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September 14, 2009
Mascoma Corporation today announced that it has entered into a feedstock processing and lignin supply agreement with Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV), a division of Chevron U.S.A., Inc.
Under terms of the agreement, CTV will provide various sources of lignocellulosic feedstock to Mascoma. Mascoma will then convert the feedstock to cellulosic ethanol through its proprietary process, which produces lignin as a by-product. Mascoma will provide this lignin to CTV for evaluation.
"This is an important moment for us at Mascoma," said Dr. Jim Flatt, President of Mascoma. "The upgrading of our byproduct lignin to high value transportation fuels is an important step in our effort to prove the effectiveness of integrated biorefineries. It has been our goal all along to make our process as
integrated and sustainable as possible."
Lignin is a complex chemical compound derived from woody biomass. After biomass has been converted through Mascoma`s proprietary Consolidated Bio Processing method, which breaks down the sugars in the cellulose and turns it into ethanol, energy-rich lignin is left over.
The project will last for two years, and Mascoma is hopeful that the developed technology may be suitable for a wide variety of feedstocks.
In December 2008, Mascoma began creating ethanol from cellulosic biomass with positive results at its demonstration facility in Rome, New York. The company, in collaboration with its commercialization subsidiary Frontier Renewable Resources, is in the process of financing its first full-scale ethanol facility
in Kinross, Michigan. The company plans to break ground on that facility during the first half of 2010.
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May 12, 2009 (from technologyreview.com)
The process of making ethanol from cellulosic sources such as wood chips and paper pulp is somewhat like following a complicated French recipe: it takes many costly ingredients and multiple pots, each with its own settings and instructions, to concoct the final product, and the entire enterprise is expensive and somewhat inefficient. Now Mascoma, a cellulosic biofuels company based in Lebanon, NH, reports significant advances in its goal of simplifying the cellulosic ethanol process by skipping the use of costly enzymes, which could potentially reduce cellulosic ethanol's production costs by 20 to 30 percent.
Mascoma's strategy, called consolidated bioprocessing, aims to combine the multiple steps of ethanol production into one, using genetically engineered superbugs that perform the multiple steps involved in making cellulosic ethanol. The company reports a series of advances that it says brings it "substantially closer to commercialization." Mascoma announced the results recently at the 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals, in San Francisco.
Existing technology to produce ethanol from cellulosic sources involves a multistep process: plant material such as paper pulp and switchgrass are first pretreated, to separate cellulose from the rest of the plant matter. Cellulose is then mixed with enzymes that break it down into sugars. Yeast then takes over to ferment the sugars into ethanol.
As a less costly alternative, Mascoma researchers are engineering microbes to combine the last two steps of the process: breaking down cellulose, and converting sugars into ethanol. They say that if they can get microorganisms to make ethanol at sufficiently high rates, they can reduce the amount of expensive enzymes needed to break down cellulose, which can normally take up half of ethanol's production costs.
The company is exploring three potential organisms for ethanol production: two types of bacteria, and one yeast strain. C. thermocellum and T. saccharolyticum are thermophilic bacteria, able to withstand high temperatures such as those experienced in reactors. Researchers have been interested in both bacterial strains for years due to their natural ability to both convert cellulose into sugar and ferment sugar into ethanol.
However, these strains produce very low levels of ethanol. The limiting factor is its by-products: both bacteria break down cellulose into glucose and other sugars such as xylose. The bacteria can then ferment glucose into ethanol, but remaining sugars like xylose cannot be fermented. What's more, ethanol yield is low because bacteria produce other organic acid by-products in the fermentation process, such as acetate and lactate. Scientists have also found that these bacteria are inhibited and stop growing in the presence of high levels of ethanol.
In order to optimize the bacteria's performance and increase ethanol yield, Mascoma researchers metabolically engineered both strains to be able to ferment xylose, without the help of added enzymes. They also cut out bacteria's metabolic pathways that produce by-products such as lactate and acetate, so that the microbes only produce ethanol. Finally, the scientists engineered the microbe to keep breaking down cellulose in high concentrations of ethanol.
