Atlantic Biomass could put jet fuel made from beet pulp on market in two years

BYLINE: Ike Wilson, The Frederick News-Post, Md.

Apr. 29--FREDERICK -- Several U.S. states have introduced plans to capitalize on the country's emerging biofuels industry, producing technologies to end or reduce the nation's $1 billion-a-day expense on imported oil. North Carolina will spend $25 million to fund biofuel research and infrastructure. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has proposed a $73 million investment in biofuels research over the next five years. The Oklahoma legislature is mulling a $40 million Bioenergy Center to coordinate state research. And the Washington legislature has approved $17 million in the state's Bioenergy Program.

Here in Frederick, since 2000, Robert Kozak has been working to ensure that Maryland is not left out of the race to end the country's dependence on gasoline.

Kozak's company, Atlantic Biomass Conversions Inc. is investigating cost-effective biofuel alternatives at Hood College. "It would be a shame to see other states leave Maryland behind on this grave economic and strategic issue -- producing the necessary technologies to end our need to spend $1 billion per day on imported oil," Kozak said. "People should realize that it's about national security when the country is no longer dependent on foreign oil."

Kozak has been developing enzyme-based systems to produce biofuels and other bioproducts from sugar beet pulp, a byproduct of the sugar-making process. One immediate use of the company's technology may be fuel for military jets.

"These types of fuels [#x160] will be needed to meet the real future of transportation fuels that cannot be met by ethanol," Kozak said. The technology attempts to convert plant matter, such as beet pulp and grass crops, into jet fuel, biodesiel and chemical products other than ethanol.

Despite a national push to harness ethanol, a grain alcohol, Kozak said it will not solve the country's alternative-fuel problem. Ethanol has about 30 percent less energy per gallon than gasoline -- or about 30 percent less efficient, Kozak said. Also, storage and shipping are a problem. "Ethanol is probably one of the worst motor fuels you could come up with," Kozak said. "It is a great economic model, but lousy science." Kozak said certain types of grass will be the future for biofuel production.

"The best part of this system is that it can be grown on marginal land not used for food crops," Kozak said. "Once we get our biofuel production system working on sugar beet pulp, we will begin adapting it to these grass-based systems."

The entrepreneur said he expects to introduce his products to the market within two years, if he continues to receive funding. The project has received several grants over the years, including a recent $148,440 award from the National Science Foundation.

Program manager Thomas Allnutt said the foundation funds small business with innovative ideas, national priorities and high-risk ventures with a potentially high pay-off.

"This is high risk," Allnutt said during a visit to Hood College's Hodson Science Center, where Kozak's lab sits. The foundation reserves judgment on what may work. "We fund the earliest stage of ideas," Allnutt said. "We're not saying this is great or it's bad. If we thought it was bad, we wouldn't fund it." If Kozak's company makes progress, it might be eligible for additional funding, Allnutt said.

Kozak credits Hood College Professor Craig Laufer with a mutually beneficial partnership on the project and Hood's graduate students who perform lab work for the project.

"Somebody is going to come up with the right solution for efficiently converting all this biomass into valuable stuff," Laufer said. "Right now, it's being thrown away. Why not take advantage of all this waste? The economics of it is so compelling. I think it's a very ambitious thing. You don't know until you try."

Laufer said Kozak was one of the early people to see the wisdom in turning agricultural waste into energy. Both credited Marie Keegin, the county's economic development executive director, for introducing them to each other, and the National Science Foundation and TEDCO for funding. "We got an early start. Somebody believed in us," Laufer said. In Minnesota, Kozak met U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, who is trying to secure $5 billion in research funding for biofuels.

"I wish that the Maryland Congressional delegation will see the need," Kozak said. "It's not an easy thing. It will take a massive effort. People should realize that it's about national security."

Kozak predicts that a mature U.S. biofuel industry will look quite different from the cornto-ethanol and soybean-oil-to-biodiesel plants that make up the first-generation of biofuel plants in America. In five to 10 years, biorefineries will produce gasoline substitutes, high-performance bio-jetfuel, liquid hydrogen for fuel cells, and bioplastics -- all from a single facility. Biorefineries, many started as add-ons to agricultural processing plants, will use a variety of biomass, Kozak said.

It also will be sustainable, both economically and environmentally. These biorefineries will use advanced bioenzymes, which mimic natural biological processes to quickly synthesize these diverse bioproducts. And they could respond to market demands, much as current oil refineries switch from gasoline to heating-oil production.

"Reliance on imported oil, and the entangling foreign alliances it produced, will be a thing of the past -- as will discussions about the efficiency of using corn for ethanol," Kozak said.

But finding funding has been difficult. "What we discovered is that venture capital people do not understand commodities," Kozak said. "They are looking for the next big thing. When you say cents per pound to a venture capitalists, they're tuned out. They are looking for something like the next Viagra." Biofuels is agriculture, Kozak said. "It is a continuous thing, it's almost a calling, not just the next company you have."

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