I hope they can produce ethanol near that price.

This story illustrates how hard it is to know anything about ethanol produced in the US.

US Sugar is a partner with Coskata here. But US Sugar itself and cane growers benefit greatly from sugar price supports provided by our feds. (someone correct me if this has changed in recent years).

So from the beginning we don't know what the cane would cost if government wasn't involved. Then Florida is being asked for matching funds for the engineering.

I can't say what part of total cost would be engineering cost for a first plant. Others may have some facts pertinent to that.

Then the US Department Of Agriculture is asked to guarantee the money borrowed.

And the resulting ethanol will eventually be blended with the blender getting another subsidy from DOE. That was recently discussed in the "splash pump" article at GCC.

And personally I would be surprised if several other subsidies aren't involved by the time the ethanol is pumped into a vehicle.

US Sugar will probably be paid not to burn the cane leaves. Who knows?

I think this is about saving sugar jobs ---- hopefully most of them will be saved by this.

There is not enough biomass for making fuel for cars in the US. Yup!; use Candu reactors to power PHEVs and to make hydrogen to ferment with recycled CO2 into ethanol if you must have ethanol. Otherwise make methanol and convert it into gasoline when needed. Sorry for the delayed response. And remember there are 25 potassium atom nuclear explosions in each pound of your body on the average every second. Look it up in Wikipedia under postassium. Also ZEBRA batteries were not yet mentioned as being almost equal to Li batteries in the TH!NK car. They are better than some. ..HG..

Thanks for mentioning the NaS battery which is used by power companies in Japan and now in the US. Just directly burning the biomass to produce electricity for electric cars is much more efficient than ethanol. You might find a wood burning cogeneration power plant on the web which goes into this issue in more detail as well as the biomass issue.
In their very well insulated containers both the ZEBRA battery and the NaS battery from NGK are performing quite well. GE tried them in their Hybrid locomotives and trucks because they can work in very hot environments with simple air blast cooling. The price is still too high and much beyond the material costs. Many of the TH!NK cars use the ZEBRA battery which was tested years ago in Europe in various cars for over a million miles. Zebra batteries are currently being used in a UK submarine rescue vehicle by ROLLS-ROYCE.

On one hand there is no reason to put any biomass into land fills and it is not allowed in more and more countries in Europe. Cane residues are a good source of energy for the sugar processors and can be used to produce much power. There is little mention of cogeneration in ethanol plants. No factory that uses heat should not use cogeneration. Thanks to you all. ..HG..

Using residues/wastes to produce liquid fuel (or gas) instead of burning or sending it to harmful landfills is a win-win operation and, as such, should be supported.

As far as subsidies required it could be as much as the direct and indirect cost of landfills and polluting burnings and even a bit more.

If we are serious in our efforts to reduce oil imports, landfills, wastes burnings and pollution; this type of project may be one the acceptable solution.

My apologies, HarveyD. That post should have been directed to Fred H.

K brings up an interesting point. Not to move too far off the article's subject but I've been looking recently at the convoluted subsidy/tax/tariff situation and how it relates to ethanol production. Wow, what a tangled web we weave... The ironic fact of the matter is that the loan/price-fixing tariff setup that we have in place for sugar has moved industry to use cheaper corn sweeteners. High fructose corn syrup is a replacement of the more expensive sugar. The subsidies for sugar go to a very, very small number of businesses. Sugar is about double the price in the US compared to other countries. In fact candy manufacturing has moved to Canada and Mexico for this very reason. USDA pegs corn sweetener using about 5% of the corn crop.

I do hate it when they set arbitrary production cost numbers on a new type of plant – Lighthouse hasn’t come on-line so they simply don’t know the reality yet. If they are unable to meet the number it makes it harder for the next one to get funding.