In Mascoma's work with yeast, researchers genetically added a process not normally found in native strains. Normally, yeast is a very efficient and robust ethanol producer and can ferment sugars at high rates. It does not have any natural ability to break down cellulose, however. So Mascoma's scientists engineered yeast to produce cellulolytic enzymes, enabling it to grow on cellulose and break it down. The researchers also inserted genes into yeast that allow it to ferment xylose, further increasing its ethanol yield. In experiments with paper sludge, the engineered yeast broke down and converted 85 percent of cellulose into sugars and produced ethanol without the help of added enzymes.
Frances Arnold, a professor of chemical engineering and biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology and a member of Mascoma's scientific advisory board, says that the company's work in yeast may be a near-term commercial application. "What they're reporting, with a high-level expression of cellulase from yeast, is really impressive," she says. It's been difficult, Arnold says, "to get these enzymes expressed in yeast. If you look at the literature, it's dismal--micrograms or milligrams per liter--and they're talking about a gram per liter--many magnitudes higher than others have reported, to a point where it starts to look interesting."
"There's still optimization for these microbes that remain, and we want to improve their cellulolytic performance, and the rate at which they hydrolize sugars, which speeds up the overall production process," says Jim Flatt, the Mascoma's executive vice president of research and development. "They perform, they're reliable, but we can improve them further, and that's what we intend to do."
The company has begun to test all three engineered microbes at a pilot plant in Rome, NY, and it plans to have a commercial scale-up by 2010.
Qteros, a startup based in Marlborough, MA, is also pursuing consolidated bioprocessing with a microbe that breaks down cellulose and ferments it to make ethanol. Jef Sharp, executive vice president of Qteros, says that Mascoma's findings significantly advance the field of consolidated bioprocessing.
"Any progress is good," says Sharp. "We think that it's important for the industry to realize that it is likely the conversion technology that is going to have the best economics."
May 7, 2009
Mascoma Corp., which plans a $250 million plant to make cellulosic ethanol in the Upper Peninsula, announced Thursday it has made "major research advances" that will allow it to mass-produce the alternative fuel at lower costs.
Mascoma said it has discovered the key to consolidated bioprocessing, a much-touted strategy for producing cellulosic ethanol in a high-yield, single-step process through the use of engineered microorganisms.
The method eliminates the need to produce cellulase enzymes, significantly reducing cost.
"These advances enable the reduction in operating and capital costs required for cost-effective commercial production of ethanol, bringing Mascoma substantially closer to commercialization," Jim Flatt, the company's executive vice president of research, development and operations, said in a statement.
"Our results go a long way toward establishing the feasibility of the processing concept that we have built our company around, so this is a big day for us."
Mascoma in July 2007 announced plans to build what would be the nation's first plant to make ethanol from non-food sources in Kinross, near Sault Ste. Marie. The facility would have an annual capacity of 40 million gallons using wood chips from local timber operations and other sources.
The company is aiming to break ground on the project later this year or early in 2010.
Mascoma in February announced it had begun producing cellulosic ethanol at a test plant in upstate New York.
The company presented its proof-of-concept plan for consolidated bioprocessing, or CBP, at a recent biofuels symposium in San Francisco.
"This is a true breakthrough that takes us much, much closer to billions of gallons of low-cost cellulosic biofuels," said Bruce Dale, the editor of the journal Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefineries and a Michigan State University professor. "Many had thought that CBP was years or even decades away, but the future just arrived."
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April 15, 2009
From ethanolproducer.com
Boston, Mass.-based cellulosic ethanol developer Mascoma Corp. has commenced operations at its demonstration facility in Rome, N.Y., and is now producing cellulosic ethanol at the site. The company reached the milestone just four years after being founded.
Plans to construct the pilot plant were first made public in 2006, construction began in early 2008, and completion of the facility was achieved the following December. On behalf of the state, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the New York Power Authority provided partial funding for the facility, an agreement that was made in December 2006. Research partners at the pilot facility include State University of New York-College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Cornell University and Clarkson University.
The newly completed Rome facility has the flexibility to operate on a variety of feedstocks, as Mascoma's Consolidated Bio-Processing technology is able to convert multiple nonfood biomass feedstocks into cellulosic ethanol through the use of its process, which eliminates the need for costly enzymes or additives.
The company also has research and development labs in Lebanon, N.H., and Woburn, Mass.
