1、The future of biofuels生物燃料的未来The post-alcohol world世界进入后乙醇燃料时代Biofuels are back. This time they might even work 生物燃料回来了。这次它们可能真的要大干一场了Oct 28th 2010 | London and san francisco from The EconomistMAKE something people want to buy at a price they can afford. Hardly a revolutionary business strategy, but
2、 one that the American biofuels industry has, to date, eschewed. Now a new wave of companies think that they have the technology to change the game and make unsubsidised profits. If they can do so reliably, and on a large scale, biofuels may have a lot more success in freeing the world from fossil f
3、uels than they have had until now. 制造一些人们想买而且能买得起的东西。这几乎都算不上是什么创新型的商业策略，但是美国的生物燃料行业直至今日仍然刻意回避它。当下，几家新公司掀认为他们拥有能够改变这个行业现状的科技并且无需补助就可以赢利。如果他们可以以一种可靠的、大规模的方式来改变，那么生物燃料也许在把世界从化石燃料中解脱出来这方面取得前所未有的成功。The original 1970s appeal of biofuels was the opportunity to stick up a finger or two, depending on the loc
4、al bodily idiom, to the oil sheikhs. Over time, the opportunity to fight global warming added to the original energy-security appeal. Make petrol out of plants in a sufficiently clever way and you can drive around with no net emissions of carbon dioxide as well as no net payments to the mad, the bad
5、 and the greedy. A great idea all round, then.人们对生物燃料的兴趣始于上世纪七十年代，那时人们想借助它来挑战一下石油大亨们，用有关身体的谚语就是“向石油大亨们竖起一两个指头” 。随着时间的流逝，对抗全球变暖的机会为原本出于资源安全考虑的吸引力加了分。以一种十分巧妙的方法从植物中获得汽油，不排放一点二氧化碳也不必向那些疯狂敛财、黑心贪婪的石油工业付一点儿钱，你就能开车到处跑了。于是当时，到处都能看到这个伟大的点子。Sadly, in America, it did not work out like that. First, the fuel was
6、 not petrol. Instead, it was ethanol, which stores less energy per litre, tends to absorb water and is corrosive; people will use it only if it is cheap or if you force them to through mandatory blending. In Brazil, which turned to biofuels after the 1970s oil shocks, the price of ethanol eventually
7、 became low enough for the fuel to find a market, thanks to highly productive sugar plantations and distilleries powered by the pulp left when that sugar was extracted from its cane. As a result Brazil is now a biofuels superpower. North American ethanol is mostly made from corn (maize), which is le
8、ss efficient, and often produced in distilleries powered by coal; it is thus neither as cheap nor as environmentally benign. But American agribusiness, which knows a good thing when it sees one, used its political clout to arrange subsidies and tariffs that made corn-ethanol profitable and that kept
9、 out the alternative from Brazil.不幸的是，生物燃料在美国并没如设想般发展起来。首先，这种燃料不是石油，而是乙醇，每升储存的能量没有汽油多，而且吸水性强且具有腐蚀性；只有当它价格低廉或者法律规定必须和汽油一起使用时，人们才会选择它。70 年代巴西石油恐慌过后，生物燃料就在该国得到广泛使用，乙醇的价格最终降低到足以被市场接受的水平，这多亏了当地生产效率很高的甘蔗种植园和蒸馏厂，后者由被榨出糖后甘蔗的茎的剩余部分即髓质作为动力来运转。因此，现在巴西是一个生物燃料的超级大国。北美的乙醇大多数来自谷物（玉米） ，效率较低而且常常在以煤为动力的蒸馏厂里生产出来；所以它既不
10、便宜也不环保。但是善于辨别好东西的美国农产品行业通过政治势力安排了补助和关税这些手段，让生产玉米乙醇盈利，并且把巴西的同类产品挡在国门之外。This still left the problem: using corn limits the size of the industry and pits it against the interests of people who want food. Boosters claimed that cellulose, from which the stalks, leaves and wood of plants are made, could i
