Amyris is Looking Promising

As I have said before, an ideal biofuel would be one that phases out of water, and is therefore much less energy intensive to separate. One of the big energy sinks in ethanol production involves an energy intensive separation of ethanol from water. If ethanol was insoluble it would phase out of solution and could be skimmed off and separated for a fraction of the energy input.

This is the sort of model that companies like LS9 and Virent have adopted. They are using microorganisms to produce longer-chain hydrocarbons that not only are much easier to separate from water, but also have higher energy density. I have commented in the past that this is ‘Holy Grail’ stuff, but also would be technically challenging. But I think companies pursuing this line of research have a real shot at being ultimately successful.

Add Amyris to the list of companies competing for the Holy Grail. They also have a twist to their business plan that should give them an advantage over their competitors. Amyris has been mentioned on this blog a couple of times previously, but not in the same kind of detail as LS9. This post will rectify that by highlighting what they are doing.

First, what are they doing? In their own words:

Amyris technology makes it possible to alter the metabolic pathways of microorganisms such as yeasts, creating living factories that produce molecules with practical applications. While reading, writing, and analyzing the DNA of microbes once took years, Amyris can now reprogram microorganisms and test our ability to produce desired molecules in days to weeks. Our proprietary technology transforms plant-based feedstocks, such as sugarcane, into 50,000 different isoprenoids –molecules used in a wide variety of energy, pharmaceutical, and chemical applications.

So you have heard similar claims before. However, they are quite a bit farther along than many would-be biofuel companies. They just announced the ‘opening’ (I presume that means they aren’t starting up just yet) of their first pilot plant in Emeryville, California:

Amyris Opens Pilot Plant to Produce Renewable Diesel Fuel

California Facility Marks Step in Developing and Commercializing Viable Alternative to Petroleum Fuels

EMERYVILLE, Calif. – November 12, 2008 – Amyris Biotechnologies, Inc. today announced that it has opened its first pilot plant producing No Compromise™ renewable diesel fuel. The pilot plant, which was ompleted in September, is an important milestone for Amyris towards its goal of developing and commercializing its sustainable, hydrocarbon‐based fuel, which it expects to bring to market in 2010.

The plant serves as a technical gateway to commercialization in Brazil and other manufacturing locations. It will demonstrate Amyris’ technology in scaled down process equipment that is representative of full ommercial scale operations; generate essential engineering data for designing Amyris’ full scale plants; and produce product samples for performance testing.

Amyris’ diesel is characterized as a No Compromise™ fuel because it is designed to be a scalable, low‐cost enewable fuel with performance attributes that equal or exceed those of petroleum‐sourced fuels and urrently available biofuels.

Other attributes innclude:

• Superior environmental performance: Preliminary analyses show that Amyris diesel fuel has virtually no sulfur and signifiantly reduced NOx, particulate, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon exhaust emissions relative to petroleum‐sourced diesel fuel.

• High blending rates: Because Amyris renewable diesel contains many of the properties of petroleum diesel, Amyris can blend the fuel at high levels ‐‐ up to 50 pecent ‐‐ compared with 10‐20 percent for conventional biodiesel and ethanol.

• Compatibility with existing infrastructure: Unlike many commercially available biofuels, Amyris expects to distribute its renewable diesel through the existing fuel distribution and storage infrastructure, thus speeding time to market while minimizing costs.

• Adaptive: Amyris can produce its fuels from a broad range of feedstock including sugar cane and cellulosic biomass. It is starting with Brazilian sugar cane because it provides the most environmentally sound, economical, and scalable source of energy available today.

“This new diesel fuel has all the characteristics to make an important contribution toward solving our global transportation energy and climate crisis,” said John Melo, chief executive officer of Amyris. “The opening of ur pilot plant is a significant business marker for us, taking us one step closer to bringing our diesel fuel to market.”

In parallel with this effort, Amyris will open a larger pilot plant in Campinas, Brazil in the spring of 2009 here it will finalize processes for Brazilian operations; transfer the technology to manufacturing sites in Brazil; and provide ongoing support for optimizing production in Brazil.

