Government of Canada awarding initial $734,500 to cellulosic ethanol project; funding could reach $39.8M
28 September 2013
The Government of Canada is investing $734,500 through Sustainable Development Technology Canada’s (SDTC) NextGen Biofuels Fund in the initial phase of the Vanerco cellulosic ethanol project in Varennes, Québec. SDTC’s funding could reach $39.8 million, based on subsequent project milestones and required approvals.
The Vanerco Varennes-Generation Project is a joint venture partnership formed by Enerkem Technologies, a Montreal-based waste-to-biofuels and chemicals company, and GreenField, a Canadian leader in ethanol production.
The project will be located at GreenField’s facility in Varennes, where it will convert 100,000 metric tonnes per year of urban waste into 38 million liters (10 million gallons US) of cellulosic ethanol that can then be blended into transportation fuel.
The Enerkem thermo-chemical process, which is currently being demonstrated in Wesbury, QC with support from SDTC’s SD Tech Fund, includes feedstock preparation, gasification of biomass, syngas conditioning and catalytic synthesis of ethanol. The gasification capacity scale-up factor is seven times from Westbury to the Vanerco facility.
Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2013 will provide $325 million over eight years to Sustainable Development Technology Canada to support the development and demonstration of new clean technologies.
An importnt factor about this process may not be liquid fuel production but improved waste management. Adjacent cities are runing out of acceptable garbage disposal places. Reducing waste size will help to reduce the size and number of future waste disposal places.
Posted by: HarveyD | 28 September 2013 at 06:46 AM
Parts of Canada grow lots of wheat, thus producing lots of wheat straw. 15 years ago Iogen came up with the process, 10 years ago enzymes were made at 1% of the previous cost.
We have been able to do this during the past decade, but the last 5 years has been the crash, why don't we pick up where we left off. Keeping $100 billion each year in the U.S. instead of buying imported oil would help start new companies while employing lots of people.
Posted by: SJC | 29 September 2013 at 03:03 PM
@SJC
Straw isn't as plentiful as it once was;
http://hayandforage.com/hay/hay-theft-epidemic
Posted by: ai_vin | 29 September 2013 at 03:37 PM
Thieves will strip the wiring out of buildings for the copper. The point is there is a LOT of biomass to make fuel.
Posted by: SJC | 29 September 2013 at 06:00 PM
Straw and hay are two very different things.
Transporting any sort of biomass is costly due to its bulk, but none moreso than hollow-stemmed grasses like straw. Instead of turning it into cellulosic ethanol, converting the straw to pyrolysis oil in the field and using that as feedstock for fuel and chemicals would use a lot less energy and labor for transport.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 September 2013 at 08:29 PM
Yes: "Hay is for horses, straw is for houses."
A better approach is to do what they're doing here, using urban waste, the stuff that is leftover from biomass that already had to be transported in for other purposes.
Posted by: ai_vin | 30 September 2013 at 01:57 AM
Using urban, industrial and agriculture waste should be a priority. Cleaning up the planet to produce useful chemicals and liquid fuels would be positive?
Posted by: HarveyD | 30 September 2013 at 02:27 PM
You are just reclaiming some of the energy used to make the trash, once you have used it all that is no better than a stripped coal mine.
Grow crops for food and use the rest for fuel. This site is suppose to be about "sustainable mobility" not how often people can insult one another with inflated egos.
Posted by: SJC | 01 October 2013 at 09:10 AM