Vonore biomass plant could go commercial as switchgrass gains ground

8/31/2011

The University of Tennessee showed off its biofuel facilities to top state officials as the school works to increase efficiencies so that the experimental project can become a commercial operation.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander had words of enthusiasm about the project's potential to help spawn a cellulosic biofuels industry in Tennessee.

"Obviously, the potential to turn cellulosic ethanol into fuel that would be Tennessee-grown and provide U.S.-based clean energy is very important. We are here today to understand the economics of what stands between us and finally accomplishing this," Haslam said during a news conference after touring the complex.

Alexander noted the emphasis that the UT project places on switchgrass as a biomass fuel rather than corn.

"What's very important about this is it helps make fuel from crops that we don't use," he said. "When we make fuel from corn it drives up the price of corn."

While Alexander sided with the majority in June when the U.S. Senate voted to repeal more than $5 billion in annual ethanol subsidies, he said that he is against long-term subsidies that essentially prop up an industry but does not oppose using government funds for short-term efforts to spur research that can get new industries off the ground.

"My view is that federal funding is appropriate for research, which this is, and federal funding might be appropriate for jump-starting new technology, such as a small nuclear reactor that might be built at Oak Ridge or for electric cars or for fuel from crops we don't eat." he said. "This project has a chance to fit right into the appropriate niche of being one of those new technologies that can quickly stand on its own."

In 2007, the state authorized $70.5 million for the UT Biofuels Initiative, a five-year program in which UT is partnering with Genera Energy and DuPont to demonstrate the technical, agronomic and economic feasibility of a cellulosic ethanol industry.

Nearly two years ago, a demonstration-scale biorefinery operation was established in Vonore. It has progressed from using corn cobs to make fuel to corn stover (stalks, stems, leaves and cobs) and has been experimenting with using switchgrass. Most U.S., ethanol is still produced from corn.

Jennifer Allison Hutchins, spokeswoman for DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC, said the goal is to start producing switchgrass fuel next year and to eventually start a commercial operation to market the fuel, although she said she couldn't estimate when this would happen.

"We are trying to scale the process up to get it to that level," she said.

DuPont, which also is developing a biomass plant in Iowa, has announced it intends to have a plant producing biofuel from switchgrass by 2014.

Haslam, Alexander and other state officials toured a Vonore farm where switchgrass is produced and also visited UT's Biomass Innovation Park, where research and development takes place. At the farm of Brad and Kim Black, where there are 243 acres of switchgrass, they learned that switchgrass, which is native to Tennessee, is much more drought resistant than corn and produces about twice the yield per acre as corn. It can be harvested with the same equipment used to harvest hay.

At the Biomass Innovation Park, the group learned how the facility is experimenting not just with producing switchgrass but ways to make the process more applicable for business. This includes refining the process so that bales have to be handled fewer times and producing bales with more density so the economics of transporting them by road will work.

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel