US is investing $114m for cellulosic ethanol projects to explore cellulosic ethanol feedstock options and production processes for biorefineries. The investment is for four years development of funding of four pilot plants before contribution from private sector. The government funding is seen as part of US goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012 under the President Bush administration.
The pilot plant will be able to produce about 2.5m gal/year of cellulosic ethanol in a plant to build a commercial ethanol plant with annual output capacity of around 25m gallons or 75,000 tonnes.
There are as yet no commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol production units in the US. Current technologies explored under study for cellulosic ethanol production includes conventional cellulosic conversion technologies, biogenetic and microbiotic conversion of cellulosic feedstock into cost-effective fuels.
Cellulosic Ethanol Production Route from BiomassIncentives to go with ethanol is pressured under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which requires the US to produce at 100m gal/year of cellulosic ethanol by 2010 and 500m gal/year by 2012 in the route to achieve 36bn gal/year of renewable fuels in 2022.
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