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Cellulosic ethanol news:
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Green Prophet |
Put a Zebra in Your Tank: A Chemical Crapshoot?Green ProphetStart with cellulose, not sugar. Add some enzymes that convert the cellulose into sugar. Next ferment the sugar into alcohol. Then distill the alcohol into fuel. Four simple steps and we're juicing our cars with sawdust and coconut shells instead of ... |
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Cellulosic Ethanol news feed powered by
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Cellulosic ethanol companies leading the industry:
Abengoa Constructing the world's first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in Babilafuente (Salamanca), Spain using some components from SunOpta. Commissioning is expected to start in the summer of 2007. In 2006 Q4, a partnership was announced with Dyadic. Later this year, Abengoa plans to start conversion of a corn-based ethanol plant they own in York, Neb., into a bio-mass ethanol facility, which would initially use small grain straw and corn stover as the bio-mass feedstock.View or Post Comments
Alico In early 2007 the Dept of Energy announced it would award the company up to $33 million. The proposed plant will be in LaBelle (Hendry County), Florida. The plant will produce 13.9 million gallons of ethanol a year and 6,255 kilowatts of electric power, as well as 8.8 tons of hydrogen and 50 tons of ammonia per day. For feedstock, the plant will use 770 tons per day of yard, wood, and vegetative wastes and eventually energycane.
Archer Daniels Midland ADM is agressively studying how to produce cellulosic ethanol out of parts of the corn kernal that are traditionally not used for ethanol. ADM's new CEO Patricia Woertz (formerly the head of petroleum refining at Chevron) was quoted in March of 2007 saying: "We believe this process would boost our production of ethanol by 15% without requiring an additional ear of corn. Cellulosic applications such as this, on existing feedstocks, may be as little as 2 years away."
American Process, Inc. Inventor of AVAP technology which will be used at the Flambeau River Biorefinery project in Park Falls, WI. It will be the first modern U.S. based pulp mill biorefinery to produce cellulosic ethanol from from spent pulping liquor. Project engineering has commenced with a production of ethanol expected to begin as early as 2009.
BRI Energy Developed a process that uses gasification, fermentation and distillation to produce ethanol and electricity from a wide array of carbon-based wastes.
BlueFire Plans to use the Arkenol Technology Process (which has been used in Izumi, Japan since 2002) for creating cellulosic ethanol. View or Post Comments
Ceres Privately-held plant biotech company utilizing genomics technologies to develop energy crops, such as switchgrass, for cellulosic ethanol.
Colusa Though its stock is not for the faint of heart, the company is highly regarded by industry peers. Colusa has already harvested the rice straw which it expects to convert to ethanol when its California bio-refinery comes online in Q4 2007.
DuPont Partnering with Broin to bring cost-effective ethanol derived from corn stover to market. A pilot cellulosic ethanol production program is planned for South Dakota later in 2007.
Dyadic Spent over a decade of R&D in the design and development of enzymes for the increasingly efficient extraction of sugars from biomass. In 2006 Q4, a partnership was announced with Abengoa. View or Post Comments
Globex Developing supercritical fluid (SCF) which will be used along with enzymatic hydrolysis for the production of cellulosic ethanol.
Green Star Products Inc. Developed a waterless continuous flow process reactor system which will be used in upcoming cellulose ethanol plants planned for North Carolina and the Northwest.
Iogen Corp. Operates a demonstration scale facility to convert biomass to cellulose ethanol using enzymatic hydrolysis technology. Full scale commercial facilities are being planned. It is very likely they will annouce plans for an Idaho plant that will make ethanol from wheat straw.
Lignol Energy Corporation A western Canadian company, Lignol plans to build biorefineries for ethanol and co-products produced from Canadian forests. The Company has acquired and modified a solvent based pre-treatment technology originally developed by a subsidiary of General Electric (“GE”). Lignol also acquired the original GE pilot plant that is now being integrated with recently developed process capabilities to convert cellulose to ethanol.
