First genetic roadmap of a tree hoped to aid liquid fuel options

[WhiteTara]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/09/15/first_genetic_roadmap_of_a_tree_hoped_to_aid_liquid_fuel_options/

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Besides being a useful research model for plant scientists, the hardy, fast-growing black cottonwood and other poplars are also important sources of fiber for paper and lumber. A genetic ``roadmap" of how poplars form wood will help scientists harness this material to make liquid fuels such as ethanol, said coauthor Carl Douglas, professor of botany at the University of British Columbia. ``We need to know how is made to know how to use it."

Black cottonwood is the third plant to be sequenced, after the small flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana and rice. When scientists compared the sequence to those of other plants, the tree showed an expanded repertoire of genes that help resist pests and disease, adapt to changing seasons, form thickened cell wall structures to make wood, and transport water and organic molecules.

The genetic mapping effort, by a consortium of researchers from 34 institutions around the world including the US Department of Energy, took four years and cost roughly $7 million to $10 million, researchers said.
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The trees also have great potential as a source of liquid fuel, Tuskan and others said at a telephone news conference yesterday. Grasses are now being experimentally used to create ethanol -- a gasoline substitute -- but trees would be more efficient sources of the fuel, he said, and the genome research will help scientists figure out how to better extract the fuel.

Despite its relatively small genome, the black cottonwood has genes for more than 45,000 potential proteins -- the largest number found in any genome to date. Researchers are working to figure out roles for the approximately 50 percent of encoded proteins that have no known function.

[ecoalex]

1. Morton Fry in Ephrata Pa harvested hybrid poplars with conventional

farm equipment, a silage harvester easily chops the hybrid poplars planted like corn in 28 inch rows.It grows back , as it is an perrenial, harvesting is done once a year and the chips dried, or sent to the digester , where enzymes convert cellouse to fermentable sugars. The whole operation runs on the ethanol produced, a departure for the corn based ethanol plants, which use diesekl fuel, and electricity from off site sources.This technology is not new, it does need to be implemented.The whole farm can be run on farm produced ethanol. Diesel engines can run on ethanol to produce electricity, and fuels for trucks, tractors, even cars.There is no reason a crop farmer cannot throw off the oil companies, coupling sustainable farming with rock fertilizers, and rotation of legumes for nitrogen hungry crops.Hybrid poplars do not require heavy inputs, the spent fermented wood can be composted , and returned to the soil , carbon, so necessary for a healthy soil then being maintained, for more fuel production.There is no reason farmers cannot grow their own fuels, except conventional thinking, and resistance from USDA, who wants farmers to buy all their inputs, from suppliers.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Homesteading_and_Self_Reliance/1980_July_August/Hybrid_Poplars

[Nikia]

2. I was unaware of the viability of trees for efficient fuel

Yes, we have used trees for fuel for thousands of years, but I thought that they were too slow of growth to really be an Earth friendly energy source on a large scale. It is interesting to see that this is being explored though.
They should also explore other species seriously. Corn isn't really the most efficient energy producing plant.

[WhiteTara]

3. the science of bio mimicry is growing

by leaps and bounds. A new glue has been developed from the mollusks on the bottom of the sea that bonds plywood without formaldehyde. I think that was object, not to make fuel from the trees...we are sufficiently slaughtering enough of those for paper.

[ecoalex]

4. There is no comparasion between pulp wood and hybrid poplars

One is cutting mature trees, the other is clipping sprouts yearly. Wood is a renewable resourse, and is more efficient than other crops for cellouse production. Hemp also is another resourse of economical fermentable cellouse. Corn ethanol is a boondoggle brought to us by Congress, and ADM, who screws farmers at every turn.