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May 18, 2009
The Danish-owned company will expand its local footprint by half next week when it moves into two new research buildings. It's part of a long-term expansion that will add about 50 positions at the south Davis campus over several years. Novozymes aims to own the market for the enzymes that someday may be used to produce billions of gallons of ethanol a year from plant fibers instead of corn.
The cellulosic-ethanol push is "the biggest single undertaking we've ever had in R and D," said Lars Hansen, president of Novozymes North America. "This is really something that could transform our company."
The Obama administration boosted Novozymes and the rest of the biofuels sector Tuesday with a raft of policy and funding announcements meant both to help the gasping corn-ethanol industry and to speed the commercialization of biofuels that aren't made from food.
The White House directed the federal Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture to work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to craft a long-term national strategy for the industry. Energy Secretary Steven Chu outlined a $786.5 million plan meant largely to help the fledgling cellulosic ethanol industry. Department of Agriculture spending would target next-generation fuels as well as the existing corn-ethanol sector.
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March 23, 2009
Novozymes will double its investment in a new enzyme plant in Nebraska up to $200 million, so the Danish company will be ready for the ethanol boom that company officials still expect.
At a groundbreaking on Tuesday, Novozymes officials will announce the company now plans to spend $160 million to $200 million. That's double the amount discussed last summer when Novozymes announced the plant would be built on a 30-acre site south of Blair, Neb.
Lars Hansen, president of Novozymes North America, said the current problems in the U.S. ethanol business - which include the bankruptcy of the second-largest company, VeraSun Energy - are simply a "speed bump" for the industry.
"The overall industry is even more promising now that it used to be," Hansen said.
The Novozymes executive bases his confidence in the ethanol industry on the federal law requiring more and more biofuel use and on the ethanol industry's status as an environmentally friendly job. The federal renewable fuels standard will require 36 billion gallons of biofuels to be blended into gasoline by 2022, including 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol.
Hansen said Novozymes is the world's biggest enzyme maker, and its products account for about 60 percent of the market in the biofuel industry.
Enzymes are strings of protein that can serve as catalysts in many natural and manmade processes. Those include breaking down starch in corn - a vital step in ethanol production.
Novozymes is also a player in the emerging cellulosic ethanol business, and it is working with the nation's largest ethanol company, Poet LLC, on a pilot cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa, that is expected to begin operating in 2011.
Cellulose is the woody material in branches and stems that makes plants hard, and the ethanol industry is developing ways to produce fuel from cellulose economically. Once the costs of cellulosic ethanol are similar to corn-based ethanol, companies will be able to produce ethanol from straw, corn stalks, wood pulp and other inedible agricultural leftovers.
Hansen said Novozymes has 150 researchers working to improve the enzymes it produces to break down cellulose and reduce their cost. Novozymes has reduced the cost of cellulosic ethanol enzymes to about $1 per gallon, and the company expects to cut that cost to about 50 cents per gallon next year.
Hansen predicted the technology will be ready to produce cellulosic ethanol by the end of 2010, but the financing and the demand sides of that business may take some time to develop.
"The dream of turning waste into fuel that has been on a lot of people's minds for a long time is actually just around the corner," Hansen said.
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Novozymes'Blair plant is expected to employ about 100 people long-term when it is complete sometime in 2011. But the first 10 employees will likely start later this year when the company opens a blending operation to combine enzymes made at other plants.
The number of jobs expected did not increase much with the additional investment because most of the funds will go to increasing the capacity of the plant.
Plant manager Fred Reikowsky says the company's goal is to hire most of its employees from the Blair area.
"There is a lot of excitement in our community about the announcement," Reikowsky said.
The groundbreaking ceremony will feature a visit from Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik and his wife, Mary, as well as Nebraska's governor.
Hansen said Blair was chosen because the plant will be close to the raw materials it needs and close to its customers. Plus, Nebraska offered relatively cheap electrical power for the plant.
"On a global scale, this is the most-competitive place to invest," Hansen said.
Novozymes, which is based in Bagsvaerd, Denmark, says it makes more than 700 products and employs about 5,000 - half of which are based in Denmark.
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February 5, 2009
Novozymes (NVZ.L), a company that regularly appears on the SB20 List produced by SustainableBusiness.com's green investing newsletter, Progressive Investor, has entered a new partnership with with the major Chinese oil and energy company Sinopec (0386.HK).
Novozymes, along with Chinese partner COFCO, will work with Sinopec to produce ethanol on a commercial scale from the agricultural waste corn stover.
"Second-generation bioethanol production in China holds vast potential for Novozymes as the technology leader, and we expect to be the first company with enzymes ready for large-scale production by 2010," Steen Riisgaard, CEO at Novozymes, said.
