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March 19, 2009 (Reuters)
Danish ingredients group Danisco (DCO.CO) and U.S. chemicals maker DuPont Co (DD.N) expect to start commercial-scale production of cellulosic ethanol next year, Danisco's chief executive said on Thursday.
The companies teamed up in May last year to try and win the battle to be first with commercialising the technology, which will free bioethanol from its dependency on products that also can be used as food.
The U.S-Danish joint venture says its cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in Tennessee has the design and size to demonstrate economic sustainability at commercial scale by 2010.
"It is not the World's largest factory -- it will only produce 250.000 gallons (950,000 litres) annually -- but it is large enough to prove that cellulosic ethanol can be produced commercially with the current subsidies, and that you can make money on it," Danisco Chief Executive Tom Knutzen told Reuters.
Cellulosic ethanol is a biofuel produced from wood, grass and stalks of plants.
The joint venture combines DuPont's fermentation and pre-treatment technologies with Danisco's enzymes technology and aims to sell complete cellulosic ethanol technology packages.
The United States requires 100 million gallons of cellulosic fuel to be blended into gasoline next year, but the World's largest enzyme maker, Novozymes (NZYMb.CO), told Reuters on Feb. 24 that this goal likely will be delayed by one year.
Novozymes provides enzymes for, among others, the top U.S. ethanol producer Poet, which in January opened a cellulosic ethanol pilot plant in South Dakota that can produce 20,000 gallon a year. It is planned as a forerunner to a $200 million commercial-scale cellulosic plant.
The U.S. government provides subsidies and incentives equivalent to about $1 per gallon.
Last week, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said an increase in the ethanol-gasoline blend rate to 12 percent or 13 percent from the 10 percent could be accomplished quickly and with minimal scientific review, giving a needed boost to the future of the ethanol industry.
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Technology
DuPont is developing technology to produce ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks. The ethanol will be 100% renewably sourced from corn stover or the entire corn plant. Unlike traditional corn grain ethanol, the Integrated Corn-Based BioRefinery (ICBR) technology of DuPont will use the entire corn plant, as opposed to only the starch contained in the corn kernel. In the future, switchgrass, straw, grasses or wood chips could be potential feedstocks for this technology process. The ICBR technology is best-in-class because of its unique ability to efficiently convert nearly all the simple and complex sugars in corn plants into ethanol...potentially increasing the ethanol obtained per acre by 50% while maintaining sustainable agricultural practices.
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