Ethanol company claims breakthrough in making fuel from plant waste

Ethanol hasn't exactly taken off as a fuel. The E85 movement, pushed by General Motors and other Detroit automakers, still has its critics because its production is heavily subsidized. Also, most ethanol is made out of corn, thus fuel competes with food.

But one ethanol company says it thinks it has achieved a research breakthrough. Using its own combination of microbes to break down plant material, Qteros, formerly SunEthanol, says it can make 100 gallons of ethanol out of a ton of corn stalks and other waste biomass. A year ago, the best the company could manage was about a fifth of that.

"And it uses less water than current ethanol production, says Executive Vice President Jef Sharp (and yes, that's how he spells his first name). "According to a DOE report, there is over a billion tons of plant biomass available every year for this purpose. Qteros will not need fossil fuel inputs for fertilizer or distillation of the ethanol because the lignin portion of the plant material (about 1/3 of most plants) will be burned to generate the heat necessary to refine the ethanol. There will also be leftover green electricity created"

General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson just reiterated in answering a question that his company still believes in the future of ethanol. Qteros is based in Marlborough, Mass.

source: content.usatoday