Kingston, Ontario, Canada
March 4, 2009
Performance Plants
Inc. (PPI), a global leader in agricultural and biofuel
biotechnology development and Sustainable Development Technology
Canada (SDTC) are pleased to announce that a project led by PPI
will be receiving up to $5,565,063 in funding from SDTC. The
funds will be used to advance its trait technologies that
improve conversion of cellulose into cost-effective biofuels and
biochemicals. The announcement was made today by Natural
Resources Minister Lisa Raitt and Vicky Sharpe, SDTC President
and Chief Executive Officer.
"The support of SDTC is important and greatly appreciated as it
validates the efficacy of our technologies to more efficiently
convert non-food biomass into cellulosic ethanol," says Peter
Matthewman, President, Performance Plants. "We believe our
technologies are the critical link to developing a profitable
and sustainable clean energy sector that replaces such
feedstocks as coal and petroleum with non-food biomass crops."
According to Matthewman, the challenge has been breaking down
cellulose — tight chains of indigestible sugar molecules that
make up the majority of plant cell walls — for conversion into
renewable sources of energy. PPI has discovered a family of
technologies called Enhanced Conversion Technology™ (ECT™) that
alter plant cell walls to significantly improve their conversion
into biofuels.
The primary use of the SDTC funding will be to develop ECT™ to
improve the amount of releasable glucose and develop these
traits in non-food crops to increase their conversion
efficiency. The SDTC funding support will also be used to
support the acceleration of Performance Plants' Biomass
Enhancement™ (BET™) and Water Use Efficiency™ (WET™)
technologies. These yield stabilization technologies will be
combined (stacked) with ECT™ to further reduce costs by
significantly increasing feedstock yield per hectare of land.
These traits are just some of the technologies developed by the
company, which include Yield Protection Technology® (YPT®) and
other traits that stabilize seed yields in drought and heat
conditions and improve seed size.
"Current assessments for the North American biofuels market
indicate that over 1 billion tons of dry biomass per year will
be required to switch current petroleum consumption to 30%
renewable fuels," says Mr. Matthewman. "Non-food purpose grown
energy crops can provide the yield per hectare necessary to
sustainably and cost-efficiently support a new clean energy
industrial sector."
PPI's next generation of non-food biofuel crops will also
provide benefits to farmers by providing alternative crops such
as switch grass, Miscanthus, sorghum and hemp that can be grown
on marginal land with limited fertilizer and water requirements.
This next generation biofuel conversion technologies will be
driven by PPI trait improvements have the potential to offer the
necessary solutions for Canada to create a viable, profitable
new clean energy industrial sector that use reliable,
consistent, non-food feedstocks with superior processing
characteristics, according to Mr. Matthewman. PPI is currently
working with its partners to enable the value chain that will
see these improvements brought to commercial reality.
Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) is an
arm's-length foundation which has received $1.05 billion from
the Government of Canada as part of its commitment to create a
healthy environment and a high quality of life for all
Canadians.
SDTC operates two funds aimed at the development and
demonstration of innovative technological solutions. The $550
million SD Tech Fund™ supports projects that address climate
change, air quality, clean water and clean soil. The $500
million NextGen Biofuels Fund™ supports the establishment of
first-of-kind large demonstration-scale facilities for the
production of next-generation renewable fuels.
SDTC operates as a not-for-profit corporation and has been
working with the public and private sector including industry,
academia, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the financial
community and all levels of government to achieve this mandate.
Performance Plants
Inc. (PPI) is a global leader in agricultural and biofuel
technology development. The company's patented technologies
weatherproof food and non-food biofuel crops through periods of
drought and heat stress resulting in a more abundant, consistent
and cost-effective harvests for farmers, and feedstock
suppliers. The company has licensed its breakthrough Yield
Protection Technology® to some of the world's leading seed
companies such as Syngenta, Stine, RiceTec and Scotts Miracle
Gro. Headquartered in Kingston, Ontario, the privately-held
company has research and development facilities in Kingston,
Saskatoon, and Waterloo, New York.
This Canadian based firm is actively growing non-food biofuel
crops to replace coal at Lafarge Canada Inc.'s cement plant in
Bath, ON. PPI and Lafarge have a multi-year agreement to develop
and grow clean energy biomass. |
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