Mascoma spokeswoman Kate Casolaro said that over the years, the company will use a combination of feedstocks while exploring different possibilities for its commercial facility five to 10 years down the line. "As we are focusing on wood chips for our first commercial facility in Michigan, in New York we'll initially be testing wood chips, but we will be using switchgrass, corn stover and sugarcane bagasse at various points in our process testing," she said.
In early October, Mascoma received a $23.5 million grant from the state of Michigan to build a 40 MMgy commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility in Kinross Township, Mich., which is expected to be completed between 2011 and 2012.
Mascoma has partnered with local businesses to obtain feedstock supplies for the pilot-scale New York plant, and is currently purchasing wood chips from a local saw mill.
Having actually begun producing ethanol at the end of February, Casolaro says the facility is still running smoothly. Although the capacity of the facility is 200,000 gallons, its output will fluctuate, according to Casolaro. "The fuel produced will be used for testing, and we will send some over to General Motors [Corp.] to test it in their engines," she said. "We will hold some small events at which we will showcase GM cars running on the fuel."
In May, GM announced it had provided an undisclosed monetary investment to Mascoma and completed an agreement with the company to evaluate materials and other fuels produced by Mascoma for engine applications. The two companies also announced they would collaborate on expanding Mascoma's commercialization projects on a global level. In a December 2008 interview with EPM, Mascoma Chief Executive Officer Bruce Jamerson said GM's current financial crisis is not having an effect on Mascoma, and that they will continue to be investors no matter what happens in the future.
"At some point, if we end up producing a lot of ethanol [at the pilot plant], we may blend and sell it," Casolaro said. "But primarily, it will be used for testing and demonstration to ensure that we can continue to improve our technology by refining the numerous variables that will make this the most efficient, low-cost, low-carbon process possible."
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BOSTON, Feb 25, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) --Mascoma Corporation, a leader in the development of low carbon cellulosic ethanol, today announced that the company's demonstration facility in Rome, New York, is now producing ethanol from non-food cellulosic biomass.
"This is an important milestone for the cellulosic ethanol industry and for Mascoma. We are grateful for the support NYSERDA and NYPA have provided for the past two years," said Bruce A. Jamerson, CEO of Mascoma Corporation. "They have been outstanding partners and we couldn't have built this plant without them."
Completed in December 2008, the Rome, NY plant is one of the largest facilities converting non-food biomass into cellulosic ethanol in the United States. The facility currently has a production capacity of up to 200,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year. Construction began in early 2008.
"The early success of this project demonstrates that feedstocks for renewable fuels can be harvested right here in New York State," said Francis J. Murray, Jr., President and CEO of NYSERDA. "The commercialization of environmentally sustainable transportation fuels is part of Governor David Paterson's comprehensive energy policy, which will help revitalize the upstate economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
The plant was funded in part by grants from the State of New York which were approved in December 2006. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the New York State Power Authority (NYPA) provided the funding on the State's behalf. Research partners at the facility include State University of New York -College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Cornell University and Clarkson University.
"The successful start up and operations at the Rome facility are an essential step towards our commercial goals and underscore the effectiveness of Mascoma's unique technology," said Jim Flatt, Executive Vice President of Research and Development and Operations at Mascoma. "The State of New York and our local business partners have together helped us move one step closer to our goal of producing cost competitive cellulosic ethanol at commercial scale."
The demonstration facility has the flexibility to run on numerous biomass feedstocks including wood chips, tall grasses, corn stover (residual corn stalks) and sugar cane bagasse. The company has committed to partnering with local businesses for feedstock supply and is currently purchasing wood chips from a local sawmill.
"We're pleased that Mascoma Corporation had the forethought to keep such an innovative facility here in the Rome area," said State Senator Joseph A. Griffo. "This is an industry that's at the cutting edge of helping us become more energy-efficient and I commend NYSERDA and NYPA for their partnership."
"This innovative collaboration between the private and public sectors has led to more jobs for this community, and we can look forward to more economic development opportunities that may result from their success in the global marketplace," said Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito (D/WF-Rome). "I am excited about Mascoma's progress."
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October 8, 2008
Cellulosic ethanol start-up Mascoma Corp. won $50 million in federal and state funding Tuesday for a new Michigan biofuel plant, after ending plans to build in Tennessee.
