Technology Benefits

Responding to the market need for lower-cost ways to produce cellulosic biofuels such as ethanol and butanol, Edenspace is developing Energy Corn™ and other enhanced energy crops to accomplish a number of important objectives:

Benefits for the farmer: Greater profits

• Greater yield per acre. Energy Corn™ significantly increases the ethanol yield per acre compared to corn grain ethanol alone, thereby providing farmer cost efficiencies and higher farm profits.

• New markets. Enabling the farmer to sell corn leaves, stems and cobs ("stover") as well as corn grain increases farm profits by diversifying markets.

Benefits for the biorefinery: Lower costs

• Lower enzyme costs. Crop plants can produce large quantities of enzymes in their biomass at essentially zero variable cost, compared to microbial enzymes that are added during conversion and today are estimated to cost as much as $1.00 per gallon.

• Lower preprocessing costs. Edenspace's crop-produced enzymes are pre-mixed with cellulose inside the crop plants which reduces capital costs and operating costs of pretreatment and hydrolysis, two crucial processing steps that account for more than one-third of today's cost of producing cellulosic ethanol.

Benefits for the consumer: Lower fuel costs and environmental sustainability from "non-food" ethanol

• Lower fuel costs. Lower-cost, "non-food" cellulosic ethanol can provide a competitive alternative to gasoline at a time of rising oil prices.

• Carbon sequestration. The ability to produce greater amounts of renewable fuels from non-food sources reduces the need for fossil fuels and results in a significantly lower carbon footprint. According to the U.S. Department of Energy ("DOE"), E-85 ethanol produced from biomass can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 64% compared to gasoline.

• Positive fossil fuel ratio. According to the DOE, ethanol produced from cellulosic sources can provide about 10 times more energy per unit of energy used than ethanol produced from corn grain, and about 12 times more than gasoline.