SPINNING STRAW INTO GOLD:

Magic mushroom: A fungus could solve the world's greenhouse gas problems (Canadian Business, December 2003)

Forget about those exotic hydrogen fuel-cell cars, and those hybrid engine systems, as well. An Ottawa-based biotech company, Iogen Corp., thinks it has found the answer to the world's greenhouse-gas problems: a fungus once known for its ability to rot U.S. army tents.

That may seem bizarre, but Iogen is just one of a growing army touting ethanol in gas tanks as the answer for meeting emission reductions under the Kyoto Accord. Right now, most ethanol is made pretty much the way Hiram Walker made booze: producers start with a grain, usually corn, then ferment and distil it. Iogen, however, says it has found a way to turn agricultural waste such as wheat straw into fuel. There are some details still to be worked out. But technological bugs may be only the beginning of Iogen's struggle.

Ethanol in the gas tank is hardly a radical idea. It's long been added in small amounts to gasoline to act as, among other things, an antifreeze. Newer cars can burn a mixture of gasoline that contains up to 10% ethanol. What the fuel's advocates dream of, however, is a world where that ethanol level is bumped up to 85%. But its clean-burning properties are offset to a considerable extent by all the oil that's consumed to plant corn, make the fertilizer, and then to harvest and haul the crop around. Rather than transforming oil into crops that are transformed into fuel, Iogen's system starts with stuff like wheat straw that has been burned or plowed under. Using an enzyme derived from the fungus that ate the army's tents during the Second World War, Iogen breaks out the sugars in the straw that can be fermented and distilled into ethanol. Iogen says the reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions with their ethanol is about 90%, compared to 30% for the conventional product.