Mascoma Corp. said it had permission to shift $26 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding that had been announced for a plant in Tennessee to a plant to be built in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Michigan matched that award with a $23.5 million grant. The grants will speed the building and production of the factory, Mascoma said.
"This is the next generation of ethanol, using wood wastes from our sustainable forests," Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday. "It's really a home run for Michigan."
Mascoma's factory will make wood-cellulose ethanol, a renewable alternative to corn-based ethanol. The plant is to be built on state land near Kinross, south of Sault Ste. Marie in the eastern Upper Peninsula. The facility is expected to cost $250 million and eventually produce up to 40 million gallons of biofuel annually.
The Massachusetts-based start-up had announced plans to build plants in both Michigan and Tennessee. It said in April that it had received the $26 million federal grant to construct a facility in Monroe County, Tenn. Tennessee and Mascoma officials decided to drop the project after they disagreed over its size.
Mascoma had announced in July 2007 that it would build a plant in Michigan, in part due to the Wolverine State's abundance of forested land. The plant will use harvested mixed hardwood chips and other nonfood biomass materials to produce cellulosic ethanol.
General Motors Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp., both investors in Mascoma, are providing money and technical support for the Michigan project.
Granholm and Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO James Epolito said the project will employ about 150 construction workers followed by 40 to 50 full-time plant workers. The agency estimates it will create 700 Upper Peninsula jobs, when spin-off employment in related businesses is included.
Mascoma CEO Bruce Jamerson said the company would like to start building in about a year and would take another 1 1/2 years to complete the first phase. Cellulosic ethanol start-up Mascoma Corp. won $50 million in federal and state funding Tuesday for a new Michigan biofuel plant, after ending plans to build in Tennessee.
Mascoma Corp. said it had permission to shift $26 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding that had been announced for a plant in Tennessee to a plant to be built in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Michigan matched that award with a $23.5 million grant. The grants will speed the building and production of the factory, Mascoma said.
"This is the next generation of ethanol, using wood wastes from our sustainable forests," Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday. "It's really a home run for Michigan."
Mascoma's factory will make wood-cellulose ethanol, a renewable alternative to corn-based ethanol. The plant is to be built on state land near Kinross, south of Sault Ste. Marie in the eastern Upper Peninsula. The facility is expected to cost $250 million and eventually produce up to 40 million gallons of biofuel annually.
The Massachusetts-based start-up had announced plans to build plants in both Michigan and Tennessee. It said in April that it had received the $26 million federal grant to construct a facility in Monroe County, Tenn. Tennessee and Mascoma officials decided to drop the project after they disagreed over its size.
Mascoma had announced in July 2007 that it would build a plant in Michigan, in part due to the Wolverine State's abundance of forested land. The plant will use harvested mixed hardwood chips and other nonfood biomass materials to produce cellulosic ethanol.
General Motors Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp., both investors in Mascoma, are providing money and technical support for the Michigan project.
Granholm and Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO James Epolito said the project will employ about 150 construction workers followed by 40 to 50 full-time plant workers. The agency estimates it will create 700 Upper Peninsula jobs, when spin-off employment in related businesses is included.
Mascoma CEO Bruce Jamerson said the company would like to start building in about a year and would take another 1 1/2 years to complete the first phase.
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September 9, 2008
New genetically modified bacteria could slash the costs of producing ethanol from cellulosic biomass, such as corn cobs and leaves, switchgrass, and paper pulp. The microbes produce ethanol at higher temperatures than those used to produce yeast, which is currently employed to ferment sugar into the biofuel. The higher temperature more than halves the quantity of the costly enzymes needed to split cellulose into the sugars that the microbes can ferment. What's more, while yeast can only ferment glucose, "this microorganism is good at using all the different sugars in biomass and can use them simultaneously and rapidly," says Lee Lynd, an engineering professor at Dartmouth College, who led the microbe's development.
Most of the ethanol produced in the United States is made from corn. But making the biofuel from corn takes a lot of energy and competes with agricultural uses of the crop. Making fuel from cellulosic plant matter has the potential to be much more sustainable. However, cellulosic-ethanol production is still too expensive to be commercially competitive with corn ethanol.
