Dedicated Energy Crops Could Replace 30% of Gasoline: Ceres, Inc. Wants to Make it Happen
Ceres, Inc. supports the prediction that we could grow more than 30% of US transportation fuel with dedicated energy crops. This is no pipe dream: planting starts next spring.
Ceres, Inc., the self-described “energy crop company,” is engineering plants that could play a big role in the future of sustainable biofuels. In stark contrast to food crops, what Ceres is in the business of creating are “dedicated energy crops”—like switchgrass, sorghum, and miscanthus—that are ideally suited for fuel production.
While the global “food vs. fuel” debate rages on, a few companies like Ceres are quietly moving forward with next generation technology that challenges many of the current assumptions about growing fuel. In their view, it’s time to move the conversation on from corn-based controversy to second-generation, non-food based sources of ethanol.
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What Ceres is Doing
Ceres is a biotechnology company using genetic engineering and standard plant breeding techniques to create the most efficient and productive biofuel feedstocks possible. Basically, they’re using techniques developed and applied in the Human Genome Project to sequence and manipulate plant DNA.
According to material provided by Ceres (see video of the presentation at GMNext.com), the company is one of the world’s leading plant genomics firms with a proprietary collection of more than 70,000 genes from numerous plant species. You may have heard the company’s name before, since Monsanto has been paying for Ceres’ technology for years.
But Ceres is now looking to capitalize on the potential of biofuel crops by producing species that grow bigger, faster, and more cheaply. They’re trying to maximize the number one criteria for any fuel crop—how much plant it produces on an acre of land—while minimizing the need for fertilizer and other inputs, and optimizing the ease in which the crop can actually be converted into ethanol.
Unlike growing an ear of corn, Ceres doesn’t care about increasing the number or size of starch-containing kernels. They’re interested in biomass: the leaves and stalks of the plant that contain everything else. (For more information, see previous post describing how cellulosic ethanol is produced from biomass.)
The Business Plan
If you thought cellulosic ethanol was just another pipe dream, note this: Ceres will be selling switchgrass seeds to farmers this year for the spring 2009 planting season. Besides a number of varieties of switchgrass, they’ll also be selling sorghum and miscanthus, all under the brand name Blade.
To plant an acre of switchgrass, a farmer will need about 5 lbs of seed for a total cost of about $100 per acre. But a perennial crop like switchgrass is only planted once every 5-10 years, since it grows back from the same root system over and over.
So how will Ceres make money?
Taking a brief look at their business materials, it’s clear that Ceres already has a diverse portfolio of available plant seeds for sale, combined with a virtually untapped and potentially explosive market for next-generation biofuels (not to mention the proprietary genetic information they already own).
The better question then, is not “will Ceres make money,” but, “will Ceres become the Monsanto of biofuel crops?”
There’s no question that Ceres faces large obstacles in getting their seeds to market. The big catch for farmers planting a perennial energy crop is that it takes two years to establish a productive stand. Unlike annual corn crops, which put down a relatively shallow root system, switchgrass grows down into the ground before it establishes the biomass needed for ethanol production. This is a very big deal for farmers, most of whom are technically bankrupt at the end of each growing season and can’t afford to wait two or three years to see a return on their investment.
There’s also no prior knowledge for growing a crop like switchgrass, which is one step removed from the wild, so Ceres will also have to be instrumental in helping farms make the transition.
Fortunately, there’s a little help in the form of the 2008 Farm Bill. The Farm Bill instituted the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), which helps farmers transition to dedicated energy crops by covering large percentages of the transition cost. BCAP will also pay growers yearly until the biorefinery they supply can pay them, and puts in place a capped dollar matching program for harvest and transportation costs. Getting over the initial investment hump is also a big deal for ethanol production facilities too, and the BCAP allocates funds for up to 30% of the cost of developing demonstration-scale ethanol plants.
What is the potential of one of these energy crops, switchgrass?
The U.S. uses 390 million gallons of gasoline for motor vehicle transport per day. That’s a bit over 142 billion gallons of gasoline each year. Using a back of the envelop calculation, if we took just 5% of rangeland in the U.S. (30 million acres), and converted it to switchgrass production, assuming we could produce 100 gallons of fuel from every dry ton, that’s 30 billion gallons of fuel, or 21% of U.S. gasoline consumption.
And that’s assuming no advancement in the productivity of switchgrass, which is extremely unlikely (see the USDA switchgrass study for more).
Switchgrass is particularly well-suited for use as a fuel crop, since it’s:
- A native plant and high yielding.
- A perennial with strong net energy balance (more energy comes out than you put in).
- Currently produces up to 10 tons per acre (dry).
- Requires low inputs. Nitrogen (N) as low as 50 lbs per acre.
- Often, no phosphorous (P) or potassium (K) is required.
- Weeds aren’t a problem after stand establishment.
