Biofuels are alternative energy fuels produced from
living organisms or metabolic byproducts (organic or
food waste products). If we could just find a more
efficient way to unlock their energy, and to minimize
the amount of land and water resources needed to grow
them, they could replace the polluting and limited
reserves of fossil fuels currently in use.
Now
Kaiima Bio-Agritech of
Israel believes that it has found a way to do just that.
"The
oil is going to end," Ariel Krolzig (photo), product manager
of Kaiima, tells
ISRAEL21c. "It's a question of time. In the last few
years no new oil fields have been found. Why are countries
like Brazil looking for alternatives?" he asks rhetorically.
Sporting a sage-like beard, Krolzig is standing beside the
star of his likely success story, a castor oil plant. He
proceeds to describe the method developed by Kaiima that
doubles a plant's chromosomes from a set of two to a set of
four.
This doubling results in higher cell activity, increased
photosynthesis and better adaptation to local conditions in
the field. Most importantly, it more than doubles the
plant's biofuel potential.
Castor oil could save the day
Companies around the world are now field testing Kaiima's
seeds for the castor oil plant. "There are about 120
different purposes for it," says Krolzig, stressing that
biofuel is among them.
The chromosome doubling that Kaiima can now induce may occur
naturally in nature. When it does, the plants with four
chromosomes typically show advantages over those with just
two sets in each nucleus.
For some time now, plant breeders and scientists have been
trying to encourage this doubling or "polyploidy" in certain
plants with high economic value, using artificial methods
including colchicine treatment, nitrous oxide treatment and
temperature shock.
However, these methods have caused damage to the plants' DNA
and ultimately to the plants themselves. Using a
biotechnology technique called CGM (Clean Genome
Multiplication), Kaiima has found a way to create polyploidy
in plants, without encroaching on their DNA.
Kaiima believes that its new castor oil plants (sold as
seeds) will revolutionize the biofuel industry. By using its
CGM technique, the company brings about dramatic increases
in the plants' yields and energy, while using less water and
land.
Great potential, no drawbacks
And an added benefit, which should mollify the sizable
resistance to organisms that are altered in any way: "It's
not transgenic, it's not a genetically modified organism
(GMO)," Krolzig asserts.
Explaining why the research was conducted on castor plants,
Krolzig says that the castor plant, grown mainly in India
and China, is widely utilized in the chemical, plastic and
cosmetic industries and also as a lubricant that doesn't
break down under high temperatures, for use in high-speed
cars and airplanes.
A non-edible crop, castor can be grown on poor quality land
that isn''t suitable for other kinds of food crops. This
means that growing it won't influence global food prices on
a large scale, unlike other biofuels such as sugarcane or
corn.
Until now, the problem with castor oil has been that it is
very expensive to produce, relative to its yields.
Previously, the highest yield of oily beans from castor has
been about 1.5 to 1.6 tons of beans per hectare, half of
which is oil - about 750 kilograms.
"We have varieties that yield five to10 tons of seeds per
hectare. At this yield, castor starts to be profitable as a
biofuel," Krolzig declares.
Before closing any big deals, prospective clients are
testing Kaiima's claims in Mexico, Spain, Argentina and
other South American locations. "We just started selling
now; the customers want to try them first," adds Krolzig,
explaining that living biological material may behave
differently in different parts of the world.
Mitigating the dangers of global warming
Food crops that have undergone Kaiima's CGM technique tend
to show a greater tolerance to high temperatures and poor
soil conditions. The company believes it will be able to
produce rice varieties which can withstand ground
temperatures higher than 35 degrees Celsius. This
bio-technology may grant us some global food security if the
dire predictions about global warming prove accurate.
In addition, Kaiima says that its plant varieties may even
mitigate the dangers of global warming. Plants that undergo
CGM can absorb twice as much CO2 per unit leaf area and
their leaves are twice as big. They also use 20-30 percent
less water per accumulated biomass unit, according to the
company. Kaiima's conclusion is that CGM can be used to
effectively mitigate global CO2 emissions and save water.
Kaiima was founded in 2002, by Amit Avidov, an agronomist
with 30 years experience in seed breeding. (The company was
originally named Bio Fuel, but changed its name in 2006.)
Prior to this, he worked for Morning Seeds and Top Seeds,
and was chief breeder at De Ruiter Seeds, a Dutch seed
company later sold to Monsanto.
At present, Kaiima is involved in projects to multiply the
genomes and increase the yield of other plants for fuel and
food. They are working with jatropha, rapeseed (canola),
rice, wheat, sugarcane and eucalyptus.
Based in Ramat Yishai, Kaiima employs between 60 and 80
people and all its operations are in Israel. It is backed by
the venture funds Draper Fisher Jurvetson and DFJ-Tamir
Fishman, and recently raised $8 million in investment money.
Krolzig sums up the company raison d'etre: With biofuels we
are "not disturbing the balance."
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