Mascoma With a new CTO who spent over 10 years with SunOpta, Mascoma is developing bio and process technology for cost-effective conversion of cellulosic biomass. Khosla Ventures is a Mascoma investor.
Nova Fuels (maker of Novahol) Develops biomass-to-fuel conversion facilities (that use gasification technology) with joint venture partners.
Novozymes Developing enzymes that can convert cellulose into simple sugars, for fermentation into fuel ethanol. Has had collaboration/partnerships with Abengoa and Broin. View or Post Comments
Poet The Broin Companies changed their name to Poet on March 30, 2007. The largest dry mill ethanol producers in the US, Poet is collaborating with Novozymes in the research and development of cellulose ethanol technology. Poet will expand their Emmetsburg, Iowa facility to include cellulosic ethanol production from corn hulls and cobs. Completion is expected in 2009.
PureEnergy Developed a two-stage dilute acid hydrolysis technology process which will be used in the forthcoming Green Star Products, Inc projects.
Range Fuels The Colorado based company, formerly known as Kergy is funded by Khosla Ventures. It claims it can produce more cellulosic ethanol for a given amount of energy expended than is possible with any other competing process. Just as noteworthy: The design allows them to "bring systems to sources where biomass is most plentiful, instead of having to transport biomass to a central processing site." It should be known that some in the cellulosic industry tend to scoff at Range's process because they use gasification instead of fermentation. Regardless, the Dept of Energy still awarded the company up to $76 million to build a commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in the U.S. at a site near Soperton, Georgia.
SunOpta Built the first cellulosic ethanol plant 20 years ago, in France. Has four cellulosic ethanol projects which are or will be operational using SunOpta's technology and equipment to produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass: 1.SunOpta provided its systems and technology to China Resources Alcohol Corporation (CRAC) in September 2006 and the plant began production of ethanol from local corn stover in October 2006. 2.Key components of SunOpta's equipment and technology have recently been shipped to Spain for the start up of the Abengoa wheat straw to ethanol facility located in Salamanca, Spain. This project is expected to start up in the summer of 2007. 3.SunOpta's equipment and technology will be used in a new Celunol facility being built in Jennings, Louisiana, to produce ethanol from sugarcane bagasse and wood. This will be the first commercial production of cellulosic ethanol plant in the United States and is scheduled to start up in the summer of 2007. 4.Recently announced the formation of a Joint Venture with GreenField Ethanol Inc., Canada's largest producer of ethanol. The purpose of this Joint Venture is to design, build and jointly own and operate plants producing ethanol from wood chips. View or Post Comments
Verenium In June of 2007, Verenium was formed from a merger between Celunol and Diversa. Partnering with Dupont and researching multiple enzyme "cocktails" to break down cellulosic biomass. Purchased biomass-to-ethanol technology from SunOpta. The system will complement its own proprietary technology. In February 2007, Verenium broke ground on a 1.4 million gallon per year (MGY) demonstration facility located adjacent to its cellulosic pilot facility in Jennings, Louisiana. The facility is designated to operate on diverse regional feedstocks including sugarcane bagasse and specially-bred energy cane. The facility is slated for first operations in early 2008. Commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facilities are slated for completion by 2010. Khosla Ventures is a Verenium investor.
Virgin Fuels In September 2006, Sir Richard Branson pledged an estimated $3 billion to fight global warming. A large chunk of that is expected to be invested in cellulosic ethanol research and production.
Xethanol Recently announced aggressive plans for its new BlueRidgeXethanol company to begin producing cellulose ethanol in Spring Hope, NC by Feb. 2007 using acid hydrolysis. Plans to construct a 50 million gallon per year cellulosic ethanol plant in Augusta, GA which would begin producing ethanol by mid-2007.
Resources
Sustainable BioMass Report (Nov. 2006) from BIO.org
U.S. Dept. Energy - Biomass Program
U.S. Dept. Energy - Office of Science
National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research
www.VickiIseman.com
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