- During senescence, the plant puts nutrients back into the soil and roots sequester carbon.
- Disease or pest problems are not a major concern because it’s well adapted to US.
While it took centuries to turn corn into a staple of the American diet, Ceres hopes to condense the normal process of plant selection into just a few years, and facilitate the introduction of these plants into the marketplace.
The at-the-pump cost of cellulosic ethanol produced from dedicated energy crops will largely depend on the technology used by production facilities, and that’s where companies like Mascoma, Coskata, and BlueFire Ethanol come in. These three companies tend to quote about $1-1.50 per gallon for their final product.
This information comes from last week’s GM backgrounder on cellulosic ethanol feedstocks, which was a detailed look at some of the frontrunners in this arena. For more information, see the following posts.
Or, want to duke this out in the discussion forums?
“Do Biofuels Suck?”
http://discuss.greenoptions.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=622
More Posts on Switchgrass and Cellulosic Ethanol:
- Switchgrass Could Displace 30% of US Petroleum Usage With 94% GHG
- First Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Goes Online, Makes Fuel From Wood Waste
- GM Announces Biofuel Partnership with Coskata: Cheap, Green Ethanol
- GM Announces New Cellulosic Ethanol Partnership with Mascoma Corp
- Mascoma Update: Cellulosic Ethanol Company Adds $10 Million From Marathon Oil
- World’s First Commercially Viable Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Online 2009
- Cellulosic Ethanol Sugar Diverted to Algae Biodiesel Production
- Genetic Engineering for Cheaper Cellulosic Ethanol?
- Prototype Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid: 88 MPG on 85% Ethanol
Photo Credit: Ceres, Inc.
Jeff,
I’m well aware of the global implications of these cash crops, but I think the biggest problem is currently the cutting down rainforest/draining peat bogs to plant oil palms. Which crops are you referring to?
A couple points about grains in the US:
1) 80 or 90% of corn and soybeans are fed to cattle.
2) oil prices are primarily to blame for the increasing cost of food.
3) when oil prices go up the cost of everything goes up, including milk.
4) this has nothing to do with growing switchgrass.
Your third paragraph is exactly what I’m talking about, that we need a comprehensive energy plan that attacks the issue from all different angles (but I don’t think cars will always run on gas or diesel - that era is on its way out).
Out of the 142 billion gallons of gas we use every year, you get 1/3 of that from improvements in efficiency and conservation, 1/3 of that from biofuels, and 1/3 of that from new technology like plug-in hybrids. There’s your portfolio.
Wouldn’t it be better if we all just walked where we needed to go?
Clayton,
How much does Ceres pay you to write such crap! Must be significant since you obviously know all their talking points. This company Ceres and its aging pretty boy CEO is all about perceptions. They are all talk and hopes that if they keep repeating the same message maybe someone will fall for it and buy this poorly mangaged money sink of a company to make there shareholders rich or at least get some of their money back. So if you are ever in the Thousand Oaks area, stop by and take a look at all the miserable employees behind the cardboard fasade. What a joke.
Go Nuclear:
For better or worse I’m not really getting paid for this. It just so happens that Ceres’ talking points actually make sense. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to be bought–they want to sell product, and they’ve already been doing plant genomics for 10 years, so I don’t think you can fairly claim they’re a disaster. I was in Thousand Oaks and toured their lab, that’s why I wrote this article. Having spent some time in labs before, I can say that it was legit.
hi clayton,
you said in an earlier post that you don’t know of any algae-to-biodiesel plants that are economically viable. what about the petrosun plant you wrote about in march 08 though? is that just a demo plant or something?
thanks
What about the pencil plant or Milk Bush that is said to produce a product that can be refined into a close kin of gasoine. I hear that it is easily grown in rain forests, arid and marginal lands. I heard that the economics are very favorable and production doesn’t impact on food. There are now a number of research and development projects ongoing around the world. (scientific name Euphorbia tirucalli).
[...] Dedicated U.S. Energy Crops Could Replace 30% of Gasoline [...]
[...] For more background on cellulosic ethanol, see: Dedicated Energy Crops Could Replace 30% of Gasoline. [...]
[...] Reduced oil prices are good. We can go from good to great, if we move past fuel from food and haste to fuels from wood and waste. Although the economics do not yet favor major production, pilot plants are taking wood and paper waste and converting it to fuel. Other cellulosic material is even more promising. Some grasses , energy crops, and hybrid poplar trees promise zero-emission fuel sources. These plants absorb CO2 and sequester it in the soil with their deep root systems. These plants often grow in marginal lands needing little irrigation and no fertilizers and pesticides, standing in sharp contrast to the industrial agriculture that produces much of our fuel. (see Dedicated Energy Crops Could Replace 30% of Gasoline: Ceres, Inc. Wants to Make it Happen) [...]