11、f suitably treated become a substitute for the starch in corn. Both starch and cellulose consist of sugar molecules, linked together in different ways, and sugar is what fermentation feeds on. But cellulosic biofuel has so far failed, on an epic scale, to deliver. At the moment, only a handful of fa
12、ctories around the world produce biofuel from cellulose. And that fuel is still ethanol.然而还是有问题存在：使用玉米限制了这个工业的发展规模，而且触及到那些想要食物的人的利益。热心的支持者们宣称纤维素如果处理得当也有可能代替玉米中淀粉的作用。纤维素是植物的茎叶和干的组成部分。淀粉和纤维素都由多糖分子构成，只不过连结方式不同，而且发酵也以糖为能源。但是纤维素生物燃料目前为止难以大规模运输。现在，全世界只有少数几个工厂通过纤维素生产生物燃料，而且产品仍然是乙醇。This is what companies wo
13、rking on a new generation of biofuels want to change. Instead of ethanol, they plan to make hydrocarbons, molecules chemically much more similar to those that already power planes, trains and automobiles. These will, they say, be “drop-in” fuels, any quantity of which can be put into the appropriate
14、 fuel tanks and pipelines with no fuss whatsoever. For that reason alone, they are worth more than ethanol. 这就是那些希望开创生物燃料新篇章的公司想要改变的。他们计划生产的不是乙醇、而是碳氢化合物，其分子的化学性质和结构与为飞机、火车和汽车提供动力的燃料类似。他们称这种物质可以成为“完全替代型”燃料，任何数量都能方便地放到合适的油罐和输油管道中，不会产生麻烦。就凭这一点，它们也比乙醇更有用处。Appropriately designed drop-in fuels can substit
15、ute for diesel and aviation fuel, which ethanol cannot. That increases the size of the potential market. They also have advantages on the production side. Because crude oils from different places have different chemical compositions, containing some molecules engines wont like, oil refineries today
16、need to do a lot of careful tweaking. The same applies to the production of biodiesel from plant oils. Genetically engineered bugs making hydrocarbons more or less from scratch could guarantee consistent quality without the hassle, thus perhaps commanding a premium with no extra effort. Meanwhile th
17、e feedstock could be nice and cheap: Brazilian sugar. Tariffs that block Brazilian ethanol from northern markets do not apply to drop-in hydrocarbons. 设计合理的完全替代式燃料能够代替柴油和航空燃料，这一点是乙醇无法企及的。利用这一点可以扩大潜在市场。在生产方面它们也有优势。由于不同地区产出的原油的化学成分各不相同，如今的炼油厂需要进行大量细致的工作从而把这些发动机所不喜欢的成分去除掉。同样的情况也发生在从植物油中生产生物柴油的过程。遗传工程培育
18、出的细菌几乎从一开始就能保证它们产出的碳氢化合物的质量一直都很好，省去了麻烦，所以这也许要求额外费用但却无需大费力气。同时，原料可以非常便宜：巴西甘蔗。阻挡巴西乙醇进军北美市场的关税并不适用与完全替代型碳氢化合物。Scale models 领头羊If this approach works, it will not only be beneficial in its own rightmodestly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while making money for its investorsit will also provide a last
19、ing market incentive to scientists to devise better ways of turning cellulose into sugar. This gives the prospects for this generation of biofuels a plausibility that was missing from its predecessors. The drop-in firms are starting to come out of the laboratory, float themselves on the stockmarket,
20、 team up with oil companies and build their first factories. The dice, in other words, are rolling.如果这种途径奏效，受益的不仅仅是这个行业本身在为投资者赚钱的同时也能稍微减轻一些温室效应它也可以为科学家提供长久的市场动力使之可以探索出更好的把纤维素转变成糖的方式。这也有可能继续开发生物燃料，而这正是以前的生物燃料发展所缺乏的。完全替代性生物燃料公司已经开始走出实验室，走进证券交易市场并石油公司合作建立第一批工厂。也就是说，游戏已经开始了。One of the leaders of the dro
