Special Report on Cellulosic Ethanol: Verenium leaps into lead in race for commercial-scale CE, with 36 Mgy Florida project

The question of who would announce the first commercial-scale ethanol project has been the subject of intense speculation. Many observers looked to the rumored Coskata 100 Mgy sugar waste-to-ethanol project as the one that would get out of the blocks first. The scuttlebutt had the location right: Florida will be home to the first project producing 100,000 gallons per day, but Verenium was the company making the announcement.

The company said the 36 Mgy plant will be the first commercial-scale facility constructed. KL Energy may take issue with the defintion of “commercial-scale”  — but there being no firm “definition” of cellulosic ethanol, there’s no harm in some self-promotion from Verenium. In terms of cellulosic ethanol, 36 Mgy is an awesome project at this time.

It will be an interesting race between the delayed Range Fuels and BlueFire Ethanol projects to see if they reach completion on demonstration-scale plants prior to the completion of the Verenium project, and briefly take supremacy as the “world’s largest CE plant”.

The Verenium facility will be located in Highlands County, between Orlando and Lake Okeechobee, and will receive $7 million in support for the project from the state of Florida’s Farm-to-Fuel fund, and expected to break ground on the 36 Mgy facility in the second half of the year. The project will cost between $250 and $300 million and will use non-food grasses as feedstock.

The company’s 1.4 Mgy demonstration-scale plant in Jennings, Louisiana commenced production this month.

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