NewEnergyBlue acquires Inbicon cellulosic ethanol technology
Type of post: NEWS.
NewEnergyBlue
intends to develop, build, own and operate a cellulosic ethanol plant at the
Spiritwood Industrial Park near Jamestown (North Dakota). The company has just
announced that it has acquired exclusive rights to Inbicon bioconversion technology
throughout the Americas and it will first employ it to turn wheat straw into ethanol
in its biorefinery under planning (Spirit Biomass Refinery).
Press release: “New Energy Blue buys Inbicon’s
low-carbon fuel technology”, 12/8/2019.
Related posts:
- “New
Energy Blue plans to break ground on its first cellulosic ethanol biorefinery
in spring 2019”, 28/9/2018.
Figure 1. Wheat straw bale in a snowy field in North
Dakota at dawn
The technology license was purchased from
Ørsted, a Danish green-energy company. Ørsted developed the technology over 15
years at a cost exceeding 200 M$ and proved its feasibility at a demo plant in
Kalundborg for nearly five of those years. A number of NewEnergyBlue executives
worked with Ørsted developing the technology.
The press release highlights some of the key characteristics
of the Inbicon process:
- It does not use acid or ammonia in the
pretreatment. Instead of that, high-pressure steam and an enzyme bath break
down the biomass fibers into sugars and lignin.
- Its enclosed-loop design recycles the water
from the biomass (about 15% moisture) producing a surplus of clean water for
uses like irrigation.
- The ethanol produced is more than 100% below
the carbon baseline of grain ethanol and more than 140% below of the carbon
baseline of regular gasoline.
Having cleared a major technology acquisition
hurdle, the company now expects groundbreaking for its Spiritwood biorefinery
in 2020 (previous forecasts mentioned Spring 2019). The plant will be owned by
NewEnergyBlue and its equity holders that includes regional investors with
interest it contributes to the area economy. NewEnergyBlue finds that farmers
welcome the opportunity to earn a second income from each year’s harvest.
Moreover, the company intends to build a series of
biorefineries across grain belts and sugar-growing regions to process
agricultural residues like wheat straw, cornstalks and sugar bagasse,
converting them into ethanol. Given current trade policies and the strained
margins on grain ethanol, first-generation producers can benefit from a
reduction of their production’s carbon footprint through co-locating a NewEnergyBlue
second-generation facility and including a shared CHP unit fueled by lignin.
