Over the following week, I read through almost all the relevant literature I could find.
From Brazilian sugarcane ethanol and American corn ethanol to ongoing energy crop experiments in Europe, as well as research on producing fuel from cellulosic raw materials such as straw and wood.
The more I read, the more I felt that I had rejoiced too early before.
Because using plants to produce fuel is not a new thing at all.
Brazil began large-scale promotion of fuel ethanol more than a decade ago, and in Europe, some people are even researching a triploid Miscanthus hybrid similar to F-47.
Although cellulosic ethanol has been researched for many years, it has never been able to be commercialized on a large scale, mainly because the cost is too high.
Plant cell walls contain a large amount of cellulose and hemicellulose, but these substances are all wrapped by complex lignin structures.
To convert them into sugar, one must first use methods such as high temperature, acid and alkali treatment to destroy the cell wall, and then use expensive cellulase for decomposition.
Even if sugar is successfully obtained, ordinary yeast cannot make full use of the xylose in it, resulting in a considerable portion of the raw material being wasted.
According to the results of my first experiment, F-47 can theoretically only provide a little over two thousand liters of ethanol per hectare, which is even inferior to sugarcane in Brazil.
What is more, this does not even calculate the costs of harvesting, transportation, pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and distillation.
If I took such results and ran to tell someone who truly understands the energy industry that I had found a plant that could change the world, I would probably be treated as an idiot.
However, these literatures also made me notice another problem.
Since the biggest difficulty of cellulosic ethanol is not the lack of plant raw materials, but the too high cost of converting plants into sugar, the exceptionally easy-to-decompose characteristic of F-47 may be more worth studying than its yield and sugar content.
After all, it is just a wild plant dug up from the river beach of the Ishikari River, without any specialized energy crop breeding.
If it had been improved in the direction of industrial raw materials from the very beginning, coupled with more efficient processing technology, what level could it finally reach?
I do not know.
But I really want to try.
...
Over the next few months, I spent a lot of my spare time on F-47.
In May, I divided the underground rhizomes of the original mother plant into twelve parts and borrowed the tissue culture room of the strawberry research group to try to establish a rapid propagation method.
This matter even caused a little trouble.
Because the work of the strawberry group was very busy, and I often borrowed equipment when no one was around at night, as a result, one time I forgot to put the medium back in its original place, and the seniors over there came looking for me the next day.
After discussing it, when no one is using it on Sunday, I can go over and work for a while.
However, the progress of tissue culture was not smooth, and most of the time I still had to rely on rhizome division.
At the same time, the overwintering records sent back from Tokachi in April also disappointed me a bit.
F-47 performed well in Shakotan, but the winter in Tokachi was obviously much colder, and the snow conditions were also different. Its overwintering rate there was only 71 percent, which was even lower than the average level of all local materials.
Mr. Otsuka also attached a sentence at the end of the report:
"Is that grass that fell down in a complete mess still going to be planted this year?"
I told him, of course it has to be planted.
Because I no longer care much whether it can become high-quality cattle feed.
What truly interests me is its unusual cell wall.
...
On June 10, 1991, I saw a group notice on the bulletin board of the research institute.
"Call for Research Projects Related to Long-Term Energy Security."
The research scope listed in the notice was quite broad, ranging from new energy storage, hydrogen energy, and synthetic fuels to biomass energy, agricultural and industrial waste utilization, and even directions such as geothermal and solar energy.
The group did not seem to intend to limit specific technical routes; as long as it could improve long-term energy security, an application could be submitted.
Moreover, projects with outstanding results could also obtain additional funding, equipment, and personnel support.
I stood in front of the bulletin board for a long time, and then spent ten days compiling nineteen pages of application materials, submitting a research plan to the technical committee of the group in my own name for the first time.
The project name was "Feasibility Study on Producing Fuel Ethanol Using High-Digestibility Miscanthus Plants in Cold Regions."
After the application was submitted, I went to the mailroom almost every day to take a look.
Until July 15, the results finally came.
My application was rejected.
There were mainly three reasons: insufficient field data, the applicant lacking professional ability in fermentation engineering, and the project not being formally recommended by the affiliated research institution.
The technical committee suggested that I supplement the data and reapply in the next round of solicitation.
The next solicitation will be next spring.
Holding the rejection notice, I sat in the office for an entire afternoon and finally had to admit that everything they said was right.
Especially the second one.
I truly do not understand chemical engineering, nor do I understand true industrial fuel production.
If someone gave me one hundred million yen right now and asked me to build a cellulosic ethanol pilot plant, I would not even know who to look for to design it first.
The problem lies right here.