21、p-in drive is Alan Shaw, the boss of Codexis, a firm based in Redwood City, California, which makes specialised enzymes that perform tricky chemical conversions. In Dr Shaws opinion, the industrys problem has not been bad products so much as a failure to think big.位于加州红木城的 Codexis 生物科技公司的老板 Alan Sha
22、w 是发展完全替代型替生物燃料的带头人之一。这家公司生产专门的酶用以参与复杂的化学转化过程。Shaw 博士认为这个行业的问题与其说是由于产品质量低劣不如说上发展思路不够开阔。Dr Shaw proposes to remedy that. In collaboration with Shell, an Anglo-Dutch oil company, and Cosan, Brazils third-largest sugar producer, he plans to build a factory capable of producing 400m litres (2.5m barrels
23、, or 105m gallons) of drop-in fuel every year. The other companies will provide money, reaction vessels and sugar. He will provide the enzymes and genetically engineered bacteria needed to make a drop-in fuel.肖博士（Dr Shaw ）决心解决这个问题。他和英荷皇家壳牌公司（Anglo-Dutch Shell 以及巴西第三大糖业公司 Cosan 合作，计划建立一个年产达到 4 亿升（即 2
24、50 万桶或 1.05 亿加仑）的完全替代型燃料。其他公司将提供资金、反应容器和糖。他的公司将提供酶和生产完全替代型燃料所需要的基因工程菌。The project is part of a joint venture by Shell and Cosan; with a capacity of more than 2 billion litres a year, it is the worlds largest biofuel operation, and it owns a 16.4% stake in Codexis. At the moment, the joint ventures b
25、usiness is based on fermenting cane sugar into ethanol, but the new plant would start changing that. Codexiss enzymes and bacteria can turn sugar into molecules called straight-chain alkanes which have between 12 and 16 carbon atoms in them. Such alkanes are the main ingredients of diesel fuel. 该项工程
26、属于壳牌和 Cosan 组成的合资企业；这家合资企业每年生产超 20 亿升的生物燃料，生物燃料生产运作规模为世界之最，拥有 Codexis 生物科技公司 16.4%的股份。现在，这个联合企业的经营基于把甘蔗糖发酵为乙醇为基础，然而新工厂将开始改变这一现状。Codexis 的酶和细菌能够把糖转变为有 12 到 16 个碳原子的直链烷烃，这种物质是柴油最主要的组成部分。In April Codexis became the first start-up involved in drop-in fuels to float itself on a stockmarketwhich in this c
27、ase was NASDAQ, Americas main market for high-tech stocks. But it is not the last. Another firm that recently completed its NASDAQ flotation is Amyris, of Emeryville, which is also in the San Francisco Bay area. Amyris started off using large-scale genetic engineering, also known as synthetic biolog
28、y, to create bugs that make a malaria drug. But now it, too, has a product that it claims is a drop-in biodiesel. And it, too, has hooked up with an oil company: Total, of France, which owns 17% of the firm. 四月，Codexis 成为完全替代型生物燃料公司中第一家在美国最主要的交易高科技股票的股票市场纳斯达克上市的公司。但是它绝对不是最后一家。最近，位于加州埃默里维尔（Emeryville
29、）的阿米瑞斯生物技术公司(Amyris Biotechnologies)也在在纳斯达克上市，这家公司也位于旧金山湾地区。阿米瑞斯生物技术公司开始运行时大规模使用也被称作合成生物技术的基因工程来培养能够制作治疗疟疾的药物的细菌。但是现在，它自称也拥抱自己的完全替代型生物柴油，而且和道达尔-法国石油公司(Total CFP)合作，后者拥有阿米瑞斯 17%的股份。Amyriss biodiesel is made of more complicated molecules than Codexiss (they are known, technically, as terpenes), and th
30、e firm employs genetically engineered yeast, rather than bacteria. But Brazilian sugar is again used as the raw material. Amyris has formed a joint venture with Santelisa Vale, Brazils second-largest sugar company, and is busy refitting some of that firms ethanol plants in order to make drop-in dies
