Near a cluster of purple petunias in a Thousand Oaks greenhouse sprouts a key weapon in the nation's ambitious push into biofuels.
The plants don't look like much. They're just tall, spiky shoots of prairie grass. But these stalks are souped-up samples of switch grass, part of an urgent drive toward a new kind of ethanol using plant fibers instead of corn kernels or sugar cane.
Ceres Inc., the biotechnology company nurturing this batch of switch grass, is betting that the plant has a big future as an energy crop. It's a strong candidate because it can be grown year-round in poor soil, then harvested and converted to fuel ethanol without displacing traditional food crops.
Researchers at Ceres and labs around the world are experimenting with various crops and forms of plant waste and conjuring up enzyme cocktails that would lower the cost of teasing energy out of the cell walls of plants.
Such work, once conducted in relative quiet, is now in the spotlight. The federal government has stepped up ethanol research funding, and last week the Energy Department announced grants worth up to $385 million to jump-start construction of six small operations to refine ethanol from a wider variety of plants. It marks the nation's first major foray into the production of so-called cellulosic ethanol.
Ethanol will be on the agenda Friday, when President Bush travels to Brazil to meet with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The two countries are expected to announce a partnership to boost production of biofuels such as ethanol, which Brazil makes from sugar cane. The U.S. and Brazil already make 70% of the world's ethanol.
Wall Street and private investors have joined the search for new kinds of ethanol, putting unprecedented amounts of money behind companies with promising technologies. Oil giants have rushed in as well, striking deals with universities and firms involved in biofuels.
"People are working feverishly on innovations .... Everyone's racing," said Nathanael Greene, clean energy policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There are many more companies now working on many different variations."
Among the motivators: Bush's goal of displacing 20% of the nation's gasoline with alternative fuels and improved fuel economy by 2017. Although biodiesel, hybrid cars, natural-gas-powered buses and other energy advances will be part of the mix, most experts believe Bush's benchmark can't be met without a substantial contribution from next-generation ethanol.