Earlier this year, Amyris established Amyris‐Crystalsev Biofuels, a Brazilian venture in partnership with Crystalsev, one of Brazil’s largest ethanol distributors and marketers, to work with Brazilian sugarcane mills and fuel producers to scale up production of Amyris diesel fuel. SantelisaVale, the second‐largest ethanol nd sugar producer in Brazil has committed two million tons of sugar cane crushing capacity for the initial roduction of Amyris diesel, including its flagship Santelisa mill.

Amyris’ proprietary synthetic biology platform enables Amyris scientists to engineer microorganisms such as yeast so that they can transform sugar into 50,000 different molecules used in a wide variety of energy, pharmaceutical, and chemical applications. Amyris is working on the development and commercialization of everal of these molecules to provide a range of renewable products, including diesel fuel, jet fuel and specialty chemicals.

The platform has already proven successful through the development of a strain of yeast to enable the production of a precursor to artemisinin, a key ingredient in anti‐malarial drugs, at significantly lower cost than can be achieved with conventional technologies. This technology was developed as a not‐for‐profit initiative, and has been transferred to sanofi‐aventis.

About Amyris

Amyris is applying a proprietary synthetic biology platform to create No Compromise™ products ‐‐ low cost renewable fuels and chemicals that are intended to be environmentally friendly, compatible with the existing infrastructure, and have performance attributes comparable to petroleum‐based fuels. Amyris has also developed a technology to produce a second supply of an anti‐malarial drug. Founded in 2003, Amyris has raised over $120 million in equity funding to‐date, including investments from Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, TPG Biotech, and DAG Ventures. Amyris has over 200 employees and facilities in meryville, California; Chicago, Illinois; and Campinas, Brazil. More information about Amyris is available at http://www.amyris.com/.

The really interesting aspect of their business model is the Brazil angle. The U.S. currently has an import tariff on Brazilian ethanol. However, that tariff does not cover other biofuels coming from Brazil. By utilizing low-cost Brazilian sugar to make their biofuel, they stand a good chance of meeting their cost projects. Further, by making diesel – which is looking to be in tighter demand than gasoline for years to come – they are getting into a market with much better profit margins than ethanol has.

This, and some other highlights from a Greentech Media story:

Amyris: We’re Better Than Biodiesel, Ethanol or Gas

Amyris, for instance, will be able to produce a form of diesel that it will sell at the wholesale level for $2 a gallon or less, or around the same price as conventional fossil diesel, said CEO John Melo.

“It will be around the same price as regular petrol diesel, but it will produce 80 percent less greenhouse gases, provide a 10 percent reduction in NOx (nitrogen gases) and provide the same or better performance,” Melo said. “And with zero sulfur.”

The company’s jet fuel, which will replace kerosene-based fuels, will produce 90 percent fewer greenhouse gases than the regular stuff without denting performance or mileage, he said.

The big test for Amyris will arrive in about two years. The company has created joint ventures in Brazil to create biorefineries on sugar plantations where genetically engineered yeast will feast on freshly harvested sugar. The resulting fuel will then be loaded onto ships and brought to the U.S. By 2010, Amyris hopes to be producing 200 million gallons a year out of its first plant and erecting more plants.

Melo also pointed out that because Amyris isn’t producing ethanol (an alcohol) in Brazil but a hydrocarbon (a molecule includes hydrogen and carbons), the ethanol tariff on Brazilian ethanol doesn’t apply.

Promising stuff. To me it looks like they have a good chance of being successful.

Footnote: As is the case with LS9 and Virent, there is no Amyris stock that one can buy. It is a privately held venture.

29 thoughts on “Amyris is Looking Promising”

  1. Interesting post and obviously something worth keeping an eye out for in the coming years. You do a very good job of explaining the processes involved in biofuel development/production to those like myself who are caught somewhere between the superficial coverage of the MSM and the jargon/register language of industry journals/papers.

    Robert, you have mentioned Butanol in the past and Business Week just had an article today extolling its potential. Do you still see hope for Butanol?

    Also, I see a very odd disconnect in the forecasts for Algae. Some, including you, seem to have little, if any, hope for it, and that is understandable given the hype and the lack of tangible results. However, some coverage, albeit from sources aimed at the layman (e.g., the Renewable Energy podcast), have interviews with industry pundits who continually claim that, within short order, algae biofuels will be scaling up and at competitive costs to ethanol.