Turning cellulose into ethanol involves two steps: using enzymes to break complex cellulose into simple sugars such as glucose, and then using yeast to ferment the sugar into ethanol. Both steps add to the price of ethanol. Enzymes can add about 50 cents to a gallon of ethanol. And the second step is relatively expensive because conventional yeast ferments only glucose, although biomass contains five different sugars, linked to form cellulose and hemicellulose in plant cell walls. (Cellulose is a long chain of glucose molecules, while hemicellulose contains all five sugars.) "You really need to be able to convert [all] these sugars into ethanol in order to make it economical, to get a good enough yield," says Bruce Dien, a biochemical engineer doing ethanol research at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
Lynd wants to create microbes that would do it all: efficiently break down the cellulose and hemicellulose, and then ferment all the resulting sugars. Lynd, a cofounder of Mascoma, is working with colleagues at the startup, based in Cambridge, MA, to develop a simple one-step process for making cellulosic ethanol. In the combined process, a mixture of biomass and the microbes would go into a tank, and ethanol would come out.
The new microbe, presented in this week's PNAS, is a crucial step toward such a combined process. The bacteria can break down hemicellulose into its five constituent sugars, which they ferment efficiently. To increase the bacteria's ethanol yield, Lynd and his colleagues knocked out the gene that results in organic acid formation.
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June 27, 2008
A Massachusetts-based company that makes ethanol from wood chips will build a $250 million plant south of Sault Ste. Marie, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and company officials announced Friday.
Mascoma Corp. hopes to break ground soon and be operating by 2012, turning out 40 million gallons a year of the "wood to wheels" gasoline alternative called cellulosic ethanol.
About 50 employees will work at the plant and 500-700 jobs will be generated across the Upper Peninsula in logging, transportation and other capacities, Mascoma CEO Bruce Jamerson said.
"This is a game-changer for Michigan," said Granholm, who has been a persistent advocate of replacing lost auto manufacturing jobs in the state with employment in the alternative energy industry.
"Making bio-fuels here will mean cheaper gas for Michigan motorists."
Ethanol sells for about 50 cents a gallon less than regular gasoline.
"The timing of this project is wonderful" given surging oil prices, Jamerson said. Oil, now over $140 a barrel, was at $67 when the state and Mascoma first started talking about a year ago.
Mascoma will partner with the state, General Motors, Marathon Oil, Michigan Technological University, Michigan State University and Marquette-based JM Longyear, a natural resource firm.
Based in Boston, Macoma is locating here largely because of the state's vast acreage of publicly owned forest land. Mascoma will get $15 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to build in Chippewa County.
The deal is contingent on a land trade with the Department of Natural Resources and approval of the usual permits.
Jamerson said this is the first bio-chemical ethanol producing plant in the country. He said the plant will be a low carbon-producing and low energy-consuming facility. He likened the energy conversion process to that of the stomach of a grass-eating animal.
June 2, 2008
CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--Cellulosic ethanol company Mascoma Corp., while determining the site for a new facility, is simultaneously seeking investment dollars as well.
Mascoma Corp., a privately held company based in Boston that specializes in developing cellulosic ethanol technologies across a wide range of feedstocks, was created by two Dartmouth college professors in 2005. Mascoma is currently developing a new generation of microbes and processes for conversion of cellulosic feedstocks into ethanol.
Cellulosic ethanol can be made from non-food material such as corn stalks, wood chips or other plant material.
"In my opinion, we're moving in a direction where it is important to be environmentally conscious," said Charles Wyman, co-founder, chief development officer, and chair of Mascoma's scientific advisory board. "There are a lot of advantages of having strategic partnerships."
So far, those strategic partnerships include some big name corporations.
In early May, General Motors Corp. (GM) announced an undisclosed investment in the company. Marathon Oil Corp., (MRO) followed suit shortly thereafter, announcing a $10 million equity investment in Mascoma.
The company recently completed a third round of funding, of which the Marathon and GM investments were a part, that netted $61 million. The third round of funding lifted the total amount raised by Mascoma to approximately $100 million in equity investment. This is in addition to the more than $100 million of received commitments in federal and state grants, Mascoma said.
