Mission

Background

Purpose

Why Yeast?

Technology

Successes

Endorsements

Recognition

About
Dr. Nancy Ho

Purpose

In the last twenty-five years, our government has spent considerable research dollars developing various technologies to convert cellulosic biomass to ethanol. The development of genetically engineered microorganisms for ethanol production from cellulosic biomass is just one such technology. In addition to the recombinant yeast developed by Dr. Ho’ s group, substantial progress has also been made in the development of various other technologies important to the effective production of ethanol from cellulosic biomass. Recently, Iogen, a Canadian company, has utilized many of these developments and inaugurated the production of cellulosic ethanol at industrial scale.

According to very conservative estimates reported by U.S. government agencies, 30% of the corn stover (the residue left behind in the cornfield after harvest) generated by American farmers could produce 4-5 billion gallons of ethanol per year. Other estimations were as high as 15 or more billion gallons of ethanol per year in the US from corn stover alone.

Producing between 5 and 15 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol will provide numerous high-paying jobs in rural areas and will save billions of dollars required to import oil from foreign countries.

We believe that cellulosic ethanol production in the US could begin with the smaller, farmer-owned ethanol plants by converting them into plants for co-producing both grain and cellulosic ethanol. The resulting plants could easily double their ethanol production and triple their profits using new recombinant yeasts to produce high-value co-products with grain-ethanol and cellulosic ethanol.

Ethanol plants usually do not produce their own yeast. Instead, yeast are purchased from yeast companies. Currently, most yeast companies provide yeasts for both the food and the ethanol industry. We believe there is a need for a new type of yeast company, which will not only focus upon the production of the recombinant yeast that can co-produce high value co-products for fuel ethanol production, but also work closely with the ethanol producers to recover and market the various co-products that could be generated from these new ethanol plants. Green Tech America is the first such unique yeast company to specifically serve the ethanol industry to jump-start cellulosic ethanol production in this country.