Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas, LLC  to receive $132.4 M loan guarantee from the U.S. Dept. of Energy for construction of a cellulosic ethanol plant for commercial scale production of cellulosic ethanol. Hugoton, Kansas to benefit from the construction of the cellulosic ethanol plant with a potential 300 construction jobs and 65 permanent jobs.

As noted on the company Website, "The feedstocks for the facility will be primarily agricultural waste products such as the stalks of corn or grain sorghum, but it is also expected to use wheat straw and potentially prairie grasses and even wood wastes." The plans are for the plant to produce 23 million gallons of ethanol from the biomass it plans to use.

As noted in the article on BiofuelsDigest, the company Cobalt Technologies in partnership with American Process, hope to demonstrate in 2012 the production of biobutanol from a feedstock consisting of woodchips.

http://biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2011/08/27/solazyme-vs-cobalt-technologies-whos-the-best/

...click for Fact Sheet (pdf) on Cobalt Technologies

...more news regarding the planned cellulosic biobutanol plant joint effort between American Process Inc. and Cobalt Technologies:
 Posting on Sustainable Business.com

A recent study by Purdue research scientist Youngmi Kim shows that combining a harvest fall schedule along with a pretreatment step will help increase the yield of cellulosic ethanol per acre.

The examples noted in the article (link below) noted that from a single acre of switchgrass, following the scientist's recommended approach can yield 800 to 1000 gallons of ethanol per year per acre, compared to 150 to 200 gallons per acre without the pretreatment step.

As a reference, the average per acre yield for corn-based ethanol is estimated at 500 to 600 gallons per acre of corn.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/08/31/Study-Switchgrass-ethanol-can-be-boosted/UPI-29181314835818/

The University of Tennessee recently hosted area leaders and politicians at its biofuels facility where it has an experimental program in place to create cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass. A local farmer in Vonore, TN - ColorWheel Farm owner Kim Black - discussed how she and husband Brad are growing over 240 acres of the drought-resistant switchgrass, which produces nearly double the yield per acre than corn.
...click here for the news posting of the University's efforts and Kim and Brad Black

The efforts of the University of Tennessee and farmers like the Blacks are key in helping the biofuels industry to begin producing commercial quantities of cellulosic ethanol,which in turn will help reduce the dependency on corn for the product of regular ethanol fuel.

Clean Fuels Development Coalition - as noted on their Web site "THE CLEAN FUELS DEVELOPMENT COALITION (CFDC) is 501(c)(6) non-profit organization that actively supports the increased production and use of fuels that can reduce air pollution and oil imports."

Cellulose White Paper (download pdf) - from the CFDC Website - New White Paper Lays out Path Forward for Cellulose

Cellulosic ethanol firm ZeaChem teaming up with Chrysler to promote the adoption of and benefits from cellulosic ethanol

Creating cellulosic ethanol has been a challenge for many in the alternative fuel industry. Tremendous progress has been made, with pilot plants and full production plants now online helping to provide ethanol for our day-to-day transportation needs.

Unfortunately we've lost our previous blog history, tags, etc. We will be updating this EthanolBlogger.com blog over the next few days or so. Our main ethanol site is EthanolConsultants.com

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