Biofuel boom
The European Union also has a declared aim that 10% of its transport energy should be from renewable sources, such as biofuels, by 2020.
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To help meet this target, Europe's largest biofuel plant opened this week at Crescentino, Italy.
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It is designed to generate 75 million litres of ethanol a year from straw and a crop called Arundo donax, which can be grown on marginal land, and does not compete for resources with food.
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One chemical that is produced when processing biowastes is a large sugar molecule called xylose.
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When you try and use yeast to ferment xylose, rather than making alcohol for fuel directly, it generates acetic acid - essentially vinegar. This is poisonous to the yeast, and stops the fermentation.
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Breaking down xylose and making acetic acid non-toxic are the two major problems that must be solved if biowastes such as straw are to be fermented to make fuel.
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Now, US biotechnologists appear to have solved both problems, by developing a genetically engineered strain of yeast that simultaneously breaks down xylose and converts acetic acid to fuel.
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