Together, the three partners cover the entire value chain of bioethanol production. Novozymes has developed conversion processes necessary for turning agricultural waste into bioethanol.
COFCO (China National Cereals, Oil & Foodstuff Corporation) is a producer and supplier of processed agricultural products and will contribute its knowledge on grain processing.
Sinopec is the world's third-largest oil refinery. It owns around 30,000 gasoline stations and has a 60% share in China's refined-oil market. Sinopec has rich knowledge in petroleum refinery and distribution which will contribute to biofuel roll-out.
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10/8/08
Novozymes was awarded a USD 12.3 million contract from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) today to improve the enzymes necessary to produce cellulosic ethanol. Novozymes'project DECREASE (Development of a Commercial-Ready Enzyme Application System for Ethanol) aims to improve the performance of Novozymes'most advanced enzyme system, to further reduce the cost of cellulosic ethanol production. Under the terms of the 2.5-year contract Novozymes has committed to increase the efficiency of the enzymes used in the conversion of cellulosic biomass to ethanol by two-fold. In combination with internally funded research and development to reduce enzyme production costs, this work will enable Novozymes to supply newand even morecost-efficient commercial cellulases in pilot, demonstration, and commercial plants by 2012. Novozymes will match the DoE funding dollar for dollar, bringing the total investment of the research project to USD 25 million.
Development of commercially viable enzymes for the production of cellulosic ethanol is the largest research and development effort in Novozymes'history with more than 100 employees allocated. Novozymes has already confirmed plans to launch the enzymes required for commercially viable production of ethanol from cellulose by 2010, midway through this contract, and now plans to reach an enzyme cost target that is even further reduced by 2012. This target is based on the use of corn stover as biomass feedstock.
"This contract is part of the US government's commitment to the development of alternative fuels, and this latest funding will help Novozymes make cellulosic ethanol economically viable for its commercial implementation partners. Novozymes is focused on being the innovation leader for the sustainable production of biofuels, and we are very pleased that the U.S. Department of Energy is continuing to support our efforts," says Ejner Bech Jensen, President of Novozymes, Inc.
In addition to the contract work, Novozymes is working to optimize the efficiency of enzymes on other pretreatments and second-generation feedstocks such as straws, sugarcane bagasse, and wood. The company is currently supplying experimental enzymes to a wide range of development partners in the US, China, Brazil, and Europe. Novozymes is currently the world's largest supplier of enzymes for the existing first-generation (corn) ethanol industry.
This is the second contract Novozymes has received from the DoE. The first was awarded in 2001 for USD 18 million, targeting both improved enzymes and production processes for biofuel production. This latest contract will build on those results, specifically targeting the identification and implementation of more efficient enzymes.
Project DECREASE is carried out as a global collaboration between Novozymes researchers in California, Denmark, and China and our external partners: the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Cornell University in the US, and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France.
From a recent (11/07) interview with Novozymes CEO:
"With strong support in the United States and China, extensive academic research in Europe and great potential in Brazil, how far away are we from a winning technology? I don't think there will be a clear winner in cellulosic technology in four years time. However, I do think that, within this time line, several plants will produce ethanol from ligno-cellulosic feedstock, from agricultural residues, wood residues and probably a few from industrial waste. They will produce this on an industrial basis which translates into 25 to 50 million gallons per year plants. But each of these companies will have different technologies combined in their process. They will have different pre-treatment methods, different enzymes blends, different fermentation technologies and also different organisms. All these companies will have proprietary processes or would have acquired pieces of the process through licensing, and, step by step, the less efficient processes will be filtered out.
Novozymes has put in place an unprecedented R&D effort with more than 100 people developing enzymes and acquiring a better understanding of associated processes which heavily impact the hydrolysis step. Thanks to this commitment, Novozymes expects to be in a position to offer enzymes than can help to make cellulosic ethanol economically viable within 4 years from now.
Novozymes is active on almost all continents, with facilities and partnership in the United States, Europe, Asia and Brazil. Is there any difference in how the technology develops in these markets?
There are very clear differences. The U.S. is probably the one country that is helping the industry the most, because the DOE is making substantial funding available to the industry. As an example, a recent 200 MUSD DoE solicitation will allow six to ten projects with different technologies to further improve their processes. (from the collection of the feedstock, to the pre-treatment, the hydrolysis step and the fermentation). But the most interesting thing about the U.S. market is that the DOE is trying to involve major industrial players early in the scale-up process, which ensures that the developed technologies can be tested in real large scale conditions. Right now, almost every feedstock is being considered in the US with a predominance of corn stover and corn fibers. Novozymes is currently working with POET on a project pertaining to the expansion of a conventional corn dry mill facility to include cellulose to ethanol commercial production (dealing with corn cobs and fibers)."
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