 This time on partners it's fueling America from super yeast that improve ethanol production to small business develop technologies that recycle fats into biodiesel from algae unlocking the power of photosynthesis for clean hydrogen fuel to switch grass a fast-growing biomass alternative for making ethanol scientists are revolutionizing the way we power the country welcome to partners in the next half hour will travel the nation and see breakthrough work in research education and extension that's what CSR EES is all about helping universities generate valuable knowledge for those who need it and educating our next generation of Americans and now it's time for partners they have shaped American lifestyles and industry for over 100 years they define who we are as individuals how we travel from A to B and along with trucks they have spawned a vast network of highways from coast to coast latest figures estimate there are 191 million drivers for 204 million vehicles in the US worldwide there are over 600 million vehicles if present trends continue that number will double in the next 30 years our dependence on fossil fuels to power these vehicles has come with a price world markets and geopolitics dictate what we pay at the pump and beyond the gas station there is an even bigger problem gasoline powered vehicles produce carbon dioxide at an astonishing rate burning a single gallon of gasoline generates 22 pounds of CO2 this abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been linked to increases in air pollution greenhouse gases and climate change but America is beginning to meet these environmental and economic challenges brought on by the car the cooperative state research education and extension service of USDA is funding universities and small businesses that seek solutions through biofuels propellants derived from renewable natural resources changing how a modern industrialized nation powers itself is a complex process one that demands a number of diverse solutions in the next half hour we'll see how scientists are meeting this challenge with new innovative ideas across the country and now partners video magazine presents fueling America as our country searches for fuel alternatives to gasoline new sources never considered before are emerging take for instance the innovative pilot project at AC transit a San Francisco Bay transportation provider one thing you'll notice it's very smooth operating no shifting from the transmission and very linear acceleration so it does very well very controllable and has a nice ride to it Doug Byrne is driving one of AC transit's fleet cars it uses hydrogen gas as fuel which is converted to electricity to power the car the result an efficient quiet running non-polluting vehicle we average about 120 miles per day on each vehicle our estimation is between 45 and 50 miles per gallon they're doing very well in addition the company runs three hydrogen powered buses for public transportation the response to date from both customers and drivers has been favorable we have here our tia fuel cell powered car but hydrogen's biggest hurdle is the cost of its fuel cell technology these cells that convert the gases energy to electricity are extremely expensive one AC transit bus costs a million dollars until the price point changes hydrogen for fueling America will remain a concept rather than a solution but even with cheaper fuel cells one significant problem remains the bulk of the hydrogen is produced upon reformation of natural gas which is reformation of methane and as a source of hydrogen this is fine but it generates carbon dioxide as the byproduct which is one of the gases that causes global warming the other drawback of course is that natural gas is not going to last forever I think our society understands nowadays that we need to generate the source of hydrogen that is renewable Anastasios Mellis thinks the solution may be here this is a variety of green algae the advantages that they grow very fast faster than any other plant that we know about 10 times faster than corn we're talking about green power the single-celled algae called clamidomonas conducts photosynthesis just like any normal green land plant but Mellis figured out a way to trick green algae into producing hydrogen he discovered that when the algae is deprived of sulfur and is still exposed to the sunlight it produces an enzyme called hydrogenase this enzyme spurs the release of hydrogen gas and it doesn't in a big way in the lab we get them to double their biomass every four or five hours under mass culture seventy three percent of the cell volume is occupied by the chloroplast the chloroplast is where photosynthesis takes place so these are in fact factories for the synthesis that is how they are able to multiply enormous rates and under natural sunlight it has been reported that they multiply or they double their biomass on a daily basis to test this idea and to prove the algae could generate substantial volumes of hydrogen Mellis and his team went outside they built a large plastic tube known as a photobiotic reactor filled it with 1,000 liters of water and added the green algae with fertilizer to stimulate its growth within five or six days the medium became very dark green as the algae multiplied very quickly under the bright sunlight and then we were able to collect bucketfuls of hydrogen you can imagine that the 1000 liter reactor produced 1000 times more hydrogen than we get here in the laboratory CSR EES funds have allowed the University of California Berkeley team to prove the potential of hydrogen production from algae the challenge now is to tap its full potential to exploit the power of green the problem that we have before us right now is that the yield of the process is not as high as it could be so for example we know the capacity of these green algae to produce hydrogen we find that it is only 10 to 15% of the theoretical maximum that means that there is a lot of work for us to do I do not know whether we will ever be able to go to the 100% level but let's try to reach say 50% or 60% and these are the hurdles that we have before us nowadays once the project reaches that goal places like AC transit may change where they get the hydrogen from currently they are involved in a joint project with Chevron oil and produce the hydrogen on site at their Oakland California headquarters but