I need people who understand these technologies, but to recruit them into the project team, I must first obtain funding; and to apply for funding, I need to produce sufficiently reliable research results.
After figuring this out, I had to temporarily abandon the plan to expand the project.
Since there is temporarily no way to increase personnel, I will first do well what I can do myself.
...
In August, the evaluation of F-47 divisions finally made some progress.
Among the twelve divisions, the material numbered F-47-8 performed best. Its stalks were slightly thicker than the original mother plant, and the lodging situation had also improved, while still maintaining high sugar content and fiber digestibility.
Of course, this does not mean that I have bred a new variety.
Rhizome divisions should genetically be consistent with the original mother plant, and the differences in F-47-8 may just be caused by planting conditions or other environmental factors.
But it is at least worth continuing to propagate and observe.
So, I gave it a new number.
SF-01.
SF is the abbreviation of S-Farm, and 01 represents that I am ready to continue studying it as the first-generation candidate material.
However, what I really need to solve is still the problem of saccharification cost.
Although previous experiments proved that F-47 can release more sugar, it still used conventional pretreatment methods.
If a large amount of chemical reagents and expensive cellulase must be used, what is the meaning of it being slightly easier to decompose than ordinary forage grass?
Therefore, starting in September, I decided to change the experimental method.
Initially, I just tried to lower the pretreatment temperature and lye concentration to see if I could save some costs.
According to common sense, the milder the treatment conditions, the harder it is to destroy the plant cell wall, and the less sugar should be released in the end.
The performance of ordinary Miscanthus materials is indeed like this.
But F-47 is different.
On October 8, I completed a new set of control experiments.
This time, I placed ordinary Miscanthus and F-47 under the same mild treatment conditions and reduced the cellulase dosage to one-fifth of the previous experiment.
After the results came out, I thought I had gotten the sample numbers wrong.
The sugar release amount of ordinary Miscanthus dropped sharply, and only 4.6 grams of sugar could be obtained per 100 grams of dry matter.
F-47 reached 42.7 grams.
This figure even exceeded the 33.8 grams obtained previously using stronger pretreatment methods.
I re-checked the instruments and sample records and found no problems, then conducted two duplicate experiments, and the results obtained were 41.9 grams and 43.3 grams respectively.
The results of several measurements were quite close.
This was somewhat strange.
Because previous analysis believed that F-47 simply had a low lignin content and its cell wall was relatively easy to decompose.
However, after reducing the treatment intensity, the sugar release amount of ordinary Miscanthus dropped sharply, while F-47 achieved even better results instead.
It seems difficult to explain such an obvious difference just by the lignin content being a few percentage points lower.
I began to suspect that what makes F-47 truly special might not be the lignin content, but its structure.
...
Over the next month or so, I poured almost all the available free time I had into this matter.
To eliminate experimental errors, I conducted duplicate experiments using samples harvested on different dates and materials from different divisions, and also asked other researchers to perform measurements without knowing the sample numbers.
The results remained unchanged throughout.
Moreover, as the treatment conditions continued to be adjusted, I discovered an even more astonishing phenomenon.
When we further reduced the lye concentration and controlled the treatment temperature at around sixty degrees Celsius, the sugar release efficiency of F-47 could actually continue to increase.
After multiple rounds of experiments, in mid-November, I finally obtained a set of data that I could hardly believe.
Under conditions without high-pressure equipment and only conducting mild alkali treatment, using about one-tenth of the cellulase dosage of the initial experiment, F-47 was able to release 61.8 grams of sugar per 100 grams of dry matter available for subsequent fermentation utilization.
Subsequent duplicate experiments yielded 60.9 grams and 62.4 grams respectively.
That is to say, under our experimental conditions, F-47 was able to release almost all convertible carbohydrates in its own dry matter.
Under the same conditions, ordinary Miscanthus had a sugar release amount of less than six grams.
I did not even dare to write this result into the official report immediately.
Because it was simply too unusual.
According to the literature I had reviewed, traditional cellulosic raw materials require quite complex processing to allow cellulase to come into contact with enough cellulose.
Yet F-47 seemed not to need those expensive steps.
What was even stranger was that the previous stronger alkali treatment did not achieve such good results.
I suspected that overly drastic treatment might have destroyed some sugars or produced substances that hindered subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis.
If the cell wall of F-47 indeed has a certain special structure, then the traditional processing methods we used in the past might not be suitable for it at all.
Later, I asked someone to consult the researchers in the center responsible for plant biochemical analysis.
After looking at the data, the other party proposed a possibility.