"They're working on advanced technology that would really reduce the costs," said Wyman, who is also the environmental engineering chair at the University of California at Riverside. "It looks really promising, and it's very impressive progress."
Although demonstration plants are now producing token amounts of cellulosic ethanol, commercialization has yet to occur. This has to do partly with the inability to formulate a ostensibly cost-effective manner of manufacturing biofuels produced from a wide range of non-food plant materials. This could all change as new technologies are introduced.
"The way oil prices are going, it could be economic right now," Wyman said.
Mascoma is currently in the process of selecting a new site for a commercial cellulosic ethanol plant, possibly in Minnesota. However, a company spokeswoman refused to comment on the specifics of the development project.
Energy legislation signed into law in 2007 is pushing the move toward cellulosic ethanol production.
Under the Renewable Fuel Standard, biofuel derived from cellulose must comprise 1 billion gallons of renewable fuel annually by 2013 and 16 billion gallons by 2022.
"Some of those early targets might be tough to meet," said Patrick Westhoff, a program director with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute and a research associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri. "There is lots of uncertainty."
Westhoff said technologies do not appear to be developing fast enough but said the mandates enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency will continue to stoke investment and research in cellulosic biofuels.
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May 6, 2008
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mascoma Corporation and Marathon Oil Corporation (NYSE: MRO), today announced a $10 million equity investment by Marathon in Mascoma. The investment, which is part of $61 million raised in Mascoma's third round of funding, reflects Marathon's commitment to collaboration on the development, adoption and deployment of efficient, environmentally friendly and cost-effective next generation ethanol production.
Marathon's investment will go towards the funding of research and development activities at Mascoma, as well as the construction of operating facilities. As part of this new investment, Cliff Cook, Senior Vice President of Supply, Distribution and Planning at Marathon, has joined the Mascoma Board of Directors.
With the completion of this round of financing, Mascoma has raised approximately $100 million in equity investment. Mascoma has also received commitments for over $100 million in state and federal grants, including the recent awarding of a $26 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Marathon is the fourth largest United States-based integrated oil and gas company and the nation's fifth largest refiner. The company is a leading ethanol blender, and by mid-2008, Marathon will have the capacity to blend ethanol at the E-10 level throughout its entire distribution system. Marathon also holds an equity interest in two Midwest ethanol manufacturing plants with a combined capacity of 220 million gross gallons per year.
Based in Boston, privately held Mascoma is using proprietary microorganisms developed at the company's laboratories in Lebanon, NH, and is collaborating with research partners globally to identify, patent and deploy a new generation of microbes and low-cost processes for developing advanced biochemistry technologies to produce ethanol and other biofuels, as well as high-value products beyond ethanol, including the transformation of biomass into valuable green chemicals and chemical intermediaries. All of Mascoma's processes use non-food, renewable feedstocks.
"This investment in Mascoma's leading-edge technology reflects our commitment to address increasing energy demand by bringing to market environmentally friendly, renewable fuel derived from non-food domestic biomass," said Clarence P. Cazalot, Jr., Marathon President and CEO." Marathon's integrated refining, marketing and transportation infrastructure and extensive engineering capabilities, combined with Mascoma's world class research and development team, provide the kind of synergy that will be necessary to bring next-generation cellulosic ethanol out of the laboratory and into full-scale commercial production."
In addition to Marathon, General Motors Corporation and several other investors participated in the third round of financing, joining the company's existing investors who include Khosla Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Atlas Venture, General Catalyst Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Pinnacle Ventures and Vantage Point Venture Partners. Pinnacle Ventures also provided a $20 million debt facility to Mascoma.
"We are pleased to have closed our third round of financing and to have assembled a strong team of partners from across the cellulosic ethanol value chain," said Mascoma Chairman and CEO Bruce Jamerson." The recognition that Mascoma has received from our new investors has helped further position us for long-term growth and success. We look forward to entering into a new and exciting phase of development and to collaborating with Marathon to promote ethanol production and distribution."
Mascoma's single-step cellulose-to-ethanol method, called Consolidated Bioprocessing, or CBP, is designed to lower costs by limiting additives and enzymes used in other biochemical processes. Mascoma has a nationally recognized research effort focused on CBP and is currently testing its CBP technology with the expectation of beginning ethanol production later this year at its demonstration plant under construction in Rome, NY. Mascoma also is pursuing opportunities in the states of Tennessee and Michigan.