beyond the world of transportation Anastasios Mellis sees his research benefiting a new kind of farmer I think it is a form of modified agriculture the growth of an organism through photosynthesis in this case is hydrogen it is a biofuel it is not a traditional crop that we normally have it's the crop of the future and I think it is absolutely essential to permit us to continue our civilization and to drive elements of our society and our economy as we know them today we're converting the energy of sunlight into biofuel I think it is going to help not only this country but other countries around the globe to meet their basic energy needs at Oregon State University land-grant scientists are studying blue-green algae oxygen producing strains of cyanobacteria that also produce hydrogen ethanol as America begins to shift away from gasoline this biofuel is becoming an early popular choice it has a number of benefits clean burning high octane and it mixes easily with gasoline like in this e85 blend that contains 85% ethanol while most ethanol is made from corn kernels much of what is left behind in the field is not used to produce the biofuel the problem is that this cellulosic material millions of tons of stalks husks and cobs doesn't chemically break down like the easily fermented yellow grain that is until now Nancy Ho from Purdue University I made a super is super is super is Nancy Ho and her team at Purdue have been modifying a yeast called saccharomyces this natural yeast has been used by humans for thousands of years in the making of bread and the fermentation of wine but now this time-tested organism is being used to break down the corn refuse as well as wheat straw left behind in the field by doing this 40% more ethanol can be produced from the same field a real boom to farmers generally one dry ton residue you can produce 85 to 100 gallons of ethanol while corn kernels contain glucose that can be easily fermented by conventional yeasts the cellulosic refuse of corn has an additional natural sugar xylose it is xylose that prohibits fermentation and thus the making of ethanol Nancy Ho knew that to overcome this problem she would need to change the genetic structure of the yeast there's a lot of science and knowing what the yeast is missing so I simply engineer with the recombin technology you can put the genes you know extra genes into the cells through trial and error and CSR EES funding Nancy and her team found three perfect genes to alter the yeast this recombinant DNA work allows both glucose and xylose sugars to be simultaneously converted to ethanol making the process economically viable the result a new product called Ho Purdue yeast because it can firm in both sugars very effectively it produces ethanol very efficiently and we still can improve it while the work continues at Purdue to make the whole Purdue yeast even better it is currently being used for ethanol production Iogen Corporation of Ottawa Canada now produces the world's first cellulosic ethanol fuel for commercial use it uses wheat straw for biomass and American firms are also experimenting with the technology the super yeast has the potential to change the ethanol industry benefiting both farmers and consumers I feel if you work hard you're thinking hard you can overcome most of problems in science the US has a goal to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable alternative fuels by 2017 today CSR EES supports development of new feedstocks and conversion technologies for boosting renewable fuel production at the end of this long tunnel is a view back to the colorful past of an old frontier town first of all this is a mining community almost every ethnic group that came to be with all of the mining communities in the United States and our populations between 90 100,000 people so mining actually drove it it was always like a huge single industry town we're down to about 35,000 people we still do have mining we have about 350 people employed and now we've gone into more diverse population as far as business is concerned and I think that's what's really helping us go forward in a different direction a positive direction the real interesting thing is we're now going into more technology and I think that's really helping us we start to see the scientists the engineers and so that is really driving our economy right now one new high-tech employer is Residine located in this historic building in downtown Butte CSR EES awarded the company to SBIR or small business innovation research grants starting in 2002 to explore ways of converting used industrial oils and fats into diesel fuel oh it was vital really without the funding the research wouldn't have occurred because typically with these SBIRs one doesn't really know how effective the research is going to be and whether it does have commercial viability so most companies just wouldn't take that kind of risk we had the expertise on board to tackle the problem and come up with a unique processing solution for creating biodiesel Steve Goldbraith and senior chemical engineer feng zhao yang led the team at Residine it basically makes a diesel product available out of what typically would have been a waste product so it's recycling waste into a usable fuel restaurants monitor the health quality of the fats that they use for deep frying and when the health quality gets to a certain point they have to dispose of that it goes through a series of stir tank reactors and then from those reactors there's two output flows one is a glycerin and the other flow is the B100 biodiesel fuel those two flows are separated into each constituent and then the glycerin is purified and the B100 is purified through a distillation process so it's a very high-quality biodiesel fuel it's differentiated from other processes because we do run the final product through a distillation column so it's a very clean fuel today new biodiesel plants across the country are using the processing technology developed by Residine it is part of the complex solution to fueling America and B100 if not sold in its pure form is blended so that more vehicles can benefit from it at the pump but back in Butte the work still continues in the same warehouse where the pilot refinery was built and developed Residine is now experimenting with straw to pulp conversion wheat straw is a big crop in Montana this new process if successful