31、el.阿米瑞斯的生物柴油的分子（学名萜烯）比 Codexis 公司生产的复杂，而且这家公司使用了基因工程酵母而不是基因工程菌。不过提供原材料的仍然是来自巴西的糖。阿米瑞斯已经和巴西第二大糖业公司 Santelisa Vale 成立合资公司，而且正忙于整修乙醇厂以进行完全替代型柴油的生产。The Codexis-Cosan-Shell partnership and the Amyris-Santelisa-Total one are the furthest along of the drop-in fuel businesses, but others are coming up on th
32、e rails. LS9, which is based in South San Francisco (a separate municipality that has a cluster of biotech companies), also uses bacteria to make straight-chain alkanes. It is converting a fermentation plant in Florida into a test facility to see if what works in the laboratory will work at scale. A
33、nd Virent, based in Madison, Wisconsin, is making alkanes out of sugars using a chemical, rather than a biological, process. Codexis-Cosan-Shell 的合作和 Amyris-Santelisa-Total 的合作市目前完全替代型生物燃料行业中发展最深远的，不过其他公司也正陆续加入这个队伍中。位于南圣弗朗西斯科（一个拥有数家生物燃料公司的自治市）的 LS9 也使用细菌生产直链烷烃。它在弗罗里达州的发酵厂被改造成一个实验场所用以检验在实验室奏效的方法是否能投入
34、到大规模生产中去。威斯康辛州麦迪逊的 Virent 正通过一种化学、而不是生物的过程从糖中提取直链烷烃。2010-11-8 22:03 上传下载附件 (18.93 KB) Gevo, of Englewood, Colorado, which filed for flotation on NASDAQ in August, is planning to make another type of post-ethanol fuel: butanol. Like Codexis, it will use enzymes and genetically engineered bugs to do t
35、his; like Amyris and LS9, it will retrofit existing ethanol plants to keep the cost down. The aim is to turn out an annual 2 billion litres of butanol by 2014. BP, a British petroleum company, is building a butanol pilot plant to do this near Hull in the north of England and also has big ambitions f
36、or the fuel.位于科罗拉多州恩格尔伍德（Englewood）的生物燃料公司 Gevo 正计划生产另一种代替乙醇的燃料：丁醇。改送已于八月正式提出在纳斯达克上市的申请。同 Codexis 一样，它将使用酶和基因工程菌来实现这个目标；同 Amyris 和 LS9 一样，它也将对已建乙醇厂进行整修以降低成本。它的目标是在 2014 年前实现年产丁醇 20 亿升。英国石油公司（BP）正在英格兰北部靠近赫尔的地方建立一个丁醇试验厂，可见它也志在发展此种燃料。Like ethanol, butanol is an alcohol. That means each of its molecules
37、 contains an oxygen atom as well as the carbon and hydrogen found in an alkane. Butanol, however, has four carbon atoms in its molecules, whereas ethanol has two. That gives butanol more energy for a given mass and makes it more alkane-like in its properties; nor does it absorb water as readily as e
38、thanol. Moreover, the production process for butanol is more efficient than the processes that produce alkanes; proportionately more of the energy from the feedstock (various crops for Gevo, wheat for BP) ends up in the final fuel. And BP will certainly be able to bring to the party the ambitious sc
39、ale that Dr Shaw praises.和乙醇一样，丁醇也属于醇类，这说明每一个丁醇分子包括一个氧原子和直链烷烃里的那种碳原子、氢原子。不过，丁醇分子力有四个碳原子而乙醇有两个。所以，丁醇释放的能量比同样重量的乙醇多，在特性是它更像直链烷烃分子；它也不像乙醇那么容易吸水。此外，生产丁醇的过程比生产直链烷烃的效率更高；在最终的燃料里，从饲料（Gevo 使用各种玉米，而 BP 使用各种小麦）中得到的能量比例更高。 BP 今后肯定能实现并利用好这种肖博士称赞的大规模生产。The last of the Bay-area drop-in contenders is, in many ways
40、, the most intriguing. Solazyme, another firm based in South San Francisco, wants to use single-celled algae to make its fuel. This is not a new idea. Craig Venter, who led the privately financed version of the Human Genome Project, is trying it too, through his latest venture, Synthetic Genomics, i