    Just wondering what your current thoughts are where butanol and algae could go in the next few years.

    thanks in advance,

  2. Robert, you have mentioned Butanol in the past and Business Week just had an article today extolling its potential. Do you still see hope for Butanol?

    Not on the present trajectory. It is going to take a breakthrough; either a designer microbe that can thrive in about 5 times the butanol concentration that is currently fatal to microbes (less than 2% butanol) or some advances in membrane technology that would enable a 2% solution to be purified to 100% without enormous energy inputs. The physics are working against you there.

    I think the odds are better that someone like Amyris succeeds.

    I just went and read the Business Week article (after having written the above paragraphs) and here is one thing that stands out:

    Aden said butanol as a fuel holds promise, but the technology is still in a low level of development.

    “Despite what companies are saying, it’s still a fair ways off,” he said.

    Aden is Andy Aden, a researcher at NREL. He is correct that butanol as a fuel has great characteristics, but the technology to make it biologically is far from being cost competitive.

    Cheers, RR

  3. Robert,

    As I recall, you were fairly skeptical of cellulosic fuel processes in general because of the heavy cost of transporting the feedstock to the plant. Wouldn’t Amyris be subject to the same sorts of limitations?

  4. Robert, it would be good to do a rigorous, quantitative analysis of Amyris’ diesel pathway– similar to the one you did earlier this year for Coskata.

    Specifically, using their metabolic pathway (mass yields, energy recovery), how many pounds of sugar are needed to produce 1 gallon of their product. How much do they pay for access to their sugar source, particularly if that same sugar could be used to make ethanol.

    And, do they require any additional steps after the fermentation to make a final fuel?

    After taking a closer look, you may find that they are not economically viable without a generous government subsidy if crude oil is priced where it is today.

  5. I am in shock. RR says a biofuel company has a “good chance of being successful.” I am dumbfounded. Stupified. Slackjawed. Stunned.

    RR’s gimlet eye has proven itself over and over again, when reviewing wanna-be biofuel companies. This is really news.

    I still wonder about the simple realities of biomass conversion: There just ain’t that much “oomph” or calories, in a bale of switchgrass, or what have you.

    RR has shown in the past the enormous rail car system needed to relentlessly feed biomass to ethanol plants, even if they are very efficient plants.

    I suppose by limiting itself to buying sugar cane, Amyris might have a model that works. But what happens if demand from Amyris and copycat companies shoots cane prices to the moon?

    I suggest it is an old standby, palm oil, that might make up a bulk of biofuels in the future. The yields per hectare are larger than any other crop, and increasing nicely, due to new hybrids. The palm tres are planted just once, every 25 years or so (unike the seasonal corn. Inputs are much lower. Some say palm oil yields in new hybrids may triple in coming years, but in any event they are rising about 4 percent annually now.

    Brazil has gigantic and well-watered swaths of land running between latitudes north and south 20, where palm oil trees can now grow. The Amazon river has water to spare. I predict Brazil will produce more palm oil than ethanol in 15 years.

    And palm oil plantations are a proven business model, and can make money even in the “old regime,” of just selling oil for use as vegetable oil, not into the biodiesel market. We are almost back to the “old regime” now. Happily for palm oil growers, the 1.5 billion maws in China can never get enough vegetable oil.

    Be wary of investing in any alternative fuel businesses right now. The current drop in oil prices might just be the first shoe. The global recession has ugly written alll over it. A demand slump, some new production coming online, some increase in biofuel output, and there is a case to be made that one out of every eight barrels produced in the next two years will not have a home.
    The Mother Of All Gluts (MOAG)? Could be. Stay tuned.

  6. RR,
    I’m afraid I don’t share your optimism, in spite of the pseudonym. Let’s count the issues:
    1. Their bugs apparently eat sugar. So much for cheap, widely available or large scale feedstock. Another FOOD->FUEL boondoggle? You betcha!
    2. Building a GM organism is exciting stuff. Unfortunately you usually end up with a sissy bug that can compete with wild types. You therefore need to sterilize the feedstock. You’d know the cost of doing that.
    3. I just don’t see a fermentation based technology (excluding perhaps anaerobic digestion) competing with thermo-chemical processing. Note the trends out there: we use fermentation for high value/low volume applications, such as pharmaceuticals and some foods. We use thermo-chemical for the really low value/high volume applications. This technology succeeding would suggest permanent high energy prices. And low volume consumption. Ouch!