Inside the lignin of F-47, or between lignin and other cell wall components, there might exist some kind of chemical linkage that is exceptionally prone to breaking.
These structures can maintain the basic strength of the cell wall when the plant is growing normally, but under specific mild chemical conditions, they will be easier to destroy than the corresponding structures in ordinary plants.
If this judgment is correct, it can explain why F-47 does not require drastic pretreatment to expose a large amount of cellulose.
Of course, this is just a guess.
To figure out what kind of molecular structure it actually possesses, specialized analytical equipment and higher-level researchers are still needed.
But at least one thing can already be determined.
F-47 is by no means just a wild grass with relatively high sugar content.
...
At the end of November, I recalculated its theoretical fuel yield.
According to the data that about sixty grams of sugar can be released per 100 grams of dry matter, if microorganisms that utilize both glucose and xylose can be used in the future, the actual ethanol yield is expected to increase significantly.
Based on the current dry matter yield of 14.2 tons per hectare for F-47, even considering losses during the fermentation process, there is theoretically a chance to obtain more than four thousand liters of ethanol.
This is already significantly higher than my initial estimate.
And its yield is far from reaching the limit.
In European energy crop research, some Miscanthus giganteus materials have already shown an annual dry matter production potential of more than twenty tons per hectare.
If we can increase the annual yield of F-47 to twenty-five tons, thirty tons, or even higher through breeding, while retaining this special saccharification trait, what then?
According to current experimental results, producing eight thousand to over ten thousand liters of ethanol per hectare in the future is not completely impossible.
Of course, these are only theoretical estimations.
What truly excites me is actually another number.
One-tenth.
Our latest experiment has reduced the cellulase dosage to about one-tenth of the initial experiment, and also eliminated the requirement for a large amount of high-temperature and high-pressure pretreatment in traditional processes.
If these advantages can be verified in industrial production, then not only the fuel yield per hectare, but the cost of the entire production process could decrease significantly.
I tried making a very rough cost estimate based on the prices of industrial equipment, energy, and raw materials in the literature.
The results show that as long as the problems of large-scale cultivation and fermentation efficiency can be solved in the future, a mature production system established on the basis of F-47 has the hope of reducing the cost of ethanol to a range where it no longer relies on heavy subsidies and can compete with traditional petroleum fuels.
Of course, the calorific value per unit volume of ethanol is lower than that of gasoline, so the prices per liter cannot be compared directly.
Moreover, harvesting, transportation, and distillation still consume a lot of energy, and these problems will not automatically disappear just because the plant is easily saccharified.
But I feel that it is at least necessary to seriously study this possibility.
Because if it can really be realized, then cellulosic fuels, which have long lacked commercial competitiveness, might have the opportunity to become a truly bulk industrial product.
More importantly, F-47 itself has not yet undergone any specialized improvement.
This made me realize for the first time that what I hold in my hand may not just be a promising energy crop.
It might even be a key to solving the long-standing cost puzzle of the cellulosic fuel industry.
In December, I took the latest experimental results and went to see Professor Kishima again.
The professor spent nearly two hours reading the report, especially those sets of saccharification data under different pretreatment conditions, which he checked repeatedly.
In the end, he told me that this material already had reason to apply for an independent research project.
However, it must first be verified by other research institutions.
Because the current experiments were all completed in Shakotan, the scale was too small, and the specific structure of the special cell wall has not been figured out.
Even if the experimental results are completely correct, there is no guarantee that such efficiency can be maintained after scaling up to industrial production.
Moreover, the actual commercial costs still need to be recalculated by experts in chemical engineering.
What the professor said made a lot of sense.
It's just that he subsequently told me that the research center could at most continue to provide the existing breeding and analysis conditions.
If a specialized enzyme engineering, fermentation engineering team, and true industrial testing facilities are needed, an application must be made to the Saionji Group headquarters.
He was willing to sign the official application form next spring.
I asked him, what if we don't wait until next year?
The professor looked at me for a while and finally said:
"Yamada, if these data are true, then it indeed should not continue to be solely managed by our forage research laboratory."
"But I cannot ask the Saionji Group to immediately approve a project whose cost is unknown just because you think it is important."
I knew what he meant.
Scientific research cannot rely solely on enthusiasm, and funds are not unlimited.
However, I no longer wanted to wait another full year.
Because the problem now is not just needing more experiments, and I simply don't have the conditions to complete those truly important experiments.
Relying on borrowed instruments and a budget of 3.8 million yen a year, how many years would it take me to figure out the true value of F-47?
At the end of 1991, I reorganized all the materials of F-47, including the original collection records, over two years of growth surveys, chromosome analysis, and the saccharification and fermentation experiments conducted since March.
