Wood-chip ethanol plant in works
Broomfield firm to unveil plans today for Ga. Site. Most U.S. ethanol is from corn, limited by acreage. Wood byproducts are seen as key to long-term goals.
By Steve Raabe
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/07/2007 09:00:00 AM MST
denverpost.com
A Broomfield company is expected to unveil plans today for the nation's first commercial- scale plant to make ethanol fuel from wood chips.
Scientists say the project could be a significant breakthrough in the quest to begin weaning the U.S. from imported petroleum.
Range Fuels Inc., formerly Kergy Inc., will build the ethanol plant in east-central Georgia's Treutlen County, a major timber-producing area. The facility will use wood chips from timber harvesting.
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is expected to formally announce the project today to state and local officials in Georgia.
"Georgia will be a national leader in cellulosic ethanol, and Range Fuels' investments here will be a major step forward in helping us address our state's long-term energy issues," Perdue said in a news release.
Most U.S. ethanol is now made from corn kernels. But making the fuel from wood byproducts, weedy plants, crop residue and wastepaper - known as "cellulosic" ethanol - is considered a key to meeting the nation's long-term goals for reducing gasoline consumption.
Yet until now, the technology for making cellulosic ethanol has been limited to the laboratory because the process hasn't been economically efficient.
Range Fuels chief executive Mitch Mandich said the company has developed a proprietary process that makes the conversion from wood chips to ethanol fuel commercially feasible.
"This will be the first ethanol plant to operate on a commercial scale using wood scraps," Mandich said.
The plant initially will produce 10 million gallons of ethanol a year. That's relatively small by the standards of corn ethanol plants, which typically range from 20 million to 100 million gallons a year.
"We know we can scale up to higher levels of production just by adding modules to the system," Mandich said. "But we're not going to speculate on when that will happen."
Mandich said the company will break ground on the plant this year.
He declined to disclose the cost of the plant or when it would be operational. The facility will employ about 70 workers.
Mandich said Range Fuels decided to locate its plant in Georgia because of the state's abundant supply of timber, sawmills, wood waste products and transportation.
If the plant proves to be economically efficient, it would accelerate by at least three to five years most scientists' predictions for commercial development of cellulosic ethanol.
Range Fuels was formed last year with a portion of its startup funding provided by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a high-profile venture capitalist in renewable energy.
The firm has tested making ethanol from wood chips, paper pulp, hog manure, olive pits and other products.
Unlike other ethanol experimenters that use enzymes to convert cellulose to alcohol, Range Fuels uses heat and pressure to convert wood to a hydrogen-rich gas, which in turn is converted to ethanol with a chemical catalyst.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden has experimented with both the enzymatic and gasification processes for making cellulosic ethanol.
Range Fuels' commercial venture "is an interesting development," said Al Darzins, group manager and principal scientist for the federal lab's $21 million cellulosic research project.
"It would go a long way toward a breakthrough," he said. "They can build a commercial plant, but the key is at what cost. If they haven't fully solved the economic issues, they could be producing very expensive ethanol."
Mandich declined to provide specifics on the plant's production costs.
"We think we'll be very competitive with corn-based ethanol just coming out of the gate," he said. "As our technology advances, we will be cheaper."
Mandich said Georgia has not provided any economic incentives, but Range Fuels is in discussions with the state about the possibility of help.
In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush called for a 20 percent reduction in gasoline consumption in the next 10 years, primarily by using ethanol and other alternative fuels.
Most analysts agree that the U.S. corn crop can, at most, supply less than half of Bush's 35 billion-gallon target for alternative fuels.
Corn's role as an ethanol source is expected to top out at 15 billion gallons because even though corn-ethanol plants are technologically feasible, there isn't enough corn acreage to support ethanol manufacturing as well as food production and livestock feed.
The nation now has 112 ethanol plants with a capacity of 5.5 billion gallons annually. New projects and expansions underway are expected to add 6.1 billion gallons, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, a Washington-based trade group for the ethanol industry.
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com.
========
Range Fuels to Build First Wood Cellulosic Ethanol Plant in Georgia
Potential to Produce Over 1 Billion Gallons a Year
sev.prnewswire.com
Excerpt:
The company's system, K2, uses a two step process to convert biomass to a synthetic gas and from there, convert the gas to ethanol. |
