Feb. 4, 2011 Food versus fuel -- this rivalry is gaining
significance against a backdrop of increasingly scarce farmland
and a concurrent trend towards the use of bio-fuels. Researchers
at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) are helping to
resolve this rivalry: They are working to effectively utilize
residual field crop material -- which has been difficult to use
thus far -- for the industrial production of bio-ethanol. They
took a closer look at bacteria that transform cellulose into
sugar, thereby increasing the energy yield from plants utilized.
If this approach works, both bread and bio-fuel could come from
the same harvest in the future. The age of diesel and gasoline
is approaching its inevitable end. However, one of the
alternatives, bio-ethanol made from plant material by way of
microorganism fermentation, is under attack. Until now, bio-
ethanol has been produced from crops such as wheat, sugar cane
or corn, or more accurately, from the sugar these crops contain
in the form of starch. However,