Thousand Oaks, California
April 29, 2008
Energy crop company
Ceres, Inc. plans to market
its agricultural seeds and traits under the trade name Blade
Energy Crops in the United States. Company president and CEO
Richard Hamilton unveiled the new brand at the BIO World
Congress on Industrial Biotechnology in Chicago earlier today.
"Blade will be the first multi-crop seed brand supplying the new
market for non-food, low-carbon biofuel feedstocks," Hamilton
said. These biomass-dense crops will be grown as raw materials
for next-generation biofuels and biopower. One of the great
appeals of energy crops is that they can thrive on agricultural
lands that are ill-suited to food production.
"Supported by the latest technology in genomics-based breeding,
trait development and compositional analysis, we are positioning
Blade as a premium seed brand for biofuel and biopower
feedstocks. For growers, that means high yields and greater
yield stability. Downstream, it means easier processing, and
ultimately, more energy per ton of biomass," said Hamilton.
"From both an economic and environmental perspective, if we are
going to turn plant matter into fuel, we should use feedstocks
that give us the maximum fuel yield per acre."
Seed supplies of the first products to be sold under the Blade
name are currently being multiplied for Spring 2009 sowing.
These include the nation's first switchgrass cultivars developed
specifically for biofuels, EG 1101 and EG 1102, as well as
high-biomass types of sorghum. "We expect the seed market for
dedicated energy crops to grow in step with investments in
bioenergy," Hamilton said.
Ceres vice president of commercial development Anna Rath says
that feedstock supply has become a top-of-mind question for many
biofuel producers as the industry moves from pilot-scale to
demonstration and commercial-scale projects.
"We are working with biorefineries to set up feedstock supplies,
offering support in crop selection and agronomy as well as the
opportunity for an assured supply of seed. Most biofuel
producers will use a mix of crops to mitigate risk and to
provide flexibility from year to year," said Rath. She noted
that high yielding, dedicated energy crops are needed in many
places since widely dispersed sources of biomass are
cost-prohibitive to collect and transport. "This issue becomes
more evident as scale is increased," she said.
Due to their high yields, energy crops can produce more fuel
per-acre than first-generation biofuel crops, and further
mitigate greenhouse gas emissions since these new crops require
fewer inputs and actually build new topsoil. Ethanol made from
switchgrass, for instance, produces 90% less greenhouse gas
emissions than petroleum, and nearly five times more net energy
than starch-based ethanol. Further improvements are likely as
breeders introduce new seed varieties and innovations in
refining technology are commercialized.
The company says the Blade name was inspired by its first crops,
switchgrass, sorghum and canes, which are from a category of
closely related grass species, known as C4 grasses. C4 grasses
are the natural world's most efficient engines of
photosynthesis, the process by which plants store solar energy
in the form of carbohydrates. New technologies have made it
possible to convert the most abundant form of these energy-rich
molecules, called cellulose, into renewable fuels.
The Blade brand will appear on the company's seed packaging and
farm-oriented marketing materials. The plant breeding and
biotech firm will maintain the well-recognized Ceres name as its
corporate identity as well as in its collaborations with
biorefineries and biofuel technology providers.
Ceres, Inc. is a leading
developer of high-yielding energy crops that can be planted as
feedstocks for cellulosic ethanol production and biopower. Its
development efforts cover switchgrass, sorghum, miscanthus,
energycane and short-rotation woody crops. Ceres holds one of
the world's largest proprietary collections of fully sequenced
plant genes. The privately held company also licenses its
technology and traits to other organizations. |
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