Advanced BioFuels USA

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Crop yield and oil content increases of up to 50% and 34% seen from ZeaKal’s HME technology.  Though in early days — what’s going on?

… A successful Series A is always a good indication that, while it is early days for a technology, there is a good idea being worked on that has acquired some level of validation in the lab.

In ZeaKal’s case, even more so — because it comes out of the Kapyon portfolio of companies, based in San Diego, a venture firm with an interesting idea of how to leverage research coming out of universities and government research institutes. A Series A, then, that in some ways acts like a Series B or C and is indicative of a technology much closer to the market.

…ZeaKal is focused on plant science — specifically focused on raising the production of biomass in specific crop targets including soybeans and rice. It’s HME technology has shown crop yield and oil content increases of up to 50% and 34%, respectively. Interestingly, this is a technology that is focused on increasing the efficiency of how oilseed plants, for example, handle their current levels of inputs rather than increasing input levels.

“…Of the 350,000 or so species out there, almost all of them are only 1-2 percent efficient in photosynthesis. At the top of the pile you have something like sugarcane at 5 percent.” (ZeaKal’s executive chairman Jerry Caulder)

…”If you can increase biomass without input – more efficient in using sunlight, take them from 1-2 to 3-4 percent — that’s double the production, and you are still at bottom of the curve.”

ZeaKal is accessing two families of IP developed within Kapyon and its ecosystem of research activities — increasing both yield and oil content.

…Currently, plants know a lot about how to sequester carbon by making oil, but that oil is safely encapsulated in the oilseed, which the plant regards as permanent rather than temporary carbon storage. It never steals carbon back from the seed.

In other words, carbon needs a new suit — a technology to safely encapsulate oil (and thereby carbon) carbon in no-traditional parts of the plant and permit it to accumulate. Like Ironman, the path to power may well be in the suit.

In this case, the company has developed a means of storing oil in other parts of the plant — by developing a means of encapsulating the oil. It hopes over the next two years, for example, to demonstrate that it can express genes in soybeans to get a stable accumulation of oil within the leaf as well as the seed.

So, you avoid the problem that other pathways run in to, if they focus on increasing oil production at the expense of other items, such as protein. Protein is money, too — it can cost a farmer by reducing protein quality and hence the marginal value of the plant.

… Interestingly, there are some early stage discussions with companies like SGB that are focused on developing energy crops such as jatropha. It could well expand to other oil seed crops such as canola, palm, camelina or carinata.  READ MORE