41、n San Diego. Synthetic Genomics is backed by the biggest oil beast of them all, ExxonMobiland several other firms have similar ideas, if not the same heavyweight backing. Solazymes approach is unusual, though. Instead of growing its algae in sunlit ponds it keeps them in the dark and feeds them with
42、 sugar.位于旧金山湾地区最后一家也加入完全替代型燃料竞争的公司从很多方面来说也是最令人瞩目的，它就是同样位于南圣弗朗西斯科的 Solazyme 公司，它想利用单细胞藻类制造燃料。这并不是一个新想法。进行私人资助的人类基因组计划的带头人 Craig Venter，通过他在圣迭戈成了的新公司美国加州生物技术研究集团（Synthetic Genomics） ，也在进行这方面的尝试，其赞助者是参与到生物燃料领域势力最雄厚的石油公司埃克森美孚（ExxonMobil ）还有几家公司也有类似的想法，虽然没有如此重量级的支持。Solazyme 公司的途径很特别，它并未把藻类种植在阳光照耀的池塘里，而是种
43、在黑暗处并提供给它们糖分。At first sight this seems bonkers. The attraction of algae would seem to lie in the possibility that, since they photosynthesise, they could be engineered to contain the whole sunlight-to-fuel process in one genetically engineered package. Sunshine being free, this looked a brilliant id
44、ea. But looks can be deceptive. If you keep your algae in ponds the rays do not always strike them at the best angle and the algae sometimes shade one another if they are growing densely. 乍一看只有精神不正常的人才这么做。既然水藻进行光合作用，那么它的吸引力似乎在于有可能通过基因工程设计一整套包括“从阳光到燃料”的过程。阳光当然是很免费的，看来真是个好主意。但是看起来好未必好。如果你把水藻种在池塘里，但是却不
45、能以正确的角度用光线照射它们，那么如果水藻生长太过密集时，可能会相互遮挡。Photobioreactorscomplicated systems of transparent piping through which alga-rich water is pumpedovercome those problems, but they cost a lot and are hard to keep clean. Solazyme tried both of these approaches, and almost went bankrupt in the process. Then its fo
46、unders, Jonathan Wolfson and Harrison Dillon, asked themselves whether it might not be cheaper to ignore the photosynthetic step, buy the sugar that photosynthesis produces instead, and concentrate on getting the algae to turn it into oil. 光生物感应器能克服这些困难，但是花费巨大，难以保持干净。这是一种复杂的系统，有一根透明管，里面注满富含藻类的水。这两种方
47、法 Solazyme 都尝试了，几乎以破产收场。然后其创始人 Jonathan Wolfson 和 Harrison Dillon 自问如果不进行光和作用，而是购买光合作用生产出的糖是否可以降低费用，并集中解决把水藻变成油的问题。Which is what the firm now does. It also has a nice little earner in the form of a contract with the American navy. The navy intends that, by 2020, half the fuel it uses (over six billi
48、on litres a year, mainly diesel and jet fuel) will be from renewable sources. Over the past year Solazyme has been providing it with trial quantities of both from its production facilities in Pennsylvania and Iowa. The algal oils are not themselves good fuel; but a refinery in Houston takes care of
49、that, producing shipshape alkanes of the sort the navy likes.这就是该公司目前忙碌的事情。同时，它和美国海军签了一项合同，获得一笔不错的收入。海军打算在 2020 年前从再生资源中获得其耗用的燃料总量的一半（每年超过 60 亿升，主要是柴油和航空涡轮发动机燃料） 。去年，Solazyme 公司已经向海军提供了它位于宾夕法尼亚州和爱荷华州的工厂的产品。水藻石油本身不是好燃料，但是位于休斯顿的一个炼油厂可以加工它们，从而产出海军喜欢的那种井井有序的烷类。High-fibre diet 高纤维饮食The success of all this obviously depends on the price of sugar, which is rising. Historically, the cost of making Brazilian ethanol has been about 26 cents a litre. Diesel will cost more, but petroleum-based diesel sells in America for 57 cents a litre before distribution costs and tax, so there
