Corn-To-Ethanol
Research Pilot Plant at Southern Illinois University– Edwardsville,
is an internationally-recognized authority on industrial microbiology
and biochemical engineering.
RODNEY BOTHAST, PH.D.
director, National Corn-To-Ethanol Research Pilot
Plant at SIUE
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SIUE Chancellor David Werner, Ph.D., says Bothast is a research
microbiologist who brings an international reputation in biochemical
engineering to the campus. “We are confident that Rod Bothast will
be breaking new ground in ethanol technology in University Park,”
Werner says. “His work and the research done at the facility will
have a profound impact on the state and the nation.”
As research microbiologist at the US Department of Agriculture’s
laboratory in Peoria for 30 years, Bothast developed technologies
to produce lower cost fuels and valuable co-products. He is credited
with leading research teams that made several pioneering discoveries,
including the trickle ammonia process of drying grain, the first
pentose fermenting yeast, reduced energy costs for the fermentation
of alcohol, and methods for solving mold damage problems in the
U.S. Food for Peace Program, methods for reducing salmonella contamination,
and development of a process for producing acrylic acid from plant
matter. Acrylic acid is used in the manufacturing of plastics.
Bothast’s discovery of pentose fermenting yeast, for which he received
his third patent, overturned the scientific knowledge of the day,
which held that no yeast could break down a five-ring sugar. That
discovery is the basis for techniques that Bothast says could increase
the ethanol yield from corn by 10 percent.
Bothast served as Research Leader of the Fermentation Biochemistry
Research Unit in the USDA’s Peoria laboratory from 1985 to 2000,
directing a broad-based program that focused on the discovery and
development of bioproducts and bioprocesses for conversion of agricultural
commodities into biofuels and chemicals, enzymes and biocontrol
agents, and on improved animal production systems. He went to the
University of British Columbia in 2000 on a fellowship from the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
He earned a bachelor of science in Animal Science at The Ohio State
University in Columbus, and a master of science in Food Microbiology
at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University at Blacksburg,
Va. Bothast also received a doctorate in Food Microbiology in 1971
from Virginia Tech.
His fermentation technology, industrial microbiology, and biochemical
engineering research accomplishments are documented in more than
200 scientific research publications, book chapters, patents, review
articles, and technical reports, and more than 100 invited presentations.
In addition to directing operations at the NCERPP, Bothast will be
responsible for finding clients, government appropriations, and
both public and private grants for the facility.
Peter Downs is a St. Louis-based freelance writer.
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