DesMoinesRegister.com: Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said his department expects to issue loan guarantees next year for the first cellulose ethanol projects. Construction will take an additional two to three years, he said Thursday.
Despite the research, the Energy Department estimates that it still costs $2.20 a gallon to produce cellulosic ethanol, double the cost of making ethanol from corn.
Private companies closely guard their production costs, but Bodman has been told privately that some have lowered the cost of making cellulosic ethanol to $1.50 a gallon. He did not identify the companies.
“The goal is to get it down to commensurate with corn, which is $1.10,” he said.
This seems contrary to some announcements reported in The Energy Blog which indicated that some plants would start operation this year and more in the following years.
The costs mentioned in the announcement would be for cellulosic ethanol made using enzymatic hydrolysis. This involves pre-processing the feedstock using recently developed enzymes in advance of sugar fermentation. Days longer, more complicated, with the price of the enzymes on top of that.
If the D.O.E. does not help fund a syngas fermentation deployment then there is something seriously wrong with the RFP process. The price per gallon is projected to be much lower than corn because there is no pre-process, no sugar fermentation per se, and no cost of enzymes. Plus, it is much faster and a much greater variety of cheaper feedstock can be used.
Posted by: C. Scott Miller | September 09, 2006 at 04:24 PM
If they don't fund that, it's probably because the grain-farmers and ADM don't want it done (too much competition for them).
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | September 10, 2006 at 12:33 AM