    RR says a biofuel company has a “good chance of being successful.” I am dumbfounded. Stupified. Slackjawed. Stunned.
    He does seem a tad more enthusiastic when he sees high tech (GM organisms!) that he does not fully understand (PV solar?).

  7. Agree with Optimist. RR didn’t discuss at all the challenges of genetically modifying an organism to do this work, and the conditions in which a modified organism will have to live in order to optimally produce this fuel. All of this leads to complexities that add cost and reduce scale.

  8. As I recall, you were fairly skeptical of cellulosic fuel processes in general because of the heavy cost of transporting the feedstock to the plant. Wouldn’t Amyris be subject to the same sorts of limitations?

    As they move into cellulosic, yes, I think they will be up against exactly the same problems. Their primary advantage at this stage is their ability to turn cheap Brazilian sugarcane into a fuel superior to ethanol. I think they will find success there.

    Cheers, RR

  9. I suppose by limiting itself to buying sugar cane, Amyris might have a model that works. But what happens if demand from Amyris and copycat companies shoots cane prices to the moon?

    This (Brazil) is of course the key to why I think they will have an initial advantage. If others are cutting the same sorts of deals and drive up the cost of sugarcane, then they will all be in the same boat together.

    And it isn’t like I have never thought a biofuel company had promise before. I like what companies like LS9 and Choren are doing, even if they are long shots. But what I especially like is that they don’t overhype their companies. They are doing interesting work, and have a shot at success. They aren’t promising that they will save the world.

    Cheers, RR

  10. Their bugs apparently eat sugar.

    Right now, the cheapest ethanol anywhere is made from sugarcane. By producing diesel – which is looking to be a bigger moneymaker for years in the future – they should be able to compete and make money against petroleum diesel. Whether the model is scalable into U.S. sources of biomass is another story. But I like their chances of being able to turn tropical sugarcane into a bigger moneymaker.

    Unfortunately you usually end up with a sissy bug that can compete with wild types.

    That is absolutely correct. GM bugs are at an evolutionary disadvantage. But process heat to do sterilization is in abundant supply around sugarcane plants (bagasse is practically free process heat).

    I just don’t see a fermentation based technology (excluding perhaps anaerobic digestion) competing with thermo-chemical processing.

    It will be a whole lot cheaper with respect to capital costs. So it may not compete in Oregon, for instance, with other sources of biomass. But in Brazil? I think it has a really good shot at displacing ethanol with a higher value product.

    He does seem a tad more enthusiastic when he sees high tech (GM organisms!) that he does not fully understand (PV solar?).

    There is certainly truth in that statement. I think it is universally true, that claims made from areas we aren’t fully knowledgeable about can more easily fool us. However, while I don’t know the details of microbiology of what they are doing, I do see some areas that will have distinct advantages – in areas that I do know something about. Unless there are incredible costs around the microbes, I expect they will be able to make a pretty cheap renewable diesel.

    Cheers, RR

  11. RR, or someone else, can you explain why they say their fuel can be “blended up to 50%”? Why couldn’t you just run entirely on their fuel – after all, it’s diesel, right?

  12. Why couldn’t you just run entirely on their fuel – after all, it’s diesel, right?

    I have a theory on that. Since diesel is a range of hydrocarbons, starting at around C10 and going up to C16 or so, it has performance characteristics that are an average of the blend. My guess is that their diesel is closer to one end of the spectrum. For instance, if you had nothing but C10, you wouldn’t match the specs of the average petroleum diesel. I suspect something like that is the issue.

    On the other hand, it may also be that they aren’t dealing with pure hydrocarbons. Biodiesel, for instance, isn’t a hydrocarbon. It can be blended only in limited quantities because the characteristics (especially the cold weather properties) differ from petroleum diesel.

    Hope that helps.

    Cheers, Robert

  13. The ability to GM a bug to produce any type of fuel may give Amyris an edge in the biofuels market, but it actually sounds like they’d be much more profitable in the designer chemicals and pharmaceutical production area. For the same reasons optimist noted, they look like they’re gunning more towards low volume/high value markets. Also, it seems to me that the energy costs and political risks associated with importing diesel to the US make that goal highly unrealistic, though they might carve out a chunk of the local Brazilian diesel market.