I also specially bound the data obtained after October into a separate volume and requested the research institute to impose restricted custody on the complete materials.
After all, if these findings truly have major commercial value, the original germplasm and experimental data of F-47 should not casually fall into the hands of other companies.
Compared to the initial 19-page application, the materials this time were much thicker.
And what I wanted to apply for was already completely different.
I was no longer satisfied with getting a few million yen in breeding funds; I hoped that the Saionji Group could establish an independent research team composed of personnel from plant breeding, biochemistry, microbiology, and chemical engineering.
It would be even better to build a small-scale testing facility to truly verify how many chemical reagents and enzymes are needed per ton of raw material, and how much ethanol can ultimately be produced.
Only by obtaining these data can we judge whether F-47 is a special experimental material or an energy crop sufficient to change the entire cellulosic fuel industry.
However, I had another idea that I hadn't told the professor.
I hoped to be personally in charge of this research.
Saying it out loud might seem a bit immodest; after all, I was just an ordinary researcher and had never even had the experience of independently leading large-scale research projects.
But F-47 was dug back by me from the Ishikari River, and it was also me who bit by bit discovered its peculiarity and personally completed the initial experiments.
If it ultimately proves to be of major value, I naturally hoped that my name could remain on this achievement.
More importantly, I didn't want to suddenly receive a notice one day saying that the research had been handed over to other departments, and I had to go back to continue studying cattle feed.
Therefore, I felt I should proactively fight for it once.
January 3, 1992.
Today is the New Year holiday, and the research institute has not fully resumed work.
I came to the office alone and re-checked all the materials from these past years.
The one on top was still the project establishment application dated April 10, 1989.
Project Name: "Collection and Evaluation of Germplasm of Cold-Resistant Perennial High-Yield Forage."
Annual Budget: 3.8 million yen.
Project Leader: Toshihiko Yamada.
Over two years ago, being able to independently lead such a project already made me feel very satisfied.
But now, I wanted to apply to the Saionji Group for research funding that might be tens or even hundreds of times higher.
I couldn't give an exact answer as to how much money was needed yet, but I knew that someone had to be willing to support us in completing the next stage of research, otherwise these experimental data would forever remain only on paper.
Thinking of this, I dug out the Saionji Group energy research plan notice from last June.
It was written very clearly above that for technologies with long-term strategic value, the Saionji Group allows cross-institutional organization of scientific research teams and will add funding and personnel based on research results.
Since that was the case, I wanted to give it a try.
I was going to go to the Saionji Group headquarters in Tokyo personally.
First find the Saionji Group Technical Committee, and if they still couldn't make a decision, strive to report to a higher level.
If necessary, I even wanted to see that Miss Saionji.
Her status within the Saionji Group nowadays was long no secret.
Over the past year, photos of her attending various commercial activities could often be seen in newspapers, and I heard that many major investments and technical projects of the Saionji Group ultimately had to be decided by her personally.
I don't know how much she understands about biology, but she certainly has the power to decide whether Saionji is willing to invest sufficient resources for this research.
Moreover, since the Saionji Group has already started soliciting long-term energy security projects, she should at least be willing to listen to a new technology that could significantly reduce the production cost of liquid fuels.
I thought, if she could see those experimental results with her own eyes, perhaps things would be different.
Of course, I was also prepared to be rejected.
After all, from tens of grams of sugar in the laboratory to industrial facilities producing hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel annually, there were still too many problems to be resolved in between.
But at least, I was now able to produce something truly unusual.
Especially that set of experimental data under mild treatment conditions, which converted almost all available carbohydrates in the raw material into sugar.
If it can be further verified, then the value of F-47 will by no means be just slightly higher yielding than other forages.
These past few days, newspapers have been full of news about Saionji Tower.
That 500-meter-tall black building was nearing its official launch, and various departments of the Saionji Group were preparing to move in successively.
I've seen photos, and it really looks magnificent.
What kind of feeling would it be if one could work there...
Looking back at my own office now, there was a microscope that had been used for several years on the table, a few pots of grass waiting to be transplanted in the corner, and the senior from the strawberry group next door was even urging me to return the borrowed equipment as soon as possible.
The gap between the two sides was indeed a bit too large.
However, I had already made up my mind.
When that tower is officially put into use, I will take SF-01 to Tokyo and personally hand over these years of experimental data and the next-stage research plan into the hands of the person who can decide its fate.
An ordinary researcher with an annual budget of only 3.8 million yen is not qualified to request to meet the top person in charge of the Saionji Group.
Toshihiko Yamada
January 3, 1992, Shakotan.