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Posts Tagged ‘ethanol’

In America, alternate energy investment is needed to reduce our demand and consumption on imported oil. The U.S. government knows this and has set up a $160 million contest that will be awarded as federal grants to build 3 new plants for the production of cellulosic ethanol. There are over 30 companies actively researching for an economical way to produce this alternative fuel. For these companies to win the award they must first have a functional pilot plant up and running proving their process works.

This all sounds great but what is cellulosic ethanol? Everybody knows converting the sugars in corn to an alcohol produces what we call ethanol. The government’s goal is for not only the corn but also the plant as a whole to be consumed for the production of ethanol.  This is being done with microorganisms. Genetic engineers are modifying certain organisms to consume not only the corn, but also the stalk and leaves to produce the alcohol.  Enzymes are helping to break down the cellulose to sugars, which feed the microorganisms.

This line of investment has some of the big names involved like Goldman Sachs. They have teamed up with Royal Dutch Shell and Iogen. The pilot plant in Ottawa is showing promising results and if scaled up could produce cellulosic ethanol at $1.35 a gallon.

ADM is also vying for government funding. A considerable investment as the largest ethanol producer in the nation has already been made. With research looking into ways to convert the whole kernel of corn into ethanol, including the fiber, will increase their process output by 15%.

A third company is Europe’s leading producer of ethanol, Abengoa Bioenergy. Here they convert ethanol out of wheat straw.

Right now the U.S. taxpayer is subsidizing the cost of the ethanol production with a 51-cent federal tax credit and other programs costing over $2 billion a year. But with the big investors and companies involved, alternate energy investment is the path to making money. If it were not a wise investment then there would not be so many companies and big investors already making the plunge. It is just a matter of time till our dependency on foreign oil is diminished.