Fermenting Galactose! Seaweed May Be A Viable Biofuel

Metabolic engineering may rescue our energy future. A new strain of yeast that is more efficient at fermenting galactose might make red seaweed a viable future biofuel. Producers of biofuels made from terrestrial biomass crops have had difficulty breaking down recalcitrant fibers and extracting fermentable sugars. The harsh pretreatment processes used to release the sugars also resulted in toxic byproducts, inhibiting subsequent microbial fermentation. But perhaps marine biomass can be more easily degraded to fermentable sugars, leading to production rates and range of distribution higher than terrestrial biomass. read more

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