USA Today
09-15-06
Honda sees possible ethanol breakthrough
By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY
Honda (HMC) announced Thursday that it may have found a breakthrough in converting leaves, plant stalks and other biowaste into the alternative fuel ethanol.
The new process makes the conversion more efficient by using a microorganism developed by a Japanese lab that can chomp its way through vegetation more efficiently than in the past. The new bugs are better at converting sugar in plants into alcohol, or as it's known in its denatured form, ethanol.
The process results in a "significant increase in production of bio-ethanol," Honda said in a statement from Tokyo. The improvements deal more effectively with
"fermentation inhibitors" that get in the way of the microorganisms.
"We believe there's a lot of potential in cellulosic ethanol, and we're continuing to do research," says Honda spokesman David Iida.
As the price of oil has soared, increased production of ethanol has been hailed as a potential energy solution by farmers, the government and automakers.
In the USA, most ethanol is made from corn. President Bush has called for more research to find a way to make ethanol from other plants as well, such as switchgrass. But the process has been difficult because current methods yield relatively little ethanol from biowaste.
Honda and the lab, the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, are building a test facility to try out the new processes on a larger scale.
Honda doesn't offer cars in the USA capable of burning E85, the 85% ethanol,
15% gasoline fuel blend that has been embraced by Detroit automakers.
But it does plan to make ethanol-capable vehicles for Brazil, where ethanol is distilled from sugar cane, Iida says.
Ethanol is harder to make from biowaste because cellulose is a more complicated molecule, says Nathanael Greene, who tracks bioenergy for the
Natural Resources Defense Council.

There are several different ways to try to coax more ethanol out of cellulose, the potentially most abundant energy source in the world, says Norm Olson, who manages an Iowa State University biomass research center.
Many show promise. The biggest threat is the fear that oil prices will drop dramatically, taking away the incentive to find a cost-effective alternative to gasoline.