Optimizing Ethanol Fermentation From Mountain Pine Beetle Killed Lodgepole Pine. Although lodgepole pine and the mountain pine beetle have always co-existed as a natural part of the ecosystem in British Columbia’s interior forests, the beetle thrives under warm weather conditions. The interior of British Columbia has an abundance of mature lodgepole pine, and has experienced several consecutive mild winters and drought-like summers. Beetle populations in many parts of interior BC have increased to epidemic levels as a result, according to the BC Ministry of Forests and Range.

The Ministry estimates that as of 2008 the cumulative area of provincial Crown forest affected to some degree (red-attack and grey-attack) was about 14.5 million hectares. The ministry also estimates that a cumulative total of 620 million cubic metres of timber have been affected since the current infestation began.

The resulting current surplus of beetle-killed lodegpole has the potential to supply the biofuel industry for the next 20 years and beyond.

Dr. Jack Saddler, Dean of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, is leading a C$1.1-million (US$1.0-million) project entitled, Optimizing Ethanol Fermentation From Mountain Pine Beetle Killed Lodgepole Pine.

Trees are a huge store of chemical energy that can be converted into liquid biofuel—but we need to identify the ideal method to produce these sugars economically. What makes wood so difficult to breakdown when compared to corn or other starch-based biofuel, is that the cellulose, unlike starch, is designed by nature to not be broken down easily.

—Jack Saddler

The researchers will identify enzymes that improve the breakdown of specific lignocellulosic feedstocks by analyzing the proteome of secreted proteins in wood-degrading fungi.

The social science and humanities (SSH) component of this work looks at the potential environmental and economic impacts of the research. Life cycle and techno-economic modeling will be employed using existing models and incorporate project parameters in order to allow modeling of the technical results of the current project. Existing data, gathered through a literature review, will be inputted into life cycle and techno-economic models to create experience curves describing the impact of technological change.

The experience curves will be broken down to better understand the impacts of each process stage (pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation) as well as the production of by-products on the costs of generating biofuels using the bioconversion platform. The life cycle and techno-economic models will then be used to evaluate the impacts of research in terms of environmental or economic measures. Ultimately, this combination of environmental and economic data will describe a suite of optimal approaches to bioconversion of lignocellulosic feedstock for BC.

Saddler is confident that the solution they find for coniferous trees will be transferable to deciduous varieties as well. The idea is that the 20+ year supply of dead lodgepole pine will have provided enough time to replant with a fast-growing tree variety to replace it as biofuel feedstock.

The poplar tree—the fastest growing tree in North America—is one of the only species that would be ready for harvest by the time the beetle-killed conifers have run out.

Optimized Populus Feedstocks and Novel Enzyme Systems for a BC Bioenergy Sector. Principal investigators Drs. Carl Douglas and Shawn Mansfield, both of UBC, will aim to use genomics to optimize breeding and selection of poplars to improve their potential as a biofuel resource.

Their C$7.7-million (US$7.2-million) project, entitled Optimized Populus Feedstocks and Novel Enzyme Systems for a BC Bioenergy Sector, will build on a foundation of previous Genome BC research, which contributed to the sequencing of the poplar genome in 2004.

Poplars and aspens are native to British Columbia, have inherently fast growth rates and wood that is easier to convert to fermentable sugars than conifers using current bioprocessing technologies. However, poplar wood is biochemically complex and more difficult than grains (like corn for example) to break down and liberate sugars for use in biofuel production.

To facilitate rapid breeding of improved poplar varieties that have optimized biofuels and biomass traits, the researchers will perform genomic, phenotypic and genetic analyses to study natural poplar variants and will collaborate with US Department of Energy-funded scientists to identify gene variants that contribute to improved traits. To enhance the efficiency of solubilization of fermentable sugars from poplar wood, the researchers will also collaborate with American counterparts to find enzymes in wood-rotting fungi that will help liberate the sugars from the complex macromolecules in wood. Concurrently, this project will investigate the economic feasibility of establishing poplar plantations as a source of biofuels as well as the public perceptions surrounding biofuel plantations.

We need to be thinking about feedstock supply 10-15 years from now, so that we will have poplars ready to be harvested, which will allow us to keep up with industry demand.

—Shawn Mansfield

This research will ultimately create the basis for a poplar-breeding program to fuel the forestry bioenergy sector.

Using the poplar’s genome sequence, we can apply many of the same approaches used in human genomics to study the genetic basis of disease. This will enable the rapid improvement of this tree for use as biofuel feedstock and in future, plantations of improved poplar trees will have the potential to provide a source of renewable biofuels for BC.

—Carl Douglas

Douglas also points out that these trees are highly adaptable and can be grown in many parts of the province, without affecting farm land used for food production.