University of Tennessee and Mascoma to Build Cellulosic Ethanol Plant
20 September 2007
The Executive Committee of the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees approved a business partnership between the University and Mascoma Corporation to build and to operate jointly a $40-million cellulosic ethanol biorefinery with a production capacity of 5 million gallons per year. Pending a successful permitting process, construction is expected to begin by the end of 2007 and the facility will be operational in 2009.
The plant will be about one-tenth the size of a commercial production facility. This will allow researchers to fine-tune the operations and process used in order to create a system that can be expanded to larger plants across the state in coming years.
Mascoma focuses on consolidating the many biologically mediated steps involved in ethanol production into a single step (Consolidated Bioprocessing, CBP). Through an exclusive license with Dartmouth College, Mascoma has access to developments from Professor Lee Lynd’s laboratory. Lynd is one of the co-founders of Mascoma. (Earlier post.)
Mascoma’s lead organism for this thermophilic Simultaneous Saccarification and co-Fermentation (tSSCF) process is Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum. This organism has been modified to produce stoichiometric quantities of ethanol from a xylose feed. This strain is attractive for use in a tSSF configuration as the elevated fermentation temperature can substantially reduce cellulase requirements in an industrial processing operation.
When operating at full capacity, the facility will require 170 tons per day of switchgrass and other agricultural and forest biomass. An $8 million farmer incentive program is under development to encourage local production of switchgrass.
The switchgrass program includes direct payments to farmers in advance of an established market for switchgrass. Participating farmers will receive high quality switchgrass seed for planting, as well as research and technical support related to switchgrass production.
The business partnership and plans for the facility are a result of the UT Biofuels Initiative.
The demonstration scale research facility is also a complement to research efforts at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, another key partner in the state’s biofuels strategy. In June, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was awarded $125 million from the US Department of Energy to fund the Bioenergy Science Center, a research collaborative to address fundamental science and technology challenges to commercially producing cellulosic ethanol.
Some estimates put Tennessee’s eventual capacity for cellulosic ethanol production at more than 1 billion gallons per year—approximately one-third of the state’s annual petroleum usage Mascoma has leading expertise in the core technologies and processes associated with cellulose ethanol systems design and implementation.
Mascoma is also building a cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in New York state (earlier post), and will do so in Michigan as well (earlier post).
80 gallons of ethanol per ton is not too great. CBP is not a single step process there is still pre-processing of biomass, which require cutting it up and liqification in acid and/or steam. Despite these problems if a commercial plant proves viable with this technology this will be a major take off point for cellulosic ethanol.
Posted by: Ben | 20 September 2007 at 01:08 PM
National Geographic has an article this month about biofuels. The EROEI for cellulosic feedstocks ranges from (2 to 36) to 1, depending on method used. But we're still not even out of the starting gate. This facility will be a significant step forward.
Posted by: Cervus | 20 September 2007 at 05:13 PM
Just to put this into perspective: 5 mgy for $40 million. That is capital requirements of $8 million per mgy of cellulosic ethanol. Poet’s newest corn ethanol facility produces 65 mgy and has cost $105 to establish. That is capital requirements of only $1.61 million per mgy of corn ethanol. However, the variable costs should be less with cellulosic ethanol since its feedstock is cheaper. Good to see that they finally put some large scale pilot plants in operation to fine tune the production processes for cellulosic ethanol.
Posted by: Henrik | 21 September 2007 at 02:33 AM
More perspective: The Iraq war cost about $150 billion a year. That is, if the money from 18 months of Iraqi warfare were used to set up corn ethanol facilities USA would get 140 billion gallons of annual ethanol production capacity in 18 months or similar to the entire annual US gasoline consumption. This is unfortunately not possible to produce because the US would run out of corn and the industry that builds ethanol factories will need more time to employ people and raise production volume. Nevertheless, the ethanol expansion could be speeded up much more than it is and it shows how insanely poor the current US administration is at prioritizing its resources. The administration claims they are not in Iraq for oil but it is the only reason that remains. Even Allan Greenspan say’s this openly now see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece
Posted by: Henrik | 21 September 2007 at 03:05 AM
"Even Allan Greenspan say’s this openly now"
Hernik, this is a little off topic. First of all, everyone knows what Greenspan said. Second of all, do you really think the chairman of the Federal Reserve has that much power? Yeah, he may have offered his opinion to the administration, but it is quite naive of him to suggest that we went to war because of this. The fact of the matter is that Greenspan is just as much in the dark as you and I on the real reasons. While he may be right, it is still speculation and far from anything that resembles fact.
Posted by: Angelo | 21 September 2007 at 04:46 AM
Still, if we would invested that amount of money in alternative fuel production, we could make petroleum almost worthless, defeating all oil-producing dictatorships and terrorism-sponsors at once.
Posted by: | 21 September 2007 at 06:32 AM
But, if you made petroleum almost worth less, the boys in Houston and their politician friends would not be happy.
Posted by: sjc | 28 September 2007 at 12:42 PM