Non-food ethanol fuels race toward production

FORT LUPTON – In the ongoing pursuit of domestic fuel production, the quest for the Holy Grail of a process that can economically convert cellulosic material – corn stalks, wheat straw, wood and other organic, non-food material – goes on.

A variety of processes are being explored by scientists in research laboratories around the nation and the globe, and there have been many small-scale successes. But Ed Lehrburger, CEO and founder of PureVision Technology in Fort Lupton, said so far that Holy Grail remains out of reach.

“There’s not one commercial-scale cellulosic biorefinery operating in the world,” he said. “All of us still have a ways to go.”

PureVision, founded in 1992, is working toward that goal, but Lehrburger said the next major step in that journey – building a 250-ton-per-day reactor – is still a couple of years in the future. For now, the 15-employee company is perfecting its cellulosic biomass conversion technology in a half-ton reactor.

Lehrburger said PureVision’s focus is on producing fermentation sugars that are a step toward cellulosic fuel production.

“We have the front-end processing to hopefully make affordable sugars to make cheap ethanol or cheap biofuels,” he said. “Our focus is developing and perfecting a hydrolysis method of converting diverse cellulosics into fermentation sugars.”

Those cellulosics include corn stalks and cobs, wheat straw, sugar cane stalks and wood. “So far we’ve been able to use any cellulosic,” he said.

At this point, feed corn remains the main source of biomass for ethanol fuel production, but its use has come under fire by meat and poultry producers who say competition for corn from ethanol producers is driving up feed costs.

Lehrburger said PureVision wants to help the ethanol industry move away from corn. “We are looking beyond corn,” he said. “I hate to see the price of corn and all the products made from corn go up because we’re putting it in our gas tanks.”

Lehrburger said the cost of making the fermentation sugars is too high at present and is a stumbling block for many would-be cellulosic ethanol producers.

Other technologies

But Cobalt Technologies, a California-based company, claims to have made a breakthrough in its technology to produce biobutanol from beetle-killed lodgepole pine trees, which now cover millions of acres of the American West and Canada.

“With this breakthrough, we’ve been able to turn a problem into an opportunity,´ said Rick Wilson, Cobalt’s CEO, in an announcement made in early April. “If we use only half of the 2.3 million acres currently affected in Colorado alone, we could produce over 2 billion gallons of biobutanol – enough to blend into all the gasoline used in Colorado for six years.”

Colorado State University will partner with Cobalt to test the fuel’s viability for commercial vehicle use.

Lehrburger said he wishes Cobalt success. “I know the folks at Cobalt pretty well,” he said. “I hope they can do it and they have an interest in our technology, and I hope we can achieve a technology package to bring to the market.”

Lakewood-based ZeaChem is another Colorado company that’s pursuing the dream of getting cellulosic-based fuel to a commercial production scale. Carrie Atiyeh, company spokeswoman, said ZeaChem has also managed to convert almost any kind of biomass to fuel using a bacteria to ferment sugars. She said the company is moving into the demonstration phase of its technology and plans to build a 250,000-gallon-per-year biorefinery in Oregon that will begin producing next year.

Atiyeh said ZeaChem is locating its biorefinery near a tree farm that can supply its biomass needs. Atiyeh said ZeaChem could produce biofuel from beetle-killed trees but there are too many unknowns about using the trees.

Those unknowns, she noted, include securing long-term agreements with tree owners -public or private – the distance from the forest to a biorefinery to make it economically viable, lack of roads in most beetle-killed areas, and the possibility of a wildfire wiping out a dead forest.

Atiyeh said the incipient cellulosic ethanol industry is moving faster toward commercial-scale production thanks to government funding and investor support. That movement is likely to speed up in the next few years, she noted.

“I think we’re seeing a lot of tremendous growth now and we’ll see some even faster growth in the next few years,” she said.

“There are a number of different technologies out there, and it’s going to be interesting to see who can do it economically,” she added. “Because if we can’t do it economically, we don’t get anywhere.”

Steve Porter covers agribusiness for the Northern Colorado Business Report. He can be reached at 970-221-5400, ext. 217, or sporter@ncbr.com.

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