World''s First Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol Plant

[jpak]

http://www.agriculture.com/ag/futuresource/FutureSourceStoryIndex.jhtml?storyId=42200421

CENTRAL CITY, Neb. (Dow Jones)--Opening of the world's first commercial
cellulosic ethanol plant is slated for this fall in northern Spain, even though
costs of producing alcohol fuel via the emerging technology are still estimated
to be about 50%-100% higher than that for plants which use grain as a
feedstock.

The Ontario-based SunOpta BioProcess Group (formerly Stake Technology), a
division of SunOpta Inc. (STKL), announced last week that plans for start-up of
a wheat straw-to-ethanol plant near Salamanca, Spain, are proceeding on
schedule.

The facility, which represents the first commercial cellulosic ethanol
production plant on the planet, is being supplied to Abener Energia S.A. of
Seville, Spain, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abengoa S.A. (ABG.MC). Abengoa is
the largest ethanol producer in Europe, the second largest in the world, and
operator of a research and development division in St. Louis.

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[JohnWxy]

1. very interesting. They are closer to making this a commercial product

than I realized. Here's some more from that article:

Murray Burke, vice president and general manager of SunOpta's BioProcess
Group, disagrees with those figures, estimating that modern grain alcohol
plants being built today may have a breakeven as low as 90-95 cents per gallon,
compared to a cost-of-production which likely ranges from $1.40-$1.60 per
gallon for a commercial-scale cellulosic facility, such as the Spanish plant.


-By Gary Wulf; Dow Jones Newswires; [e-mail]

This is why keeping the availability and therefore the demand down for ethanol has been so counter-productive. Getting the volume up is all important in making the product economical.

This is why getting corn based (or sugar cane or beets, or soy beans) ethanol production up is so important (aside from the obvious value of decreased dependence on imported oil) as it will facilitate cellulosic ethanol's entry into the market by making economic production more quickly achievable. With the infrastructure in place (demand and production facilities) cellulosic ethanol can achieve lower costs that much sooner.