Visalia ethanol producer gets $20.4 million grant to develop pilot plant
Visalia Times Delta
A Visalia refinery has been awarded $20.4 million from the Department of Energy to develop a pilot plant that would boost ethanol yield from agricultural waste.
EdeniQ, a spinoff of Altra Biofuels in Goshen, shares the grant with Logos Technologies, an Arlington, Va., research company.
The Goshen plant, which uses corn to produce ethanol, will be modified to use "cellulosic feedstock," which includes stems, pits, cobs and shells, said EdeniQ spokesman Will Gardenswartz.
"We had an idea to develop technologies that help today's corn ethanol producers become more efficient, and get more ethanol out of a bushel of corn," he said.
Eventually, he said, the program could be expanded to turn orchard clippings, nutshells and other ag waste into fuel.
The idea came out of the research and development arm of Altra. Officials decided that focusing on something other than corn could be both effective and lucrative.
The first product the plant is focusing on: LGY, or low-glycerol yeast. Yeast eats the sugar in corn to produce ethanol and glycerol, but LGY boosts the ethanol production by 2 percent, according to Gardenswartz.
"It may not sound like much, but when you're talking about 100 million gallons of ethanol a year and boosting that to 102 million, it's significant," he said.
Another product under development is known as a "cellunator device." It uses the starch in the corn to create uniformly small particles that yeasts can easily handle, boosting yield by an additional 5 percent.
A collaboration with researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute near Boston has led to the development of a proprietary enzyme that boosts yields an additional 4 to 5 percent.
In all, Gardenswartz said, the gains total about 10 percent. At that point such efforts become commercially viable, he said.
Modifying an existing refinery, rather than building a new structure and system, allows costs to be reduced.
Pilot plants receiving grant money must demonstrate technology at industrial scale in order to continue receiving funding over the two- to three-year span of the grant.
The grant money could allow the Goshen plant to approximately double its 20-person work force.
EdeniQ and Logos were among 14 recipients. The DOE ultimately will award $600 million in grant money.
