Meet DoE's big winners in the race to cellulosic ethanol

The U.S. Department of Energy announced today it will invest up to $385-million in six biorefinery projects over the next four years -- one of them in Florida. 

Combined with the industry cost share, more than $1.2 billion will be invested in these six biorefineries, the DOE announced. Funding will begin this fiscal year and run through FY 2010.

The Florida plant, proposed by agricultural giant ALICO, will be in LaBelle, in Hendry County. Alico has proposed building a plant to 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."

Also intriguing was another proposal, this one from a California company called Bluefire Ethanol, which creates ethanol from landfill trash -- which, as one advocate pointed out, is converting society's least-wanted commodity into one of its most needed. The process could be used at the more than 1,600 landfills nationwide.

Other winners are Iogen, of Canada, Abengoa Bioenergy of St Louis, Missouri, Broin Companies of South Dakota, and Range Fuels (formely Kergy) of Colorado and California (click here for a previous post on Range Fuels proposed wood chip plant in Georgia).

Iogen is partnering with Shell is on track to build a plant near Idaho Falls that will produce 18 million gallons of ethanol annually. The plant will use 700 tons per day of agricultural residues including wheat straw, barley straw, corn stover, switchgrass, and rice straw as feedstocks.

When fully operational, the six biorefineries are expected to produce more than 130 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year.  President Bush has set a goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012.

“Ultimately, success in producing inexpensive cellulosic ethanol could be a key to eliminating our nation’s addiction to oil," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a news release.

Click here for a link to the DOE release and background information on the companies.

Click here for a March 1 story in the New York Times.

- Craig Pittman and David Adams