Iogen Corp. of Canada was the first to take cellulosic ethanol out of the lab, opening a pilot plant in 2004 that has been making the fuel from wheat straw at a rate of 260,000 gallons a year. Using an Energy Department grant, the firm will launch U.S. production in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Last month, Massachusetts-based ethanol maker Celunol Corp. launched production at the first U.S. test refinery for cellulosic ethanol, located in Jennings, La., and has started construction of a larger facility. The bigger project would produce as many as 1.4 million gallons a year of ethanol made from crushed sugar-cane stalks.
The cellulosic approach can pull energy out of nearly any plant material, but the process is difficult because it must draw sugars from tough substances inside plants. Some processes draw out the sugars using heat and chemicals; others employ specialty enzymes.
"Of the initial plants ... not all of them will work perfectly," said Karsner of the Energy Department, who expects cellulosic refineries to be commercially viable by 2012. "They will be the training wheels, where we get the kinks out of the systems and understand how to process large-scale biomass."
Greene, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, is optimistic. Cellulosic ethanol is easier on the environment than corn-based ethanol, once fertilizer and tractor fuel are factored in, and it could put a meaningful dent in U.S. petroleum use, he said, "so it's worth struggling to figure out how to get there."
Back in Thousand Oaks, Ceres is gearing up for a cellulosic future that CEO Hamilton believes will include lots of switch grass. When that future arrives, he said, "we want to be there with the best seeds."
*
elizabeth.douglass@latimes.com
