With the addition of the two new projects announced today, the selected biorefinery projects will receive up to a total of $240 million in DOE funding, subject to appropriations, over the next five fiscal years. Once federal funding is combined with industry cost share, more than $735 million will be invested in these nine projects, over the next four to five years.

On average, commercial-scale biorefineries process roughly 700 tons or more of non-food feedstock per day, with an output of approximately 15-30 million gallons a year (MMGY) of biofuels. These smaller-scale facilities will input approximately 70 tons of feedstock per day—with outputs ranging from 1.5 to 6 MMGY. The selected small-scale projects will produce liquid transportation fuels such as cellulosic ethanol from wood, energy crops and agricultural waste products.

These small-scale projects complement the DOE’s investment in commercial-scale biorefineries. The full-scale biorefineries focus on near-term commercial processes, while the small-scale facilities will verify integrated operations at a reduced size with diverse feedstocks using novel processing technologies.

The two projects are:

• Flambeau River Biofuels (FRB), LLC of Park Falls, Wis. The proposed biorefinery will be installed in an existing pulp and paper mill in Park Falls, Wis., and will use thermochemical conversion of cellulosic biomass using advanced gasification technologies followed by F-T catalytic conversion to produce renewable liquid fuels and waxes.

  When completed, the facility will produce at least 1 trillion BTUs of renewable energy for the host mill and 6 million gallons of transportation (sulfur-free diesel) fuels per year.

  FRB participants/investors include: ANL Consultants, Auburn University, Brigham Young University, Citigroup Global Markets, CleanTech Partners, Emerging Fuels Technology, Flambeau River Papers, Johnson Timber, National Renewable Energy Lab, Michigan Technological University, NC State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ThermoChem Recovery International, University of Wisconsin, and the USDA Forest Products Laboratory.

• Verenium Biofuels Corporation of Jennings, La. Construction of Verenium’s 1.5 million gallon per year demonstration-scale cellulosic ethanol facility is underway and is scheduled to be complete in late 2008. (Earlier post.)

  The project is moving to commercialize its proprietary technology for the production of ethanol from a wide array of biomass feedstocks, including sugarcane bagasse, agricultural byproducts, waste wood products, and other non-food based energy crops. The Jennings, Louisiana demonstration plant is operated by Verenium Corporation, which was formed in 2007 through a merger of Celunol Corp, and Diversa Corporation.