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May 1, 2008
The General Motors Corporation announced on Thursday that it was hedging its bets on how best to make ethanol from non-grain sources, and making an investment in a second company with technology that might do that job cost-effectively.
G.M., which has pledged to make half its vehicle production ethanol-compatible by 2012, said it had taken an equity position in Mascoma, a company based in Lebanon, N.H., that has three proprietary technologies for making ethanol from sources like papermill waste, corn stalks, wood chips and switchgrass. G.M. would not reveal the amount of its investment or the size of its stake.
In January, G.M. bought a stake in a company named Coskata that would use similar raw materials but with a different process.
Ethanol made from non-grain materials, known as cellulose, is identical to corn ethanol, and the final steps ae usually the same: using yeast to ferment sugars into alcohol. But getting the sugar out of the cellulose is complicated. The process usually requires treating the cellulose with steam or acids to open up the material, and then letting enzymes -the digestive juices of bacteria or fungi -free the sugars. In addition, the cellulose includes both conventional six-carbon sugars as well as five-carbon sugars, but most industrial-grade yeast only likes the six-carbon variety.
Executives at Mascoma said they had developed a patented process, using heat and mechanical action, to treat the cellulose, avoiding the use of chemicals.
And, they said, they are working with some bacteria that feed off cellulose and break it down, and others that are efficient at converting sugars to ethanol." Each one exists separately in nature," said Dr. Lee R. Lynd, a founder of the company and its chief scientist. Now they are using gene splicing to give a single organism the ability to do both.
The approach is potentially simpler than the one used by some competitors, which is to digest the cellulose using an enzyme made in a separate process.
With financing from New York State, Mascoma plans to have a demonstration plant, capable of making 200,000 gallons a year, operating in Rome, N.Y., near Syracuse, by the end of the year. That plant will use paper mill waste.
The approach is attractive because the raw material -cellulose, with the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil -costs about $17, company officials said. The trick, though, is then converting it to liquid fuel. The investment decision by G.M. puts it in the business of nurturing technologies that will not be commercialized for years at the earliest.
G.M. and Mascoma executives would not say what they believe the process would cost in commercial use, but agreed that it was in the range of what Coskata estimated for its process, $1 to $1.50 a gallon.
In addition, the energy bill passed by Congress last year provides generous incentives for cellulosic ethanol. And it has the potential to cut carbon dioxide output from fuel use because the material from which it is made re-absorbs carbon from the atmosphere as it grows.
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Mascoma Corporation will receive up to $26 million from the DOE to build its first proposed plant in Vonore, Tennessee.
The proposed plant will be located in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the Niles Ferry Industrial Park. The facility is scheduled to come online in 2009 and will utilize Tennessee grown switchgrass as a primary feedstock. The plant will be the first cellulosic ethanol facility at this scale in Tennessee and will be used to demonstrate technologies and concepts that will make cellulosic ethanol an economically viable industry in the future. Mascoma was founded in early 2006 with the goal of commercializing cellulosic ethanol. Mascoma is partnering with The University of Tennessee (UT) Knoxville, TN, the UT Research Foundation and Genera Energy LLC, which was created to implement Tennessee Gov. Bredesen's Biofuels Initiative announced in 2007.
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March 1, 2008
Mascoma received $50 million in new funding, including $30 million venture round and $20 million in debt. Participating were one new investor, General Catalyst Partners, and previous investors Khosla Ventures, Atlas Venture, Flagship Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Pinnacle Ventures and VantagePoint Venture Partners.
Mascoma is in the process of building several demonstration-scale ethanol plants in three other states: Michigan, New York and Tennessee. It's partnered with a variety of different corporations and universities at each location.
Mascoma is hedging its bets by experimenting with several different feedstocks and processes, making itself more likely to hit the jackpot: a cost-effective cellulosic ethanol facility. The feedstocks it's using include wood, switchgrass, and in New York, mixed materials like paper sludge and corn stover.
