May 30, 2008

New US ethanol plant to utilise non-food crops

A recently built ethanol plant in the US announced to produce 1.4 million-gallon-per-year from agricultural waste and non-food crops.

However, some experts say that cellulosic ethanol still costs at least US$1-per-gallon more to produce than corn-based ethanol.

Verenium Corp, the firm behind the project, said it has developed a process it believes will help reduce costs, pave the way for wide-scale cellulosic ethanol production and silence ethanol's detractors.

Currently, the US company is running test batches of ethanol from sugar bagasse, or what is left of sugarcane after the sugar has been extracted to make syrup or other products.