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Page added on October 19, 2013
A 75-Million-Gallon Cellulosic Ethanol Plant In Italy
CREDIT: Beta Renewables
The world’s first plant able to produce cellulosic biofuel at commercial scale using enzymatic conversion recently opened in Crescentino, Italy. When it’s fully up and running, the plant is expected to deliver 75 million liters (just shy of 20 million gallons) of ethanol to the European market.
Admittedly, the “world’s first” title rests on narrow grounds. The plant uses a particular process developed by its owner, Beta Renewables, that first breaks raw materials down into sugars using enzymes, and then converts those sugars into ethanol through fermentation by bacteria.
Another commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant is already up and running in Florida, but it uses a different process in which gasification — exposure to high heat — transforms the raw materials into a mix of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen called syngas. The same fermentation process then converts the syngas into ethanol.
The Florida plant is anticipated to produce 8 million gallons of biofuel a year when it’s fully up and running. A plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa with a capacity of 25 million gallons is in the works, as is a 30 million gallon facility in Nevada, Iowa, and a 23 million gallon set up in Hugoton, Kansas. The current conventional wisdom says that large-scale commercial production of cellulosic biofuel remains out of reach, and the target set by the federal government’s renewable fuel mandate is too high. But that may not be the case much longer.
Cellulosic biofuels come with two big advantages. First, the raw materials are things like plant waste from agriculture, wood products manufacturing, and lawn maintenance. Unlike corn-based biofuel, those are feedstocks that don’t compete with human food supplies. Second, these are feedstocks from agriculture that would’ve taken place with or without the demand from biofuel production, so the biofuel itself isn’t adding to the total amount of agriculture already taking place. That’s good because the businesses of growing and harvesting crops tends to involve a lot of carbon emissions in its own right, and because converting natural forests and grasslands into cropland reduces the overall amount of carbon the land can remove from the atmosphere. If a biofuel drives new agricultural activity, it loses most or even all of its benefit in terms of fighting climate change.
Other advances in cellulosic biofuels are also on the horizon. For instance, a University of Wisconsin-Madison team recently figured out a version of the enzyme-plus-fermentation process that allows both steps to occur within the same bioreactor, thus cutting down on capital and implementation costs. (Though Beta Renewables boasts a “fully integrated process design” that it says also cuts down on capital costs.) The Wisconsin-Madison team also produced isobutanol rather than ethanol, which packs considerably more heat energy per gallon.
6 Comments on "A 75-Million-Gallon Cellulosic Ethanol Plant In Italy"
J-Gav on Sat, 19th Oct 2013 3:41 pm
I’ll pop the question to save other posters here the trouble: What’s the EROEI?
Others on Sat, 19th Oct 2013 4:09 pm
Sweet news. Finally the cellulose technology has matured and hope more of this fuel will join the Ethanol Pool.
DMyers on Sat, 19th Oct 2013 4:34 pm
“In 2011, the United States consumed about 134 billion gallons (or 3.19 billion barrels) of gasoline, a daily average of about 367.08 million gallons (8.74 million barrels). This was about 6% less than the record high of about 142.38 billion gallons (or 3.39 billion barrels) consumed in 2007.” http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=23&t=10
Let’s note that the attention grabbing title of 75 million gallons is, according to the article itself, really only 20 million gallons (75 million liters). And the rate is not stated, although the reference to the Florida plant specifies 8 million gallons per year. The US uses 367 million gallons (gasoline) per day.
There is the specific consideration of how much conventional fossil fuel input is necessary to sustain this process. Without even reaching that question, the shortfall in volume (20/year compared 367/day)suggests that this will do virtually nothing to solve the transportation energy problems of the present situation.
However, this might be enough to keep us rolling, in a world where transportation is limited to only mopeds and motor scooters, rickshaws and bikes.
action on Sat, 19th Oct 2013 5:42 pm
From what I read in brief online, it’s at best EROEI of 1.5 (this should be checked, don’t take my word for it). A major factor is the amount of trucking necessary to get material to the plant which greatly diminishes the ratio, among other things.
Kenz300 on Sat, 19th Oct 2013 6:04 pm
The more we diversify out transportation fuels the better. Electric, biofuel, hybrid, CNG, LNG and hydrogen we can use them all.
Biofuels can now be made form waste or trash. Every landfill around the world can be converted to produce biofuels, energy and recycled raw materials for new products.
This is better than Wars for oil…..
DC on Sat, 19th Oct 2013 7:23 pm
Yes Ken, all we need to do is ‘diversify’ and all will be well-right? Just stick a slightly different form of Fossil-fool in your private trash-cans tank and all will be right in the world again. So long as it is liquid, toxic, and requires minimum investment on the part of current fossil-fuel corporations equipment and delivery systems, then well be just fine.
Anyhow….
I assume that is 75 million would have to be a (projected) annual output. Pretty measly.
The other thing I wonder about, is how is that plant powered itself? Does the plant siphon off a portion of the bio-fools the plant itself produces? OR is the facility completely run on other energy. Electricity, coal, nuclear NG, whatever? Would that 75 million gallons be sufficient to even power the plant itself?