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December 17, 2007
Bruce A. Jamerson, Chief Executive Officer of Mascoma Corporation, a leader in advanced low-carbon biofuels, today welcomed New York State Energy Research and Development Authority President and CEO Paul D. Tonko (representing Governor Eliot Spitzer), Congressman Michael Arcuri, New York State Senator Joseph Griffo, and Mayor James Brown at a groundbreaking ceremony for the company's $30 million cellulosic ethanol demonstration facility in Rome, New York.
The project is the result of a $14.8 million award from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to build and operate a biomass-to-ethanol demonstration plant. The plant will focus on demonstrating" cellulose to ethanol" technology and industrial processes. The facility is expected to operate using a number of New York State agricultural and forest products as biomass feedstock, including wood chips, switchgrass, corn stover and paper sludge.
Paul D. Tonko, President and CEO of NYSERDA, said:" NYSERDA is pleased to have played an important role in bringing Mascoma to New York. The work that will take place at this demonstration facility will continue to make New York a leader in clean-energy and alternative-energy research and production. We look forward to working with Mascoma as the company takes the important steps towards commercialization."
"The important work that will be done at this facility may hold the key to solving our nation's energy and environmental issues and we welcome their investment in Upstate New York's innovation economy. The development and commercialization of cellulosic ethanol is a growth industry for the state of New York," said Congressman Michael Arcuri." These are the type of key projects that will continue to drive the revival of the Upstate economy as well as make use of the region's great labor pool and base of intellectual capital."
Senator Joseph Griffo said:" This project is a great example of what private enterprise and government can do together, working toward a common goal of potentially solving the nation's energy problem while creating jobs through economic development. With assistance from New York, Mascoma has the potential to develop new technologies to produce cellulosic-based ethanol which will help to make our lives better and contribute to economic growth of our region."
"Cellulosic ethanol will become a commercial reality and the work done at this new facility will dramatically expedite the process," said Mascoma CEO Bruce A. Jamerson." We are excited about the support from New York, and commend New York's leadership in advancing the cellulosic ethanol market. We believe that this plant will demonstrate and improve the technologies we will move into production."
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, November 7, 2007
Mascoma Corporation, a leader in advanced low-carbon biofuels, today announced the acquisition of Celsys BioFuels, Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Celsys BioFuels, Inc., headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, was formed in 2006 to commercialize cellulosic ethanol production technology developed in the Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering at Purdue University. The Celsys technology is based on proprietary pretreatment processes for multiple biomass feedstocks, including corn fiber and distiller grains. The technology was developed by Dr. Michael Ladisch, an internationally known leader in the field of renewable fuels and cellulosic biofuels. He will be taking a two-year leave of absence from Purdue University to join Mascoma as the company's Chief Technology Officer.
Dr. Ladisch has served as Director of the Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering with a joint appointment in Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University and courtesy appointment in Food Science. He earned his BS from Drexel University and MS and PhD degrees from Purdue University, all in chemical engineering. He has a broad background in bioscience and bioengineering, and has authored numerous journal papers, as well as a textbook" Bioseparations Engineering: Principles, Practice and Economics" (Wiley, 2001). He previously chaired the National Research Council Committee on Bioprocess Engineering and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1999.
"The acquisition of Celsys BioFuels strengthens our proprietary biomass processing capabilities and our intellectual property portfolio. It also expands our ability to integrate cellulosic ethanol into existing corn ethanol production facilities by utilizing fiber and distiller grains co-products as feedstocks." said Mascoma CEO Bruce A. Jamerson. Dr. Ladisch is a star in his field. He will add a new technology dimension to Mascoma.
Added Dr. Ladisch, Mascoma has amassed a tremendous amount of research and has made considerable progress in the development of sustainable biofuels for solving the nation’s energy and environmental issues. In addition, the company possesses one of the strongest management teams in the industry. I look forward to working with my new colleagues.
As a result of the Celsys acquisition, Mascoma will acquire the rights to technology and intellectual property licensed from Purdue University. Dr. Ladisch will continue to perform limited duties as Director of the Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering and in faculty status as Distinguished Professor.
In a related appointment, Dr. Andrew Richard, Mascoma's current Chief Technology Officer, will assume the role of Managing Director, Mascoma Canada and will be responsible for pursuing cellulosic biofuels opportunities in Canada.
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