could provide the farmers here a valuable new market they also are working with Butte a high-octane bio fuel that has a number of advantages over ethanol including a 30% more miles per gallon benefit the lessons learned during the B100 project helped the Residine staff with this new research from my perspective as an engineer it certainly develops core experience in terms of designing various mechanical components such as third tank reactors heat exchangers pressure vessels piping and whatnot those skills are directly transferable really to any process some of the background beyond that the success generated by the SBIR grant has allowed President Larry Ferrar to hire more people at Residine vital new jobs for a small Western community like Butte he's been here just for a second I was concerned when people look at our community they see a success story from 1994 starting out with two employees and then you know going up to like 35 40 employees right now I believe that you'll see him going up to the 50 to 80 number in a very short period of time I think that we're a hidden treasure here I believe with our workforce and what we have to offer and Larry Ferrar and Residine is just a great example of that it does such great things for our community and also for the United States since 2002 the USDA small business innovation research program has funded over 45 grants related to energy over 6.5 million was given to companies in 19 states switch grass is a perennial plant it's planted once it grows in place for 10 to 15 years it grows about six feet tall maybe eight yield is about 10 tons per acre and that's without any genetic manipulation it is native to the United States it's a part of the mixed curry grass system that used to be here it's native from Colorado to the coast and from Alabama up to Canada Bert English and his colleagues at the University of Tennessee are fascinated by switch grass because of its potential as a biomass source for ethanol production but for most refinery operations today corn is being used to produce ethanol critics argue that it might not be the best choice as the grains price soars due to biofuel demand so does the cost of corn based foods and US corn exports are also threatened due to the fast-rising prices but beyond the economics there is simply not enough corn to meet the energy demands of the future corn has a place but it's limited if you look at the total energy needs of this country corn can probably fill 16 to maybe even 18 billion gallons of ethanol but we need 86 billion gallons or more of ethanol to come from renewable sources and to meet that demand we need at least two and a half times as much corn as we grow in this nation just for ethanol scientists are now looking for other fast-growing biomass sources for fueling America especially those that provide large amounts of cellulosic matter for ethanol production switch grass fits the bill seven foot one this wild grass has a lot of advantages for the farmer and the environment you don't have to recede it ever you don't have to use the tractor and planting and cultivating after the first two years you probably don't have to use any chemicals on the plant it grows and outcompetes anything in the field it's a low-input low fertilizer plant and you can use ordinary hay equipment to harvest it but much needs to be learned about switch grass for it to become a profitable cultivatable crop and that's what researchers are learning to do here at this University of Tennessee experiment station in Milan different varieties are grown under different conditions and types of terrain from flat fields to sloped ones to semi-marshine the color contrast here shows the effects of this experimentation in addition we're looking at nitrogen tests going from zero to a hundred and eighty pounds and we're doing some weed experiments on switch grass to find out what herbicides will work when you have grass growing and competing with switch grass it's very difficult to control that annual grass and we're working on those types of experiments with Larry Steckel soil is another major component of the study and is headed up by researcher Don Tyler since switch grass is a perennial that offers a unique advantage to the farmer you're not disturbing the soil for 10 or 15 years you're adding root matter to that soil and that's converted to organic matter so there is some enrichment of the soil we're trying to calculate how much of that is occurring right now in this very field but once these field studies are concluded switch grass for ethanol production still faces a number of other challenges especially when one considers how much of it needs to be produced to meet the need the logistics of getting millions of acres planted in the switch grass are tremendous you need seed and we need reliable seed we need seed companies looking at this and starting to develop the mechanism in which these fields that we have in the United States start producing seed for them and we need also plant improvement we need yield increase the more yield per acre the more ethanol per acre and I think that's going to be critical as we go down the road in the long run looking at the food versus fuel versus feed issue in the short run however things look promising for switch grass as part of the research several Tennessee farmers are growing the crop on test plots on their own land and soon they will have a market for their harvest Tennessee we have a facility being planned right now that will be producing five million gallons of ethanol from switch grass and from wood by 2010 we'll have it it won't be commercially feasible by then by 2012 I believe we grow cellulose very well here having switch grass as an alternative crop will provide the farmers another source of income and allow them to compete at a better level on the next edition of partners it's the science of small nanotechnology is a new science that controls atom scale particles with astonishing results like micro frameworks that promote the growth of new human skin nanobar codes that expose harmful bacteria at the molecular level many trackers that reveal underground point source pollution problems and miniscule fibrous mats that detect kitchen germs with a mere swipe of a cloth the science of small next time on partners on fueling America or other episodes of partners video magazine log on to this website