WITH THE ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND SECURITY ACT OF 2007 ethanol production will have to increase by almost 500% to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022. The production of ethanol from corn has raised serious concern on the impact it will have on food supplies.
Coskata, a biofuel startup in Illinois, claims to be able to manufacture ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon without impacting the food supply.
It uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas, which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gases are then pumped it into a reactor containing bacteria that consume the gas and produce ethanol. The process yields 99.7 percent pure ethanol.
Gasification and bacterial conversion are common methods of producing ethanol, but Coskata is the first to combine them. Doing so, they said, merges the feedstock flexibility of gasification with the relatively low cost of bacterial conversion.
Coskata’s method generates more ethanol per ton of feedstock than corn-based ethanol and requires far less water, heat and pressure. Those cost savings allow it to turn, say, two bales of hay into five gallons of ethanol for less than $1 a gallon, the company said. Corn-based ethanol costs $1.40 a gallon to produce, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
According to May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, Coskata’s ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.
Coskata won’t have a pilot plant running until this time next year, and it will produce just 40,000 gallons a year. It plans to have its first commercial-scale plant producing up to 100 million gallons of ethanol a year by 2011.
“You’re not bound by location,” Richard Tobey, Coskata’s vice president of engineering, said. “If you’re in Orange County, you can use municipal waste. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you can use wood waste. Florida has sugar. The Midwest has corn. Each region has been blessed with the ability to grow its own biomass.”
If this succeeds the world will be less dependent on gasoline. The environment will be less polluted. The organic waste instead of being a burden has now become a precious raw commodity and the consumers will be paying less for their energy.
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