Another point made upstream; two technologies that are unproven. Actually the plasma breakdown piece is well proven in a number of plants with many more coming on-line. Plasma gasification is nothing new. Municipal waste to syngas is old hat. The trick of the process is in the reactor vessel where they turn that syngas into liquid fuel. Whether it's using a biologic process or a catalyst process this is where the rubber meets the road. Early catalyst processes have proven very expensive; one example is the need for a constant stream of pure oxygen to be injected into the reactor. Ask a welder how expensive simple oxygen is. Another the need for very expensive scrubbers before entering the reactor. Most biologic-based processes never make it out of the highly controlled lab setting. I'm hoping that these bacteria are ready for prime-time.

That being said...loan guarantees and seed money for a promising technology that gets away from grain-based ethanol production…I'll go with a yes on this. Yes, it’s part of a shotgun approach but these biomass/cellulosic technologies need to be investigated. Spend a little more on this now and maybe a little less on aircraft carriers later…

Electrification of most of our transportation sector is happening and will continue to happen – it must happen. The technology is here, but it still costs a bundle and is just now starting to compete. If it happened tomorrow our existing grid would come to a screeching halt. We’ll need some serious upgrades to the distribution infrastructure before it can handle it. Smart inter-ties and meters just to start. Do we have any idea how difficult it is to get a new high-KV line built? Land acquisition is the most difficult part of that equation. Just saw a big project in PA go down for the count a month or so ago (NIMBY). This stuff takes decades to bring on. We’ll need a lot of new plants too. Yep I’m with Henry on this one – more nukes! But I’ll wager a dollar to a high-fructose donut that it’ll take more than a decade to get the first one on-line, even with a massive push from Washington. Yes, more wind, more PV, get the costs down to competitive levels. I don’t mind subsidizing the capital costs to get it off the ground. Let’s not forget the lowest hanging fruit of all, more conservation.

Meanwhile we’re putting 12 million new vehicles on the road every year that are designed with a maximum 10% alcohol mix. How about while we get our shite together on electrifying our fleet we give consumers the choice on what fuel they use? It takes an average of approx. 17 years for a car bought tomorrow to be replaced. Can we wait?

Require all passenger vehicles that come off the line be flex capable. Every car in Brazil now has to be able to use a 25% blend. Further, full flex vehicles as of July 2008 enjoy a 88% market share there. That’s up from 22% only 4 years ago! Allow the demand to make winners out of some of these technologies. Allow the consumer to choose whose pocket he lines.

MarkBC-

How is the advantage unfair because it is established? Clearly oil is the established dominant fuel source because it was so cheap for so many years. I would also say that the industrial revolution would have had a difficult time happening without coal for steam engines and oil for internal combustion engines. How can you question the impact oil had on creating our high standard of living?

I love the idea of moving away from oil consumption, because oil is... a finite resource. However, to suggest that we would be better off without ever using it is silly. Furthermore, companies like BP and ConocoPhillips are investing heavily in alternative energies. Our economy has been built on cheap energy we could pump and dig out of the ground, but there are billions of dollars being spent for R&D by private companies on ultracapacitors, batteries, CIGS thin film panels, Enhanced Geothermal Systems, etc.

I ask again. How can you deny the positive impact oil has had on our economy and our way of life?

>> HarveyD

Suggest you follow this link for updates on what happens to most cane and sorghum stalks after crushing and extraction of juice. Landfill... NOT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse.

And yes, they (HC&S) on Maui still burns cane fields prior to harvest (AO 2004 when I lived there) and locals are still in uproar over smoke and pollution.

Rikiki

And don't forget another cost of oil: huge military establishment to guarantee access to middle east oil.

"subsidies" for sugar are more in the form of tarrifs on imports, and banning cuban sugar. in florida the sugar industry has polluted lake Okeechobee, so that's another unmeasured subsidy (because never held accountable).

Rikiki:

Yes, most agriculture waste can be converted into energy and many other products. The cellulosic liquid fuel route is interesting to reduce oil imports.

Unfortunately, bagasse burning is still common place in Maui and many other places.