Aemetis takes a new step to build a cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in California
Aemetis continues to take steps to construct a
cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in California. In early August, the
California-based company signed an agreement with exclusive rights for the use
of the advanced gasification technology of InEnTec (see Blog post, 07/08/2017) and announced that it
had started to produce cellulosic ethanol from orchard waste in an integrated
demo unit (Aemetis press release on 07/08/2017 has been removed from the web
page but the information can be found in this article of Ethanol Producer Magazine).
The facility is located at InEnTec’s Technology
Center in Richland (Washington) and was built to showcase cellulosic ethanol
production through the integration of advanced gasification from InEnTec with
patented microbial fermentation from LanzaTech. It will serve as a basis for a
full-scale biorefinery which will be built in Riverbank (California). According
to a recent press release, Aemetis Advanced Products Keyes (subsidiary
of Aemetis) has signed a 55 year lease at a former US Army munitions facility
located at that locality. It is near the existing Aemetis biofuels plant in
Keyes (production capacity: 60 million gallon per year of ethanol).
Figure 1. Aemetis biofuels plant in Keyes (extracted
from the web page of the company). The cellulosic ethanol biorefinery will be
located at Riverbank close to Keyes.
Project factsheet
Location
|
Riverbank
(California).
|
Technologies
|
Gasification:
InEnTec.
Fermentation:
Lanzatech.
|
Feedstocks
|
Orchard waste and nutshells.
The
Central Valley of California produces more than 1.6 million tons of waste orchard
wood and nutshells each year from approximately 1 million acres of almond,
walnut and pistachio orchards.
|
Products
and production capacity
|
Cellulosic
ethanol.
Phase 1: 10
million gallons.
Final
target: 40 million gallons.
|
Employment
effect
|
1,900 direct
and indirect jobs.
|