BIO Sensing of Illinois (IL) Δ 13th of January 2014 Ω 5:11 AM

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~ Coskata by Wired

»Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn
ξ a biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon
ξ it wouldn't interfere with food supplies
ξ Coskata is backed by General Motors and other investors
ξ uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol
ξ It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.
ξ the discovery underscores the rapid innovation under way in the race to make cellulosic ethanol cheaply
ξ with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requiring an almost five-fold increase in ethanol production to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022,
ξ scientists are working quickly to reach that breakthrough
ξ "It signals just how hot the competition is right now," said David Friedman, research director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
ξ "There are a lot of people diving into this right now, trying to figure out how to crack the nut.
ξ This increases my confidence that someone will do it."
ξ Besides cutting production costs to fire sale prices,
ξ the process avoids some key drawbacks of making ethanol from corn
ξ It wouldn't impact the food supply
ξ its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency
ξ The end result will be E85 sold at the pump for about a dollar cheaper per gallon than gasoline
ξ Coskata won't have a pilot plant running until this time next year
ξ it will produce just 40,000 gallons a year
ξ "The question will come down to 'Can they deliver?'" said Nathanael Greene, a senior energy-policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
ξ "The approach is interesting and promising in the problems it addresses."
ξ Coskata uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas,
ξ which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen
ξ Rather than fermenting that gas or using thermo-chemical catalysts to produce ethanol,
ξ Coskata pumps it into a reactor containing bacteria that consume the gas and excrete ethanol.
ξ Richard Tobey, Coskata's vice president of engineering, says the process yields 99.7 percent pure ethanol.
ξ Gasification and bacterial conversion are common methods of producing ethanol,
ξ but biofuel experts said Coskata is the first to combine them.
ξ Doing so, they said, merges the feedstock flexibility of gasification with the relatively low cost of bacterial conversion.
ξ Tobey said Coskata's method generates more ethanol per ton of feedstock than corn-based ethanol and
ξ requires far less water, heat and pressure
ξ Those cost savings allow it to turn, say, two bales of hay into five gallons of ethanol for less than $1 a gallon,
ξ Corn-based ethanol costs $1.40 a gallon to produce, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
ξ The company plans to have its first commercial-scale plant producing up to 100 million gallons of ethanol a year by 2011.
ξ Friedman and Greene said the timeline is realistic.
ξ May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even
ξ after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock
ξ It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it.
ξ Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.
ξ Making ethanol is one thing, but there's almost no infrastructure in place for distributing it.
ξ But the company's method solves that problem because ethanol could be made locally from whatever feedstock is available, Tobey said.
ξ "You're not bound by location," he said.
ξ "If you're in Orange County, you can use municipal waste.
ξ If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can use wood waste.
ξ Florida has sugar. The Midwest has corn. Each region has been blessed with the ability to grow its own biomass."
ξ Still, consumers will need some way of getting that fuel into their vehicle.
ξ Less than 1 percent of the nation's 170,000 gas stations sell E85, said Mike Omotoso,
ξ senior manager of the global power train group at J.D. Power & Associates.
ξ "Even if you produce it county by county, you still need an infrastructure," he said.
ξ "People aren't going to go to some remote location for fuel."
ξ But with production set to ramp up quickly to meet the 36 billion gallon mandate,
ξ ethanol advocates believe it won't be long before E85 is widely available.

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