    Point is you cannot scale sugarcane in the US like Brazil did so I don’t see how this solves solves anyone’s problems.

    And an irrelevant side note: check out this game, http://armorgames.com/play/2607/oiligarchy. RR, I think you’ll have a good time with this one.

  14. OK RR,
    I agree, it’s way better than ethanol. But that’s setting the bar pretty low, DOE notwithstanding…

    There is certainly truth in that statement.
    Takes big ones to admit it like that. I certainly respect that in a man…

  15. I took a quick look at their site, but there is nothing very substantial there. What I’m wondering is: (1) What is their energy return? And (2) Can they run their operation without using fossil fuels? (That includes delivery of the product.)

    My reasoning is that, to keep industrial civilization running we are going to need a liquid fuel that packs a lot of punch like petroleum-based fuels, that has a high energy return (at least 20 to 1), and that can pay its own way without depending on fossil fuels. After all, fossil fuels aren’t always going to be affordable. In other words, the fuel system has to be self-supporting and still provide enough energy to keep the planes flying, the motor vehicles motoring, the factories humming, the ships shipping, etc. As other people have observed, the low energy density of biomass means you have to gather feedstock from a large area and keep bringing it in by the truckload and trainload. Will that ultimately be possible without relying on fossil fuels, and will it be environmentally sustainable?

  16. Rice Farmer…

    Oil on the downswing, getting more and more expensive, some shortages perhaps in the near future.
    Alternatives (CNG/Biofuels/GTL) bridging the way to electrified transport over 30 years or so. Small nuclear reactors, large hydro in vogue again, wind/ solar, some buttressing by coal/gas (Germany) and maybe tidal power here and there. REcent invention in S. Korea that shows gains of nearly 100% power over previous lithium batteries.

    Seems to be where we’re heading. Of course, silly MSM saying “the peak oilers still say we’re running out of oil” doesn’t help matters. Obama would do the world a huge favour by going public with peak oil (he can call it a liquid fuel shortage or whatever he likes) AND put a basement on price–say around 80 to 90 dollar a barrel.

    Anyway, little rant over..

    Stuck

  17. RR, interesting and promising.

    That said, I recall that you did an analysis showing that photosynthesis was less than 1% efficient at collection solar energy, even before considering any energy inputs to growing, harvesting, etc.

    I would add that given any spare/waste biomass that is a possible feedstock, it seems more efficient to extract the energy from that feedstock by burning it for electric power.

    Given these facts, it strikes me that even if we get a breakthrough in biofuel technology, we’ll use it only sparingly (accepting the inherent inefficiencies) for the sake of hard-to-replace uses e.g. aircraft etc. Breakthrough or no, IMO most ground transportation still needs to go electric.

  18. Just a note to oil price junkies: Some funny numbers coming out of China. They say they are growing still. 8 percent annually. Okay.
    Yet, for latest couple months, China’s electricity consumption down, y-o-y. Some say no worries, just power-intensive industries cutting back.
    However, this drop in electrical demand dovetails with recent collapse of Chinese demand for used cardboard and paper from Los Angeles, and a story in LA Times about waves of Chinese factory closings. We also know that the container count of imports from China is down 15 percent to 20 percent from last year, through ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles.
    There is no free press in China. So even “experts” are just groping in the dark, when trying to predict China’s economy.
    My equally myopic guess is that China’s demand for crude oil will slacken, at best run flat for next several months, or years.
    Of course, in the USA we are decreasing our crude demand, and Europe too. Japan uses less oil now than in 1972.
    The doomsters have put a lot of eggs into the “Chinese demand will skyrocket prices” basket.
    They may now have to construct a doomsday scenario in the face of slack Chinese demand. They will of course, but it will be interesting to watch.
    Funny thing about that oil doomsday — it ever seems to recede into the future.

  19. Robert, you have commented on Amyris, LS9, Coskata, Xethanol, and other biofuel start-ups. Conspicuously absent (unless I missed it) is your take on Terrabon LLC, the company founded to commercialize Holtzapple’s Mixalco process, which I believe you worked on in grad schoool. Have you looked at Terrabon’s claims? Their website is http://www.terrabon.com/. Any inside information?

