Lawrence Berkeley National Lab: Oil from Tobacco Leaves

ORIGINAL: UC ARPA-E

FOLIUM is a collaborative project between LBNL, UC Berkeley, JGI and The Kentucky Tobacco Research & Development Center (KTRDC) at Univ. of Kentucky and is funded by ARPA-E. The FOLIUM team, which consists of a bunch of unusually attractive people, can be viewed on the here. 

Other FOLIUM team members are:

• Ling Meng, Postdoc in the Jansson lab
• Hanwool Park, Research Assistant in the Jansson lab
• Hsu-Ching Winz, Molecualr Biology Specialist in the Melis lab
• Tamara Miller Lab assistant in the Lemaux lab
• Judith Adhiambo-Otwi, Postdoc in the Lemaux lab
• Lauriebeth Leonelli, Postdoc in theNiyogi lab
• Fei Cai, Postdoc in the Kerfeld lab
• Barunava Patra, Postdoc in the Chamber/ Yuan lab
• Yongmei Wu, Visiting Scholar in the Chamber/Yuan lab

The FOLIUM concept is to develop tobacco as a platform for foliar production of advanced hydrocarbon fuels. This involves: 

1. Installing pathways for alkane and isoprenoid biosynthesis and accumulation in tobacco leaves via chloroplast and nuclear transformation. 
2. Optimize carbon flux toward hydrocarbon biosynthesis. 
3. Enhance photosynthetic light efficiency and CO2 uptake. 
4. Improve planting, cultivation and harvesting practices of tobacco. 

In the context of foliar production of oil and oil-based biofuels, tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) emerges as a system of great potential: 

1. Tobacco is an outstanding industrial biomass crop with large leaf surface area, and a high leaf-to-stem ratio. 
2. It can be coppiced to generate multiple harvests per year. 
3. Large-scale agricultural infrastructure for planting, growing, harvesting and handling tobacco leaves is in place. 
4. The tobacco farmers would benefit by using tobacco as a biofuel crop plant. 
5. Tobacco is already cultivated in large land tracts of the US and many countries overseas. It is grown in over 100 countries worldwide, can be cultivated on marginal land unsuitable for food crops, and has a wider geographic geographic range than either corn or sugar cane. 
6. Tobacco is not part of the food supply chain. Thus biosynthesis of oil-based biofuels in tobacco leaves, as opposed to oil seeds in soybean or canola, avoids the potential problem of competition with the food/feed sector. 
7. Tobacco is highly amenable to genetic and molecular manipulations of both the nuclear and plastid genomes. With 500 to 10,000 copies of the plastome per cell in tobacco leaves, the possibility exist for very high overexpression of selected genes. 
8. Sequencing and annotation of the tobacco nuclear genome is currently in progress. The work in my group has a dual focus: 
   1. Introduce the alkane biosynthesis pathway from cyanobacteria into tobacco chloroplasts (Fig. 1). 
   2. Enhance CO2 uptake in tobacco by introduction of bicarbonate transporters from cyanobacteria into tobacco chloroplasts.

Scientists at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's FOLIUM Project, funded by ARPA-E, use light to convert the carbon in tobacco leaves into biofuels.

LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LAB: OIL FROM TOBACCO LEAVES

CRITICAL NEED

Traditional biofuels production is limited by the small amount of solar energy plants convert by photosynthesis into plant material that is readily processed into fuels and by inefficient fuel conversion techniques. New robust, farm-ready crops are needed that produce more easily convertible fuel precursors per acre at dramatically lower costs. If successful, advanced biofuels would offer a renewable alternative to petroleum-based fuels that produces nearly zero net greenhouse gas emissions. Biofuels must be produced at close to half their current cost to make them cost-competitive with petroleum-based fuels.

PROJECT INNOVATION + ADVANTAGES

LBNL is modifying tobacco to enable it to directly produce fuel molecules in its leaves for use as a biofuel. 

Tobacco is a good crop for biofuels production because it is an outstanding biomass crop, has a long history of cultivation, does not compete with the national food supply, and is highly responsive to genetic manipulation. LBNL will incorporate traits for hydrocarbon biosynthesis from cyanobacteria and algae, and enhance light utilization and carbon uptake in tobacco, improving the efficiency of photosynthesis so more fuel can be produced in the leaves. The tobacco-generated biofuels can be processed for gasoline, jet fuel or diesel alternatives. LBNL is also working to optimize methods for planting, cultivating and harvesting tobacco to increase biomass production several-fold over the level of traditional growing techniques.

IMPACT

If successful, LBNL’s project would genetically engineer tobacco to enable it to produce oil directly from its leaves. This could enable large scale production of oils, which could eventually begin to replace petroleum-based fuels.

SECURITY: The transportation sector accounts for nearly all of our petroleum imports. Providing an advanced biofuels alternative to petroleum will allow the U.S. to reduce these imports, improving our energy independence.

ENVIRONMENT: More than 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from the transportation sector. Because plants naturally absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, the level of greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels is less than half that of petroleum fuels.

ECONOMY: The U.S. imports nearly $1 billion in petroleum each day, accounting for the single largest factor in our trade balance with the rest of the world. Biofuels can be produced domestically, allowing us to keep more dollars at home.

JOBS: A self-sustaining biofuels industry that is cost-competitive with oil is well-positioned to see job growth in the agricultural, engineering, and research sectors.

CONTACTS

ARPA-E Program Director:

Dr. Jonathan Burbaum,

jonathan.burbaum@hq.doe.gov

Project Contact:

Dr. Christer Jansson,

cgjansson@lbl.gov