Aussie company unveils food-friendly ethanol tech

An Australian company has come up with a technology likely to raise ethanol fuel’s economic viability and social responsibility.

Microbiogen (MBG), a Sydney company founded by brothers Phil and Geoff Bell, used the recent the AusBiotech Conference in Melbourne to unveil a high-tech yeast that efficiently distils ethanol from sugar cane and from crop waste, for example leftover corn stover.

Ethanol plays a useful role in helping cut consumption of petroleum products, as we see already in the prevalence of E10 in Aussie service stations and the presence of E85 elsewhere in the world.

But it has a downside in its demand for edible feedstocks, particularly corn, and arable land at a time of explosive growth in population and rising demand for food.

That’s what makes MBG’s breakthrough important on several fronts. Firstly, it makes use of the inedible parts of a corn crop, leaving the foodstuffs for human consumption at a time of rapid global population growth.

Secondly, opens up opportunities to make use of Australia’s huge tracts of wetlands and gives Queensland’s languishing sugar industry the chance to return to profitability.

“If you apply our technology to these areas, you're looking at tripling the value per hectare of products from the land,” CEO Geoff Bell told AAP.

Thirdly, its by-products are ideal for converting into high-quality livestock feed of higher nutritional value than soy, providing a useful offset for up-front production costs.

“Dry yeast currently fetches $3-5 a kilo, in a market that operates in hundreds of thousands of tonnes,” Mr Bell told motoring.com.au.

“By our own and independent calculations [from the US Department of Energy], ours have the potential to grow that market sufficiently for us to deliver investors internal rates of return of more than 50 per cent by selling for just $2.50 a kilo.”

At the end, the remaining wastes are non-toxic and require minimal effluent treatment.

“What it comes down to is this: normal yeast can only grow on food sugars,” Mr Bell told motoring.com.au.

“We’ve developed strains that can grow on non-food sugars, for example those found in wood. In fact, they’ll grow on non-sugars – substances like glycerol that would normally go to waste. By giving them nutritional value, it minimises the waste output.”

MBG claims its yeast strains are incredibly effective in converting plant biomass into ethanol and protein products, with efficiency levels of up to 90 per cent. Being non-GM, they’re safe for use in the human food chain – in fact, they’re derived from those used for brewing and baking.

And there’s no vapourware in all this – it’s ready to go into ethanol production.

With over 4000 patented non-GM yeast strains, MBG’s pitch for partnership funding at AusBiotech claims a monopoly position on the technology.

A “unique bio-marker system” helps enforce its “robust intellectual property ownership”, providing “a strong barrier to entry”.

AusBiotech chief executive Anna Lavelle described the company’s discovery as being of "global significance" for the way it kills so many birds with one stone.

The company has already garnered interest from around the world, with a $2.5 million grant from the federal government's Australian Renewable Energy Agency and a non-financial collaborative relationship with the US Department of Energy.

If former ethanol halo-company Coskata’s recent experience is anything to go by, MBG is making its way into a tough market.

In July this year, Coskata, once something of a great white hope for large-scale investor GM, shelved plans for a once highly anticipated stock market float and shifted its primary feedstock focus from biomass for ethanol to natural gas.

The company’s feet went cold at the sight of high-profile tech stocks like Facebook tanking after highly publicised IPOs.

Asked about MBG’s prospects of floating, Mr Bell was equivocal, saying the company is neither opposed to it nor actively pursuing it.

“We’ve gone in pursuit of a number of short-term commercial opportunities and they’re starting to bear fruit,” he told motoring.com.au.

“People are starting to suggest it mightn’t be a bad idea to look towards an IPO. But for now we’re working on actively raising funds through licensing and partnering opportunities.”

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