  20. I would add that given any spare/waste biomass that is a possible feedstock, it seems more efficient to extract the energy from that feedstock by burning it for electric power.

    It is true that the most efficient process is going to be a combustion process that either produces electricity, or directly produces power. But of the options we have for fueling our present liquid fuel infrastructure, this is one of the more promising options. It has a couple of novel angles missing from many biofuel schemes (cheap Brazilian biomass, production of diesel).

    Cheers, RR

  21. Conspicuously absent (unless I missed it) is your take on Terrabon LLC, the company founded to commercialize Holtzapple’s Mixalco process, which I believe you worked on in grad schoool.

    Professor Holtzapple gave me my start, and as such I am not planning to ever publicly critique his process. It should be obvious that I have my doubts, and I would further point out that Terrabon was founded 13 years ago (predating Google). I leave you to make your own conclusions.

    Cheers, RR

  22. Stuck in Shizuoka — IMHO, dependence on nuclear and renewables isn’t going to cut it because these need the fossil-fuel bootstrap. How do you build a nuke plant and run the fuel cycle without FFs? How do you manufacture, deploy, and maintain renewable-energy infrastructure without FFs? That’s why industrial civilization must ultimately find something to replace oil.

  23. I agree with you Rice Farmer and I think there is little doubt about that. However, as I wrote, albeit perhaps not specifically enough, we need liquid fuel to tide us over to a different energy source. Will we make it? Tough call isn’t it. However, how I see this transition evolving (although the current financial crisis certainly puts a dampner on this), is that biofuels, other liquids (GTL,), unconventionals, are going to have to fill in the declines in crude, and renewable and nuclear will have to ramp up electric. All the while, there will likely be greater push towards battery vehicles/phev etc.

    So yes, SOMETHING will have to replace FF, but the transition along the way will have to involve various measures whilst FF become scarcer and more costly.

  24. Their pathway maxes out at 25-30% mass yield, so for a gallon of product at 7 pounds per gallon, you’ll need 30 pounds of sugar. At today’s prices for sugar and diesel, they’d be more profitable collecting the $3 for sugar rather than the $2 for a gallon of diesel.

    It’s all hype.

  25. Robert,
    the bit about “holy grail” is slightly off, for two reasons.

    First, ethanol is addressing a still huge market for oxygenates. It has been only a few years since the phase-out of MBTE started; that’s what “made” ethanol what it is today. The “oil from plants” approach that you describe is only relevant after the oxygenate market is saturated.

    Second, ethanol is the absolutely simplest secondary metabolite. You probably know that pyruvate is the central energy metabolite. Well, ethanol is just a single enzymatic decarboxylation from there. We now have the tools to direct the bugs into more complex pathways and into fats, against their natural “will”, however, nothing is as simple or metabolically economical as ethanol.

    Note: What is interesting about photosynthesis is that it goes from c3 or c4 to c6 sugar and if you are to make ethanol from that, then you have to go back to c3.
    Khosla has another company (like Amyris) that is trying to shunt the c6 sugar synthesis in photosynthetic organisms and go straight to ethanol. I have thought about it myself, and energy-wise it does look somewhat attractive.
    Cheers,

  26. Cyril, I think that would be a viable use of nuclear steam, the only problem is that it has to exist in close proximity to corn, or an existing ethanol plant. To get the best benefit, you would need to site an ethanol plant next door. You might also stick a cellulosic ethanol plant next to a nuclear plant and defeat the problem of low ethanol concentrations requiring copious amounts of steam.

    The key question for me would be whether a more optimal solution could be found that would result in more of the steam BTUs being put to good use.

    Thanks for the link, though. If I write a book, this is the sort of interesting tidbit I would want to discuss.

    Cheers, Robert

  27. Of course, reducing the thermal input by improving the efficiency of the process would be more ideal. But that has so far had limited succes and the processing input for alcohols is still rather big. But you know all that better than most.

    There’s a map in the link that shows there’s a couple of nuclear plants in close proximity to corn areas.

    I just thought, since we already have the nuclear plant and are essentially not using the extra heat, we might as well use it. Since most nuclear plants are getting 20 years life extensions, there would at least be a highly guaranteed source of affordable heat.

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