The flow of cash into cellulosic ethanol is accelerating with Range Fuels being the latest start-up to get an infusion. The Broomfield, Colo. company has received a $130 million round of venture funding. Most of the money will be used for construction of a waste wood to ethanol production facility in Soperton, GA. This follows an investment earlier this year by General Motors in Illinois-based Coskata.

The Range Fuels process uses a thermo-chemical reaction with heat, pressure and steam to produce a syngas from cellulosic biomass. The syngas is then converted to an alcohol blend by passing it over a proprietary catalyst. The alcohol blend is then processed to isolate the ethanol. Range Fuels claims a high energy in to ethanol ratio for their process. Unlike some competing processes, this one doesn't rely on any enzymes to break down the cellulose into simpler sugars. It's not known how the process compares to some others, but investor Vinod Khosla estimates the Range Fuels process will come in at about $1.25/gallon. The investors in this latest funding round include Passport Capital LLC, Blue Mountain Venture Capital LLC, Morgan Stanley and Pacific Capital Group and Khosla Ventures. Khosla is also an investor in Coskata.

[Source: Wall Street Journal - Sub. req'd]

Range Fuels' cellulosic ethanol plant, the first in America, broke ground Tuesday in Treutlen County, Georgia. Construction of the first 20 million-gallon-per-year phase is expected to be completed in 2008. Pictured, from the left, are U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, Khosla Ventures Founder Vinod Khosla, Range Fuels CEO Mitch Mandich and Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue.

Below the fold is the full press release and a video about the company from Fox News. GM is a supporter of the plant, with Beth Lowery, General Motors Vice President of Environment, Energy, and Safety Policy, saying that "Range Fuel's investment in this ethanol production facility is an important step toward the next generation of renewable fuels. Cellulosic ethanol has enormous potential for displacing gasoline and reducing emissions."

Related:

• Range Fuels (ex-Kergy) will open wood-waste-using cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia
• Range Fuels building the Nation's First Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol Plant

[Source: Range Fuels]

Cellulosic ethanol is the next step in making a definitive replacement for foreign oil. The reality is becoming ever closer, now in large part due to Range Fuels. The State of Georgia has just awarded them a permit to build the first plant to employ their patented technology to produce 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year.

Part of the apparent brilliance to the K2 process, as it is called, is that it is a modular design, meaning the processing equipment can be scaled to the need and location, and doesn't necessarily require a monstrous factory. Theoretically, a biomass supplier could cut transportation expenses by sending their material directly into an on-site processor, making the whole thing much more efficient. The K2 process eliminates expensive enzymes by using a two-step thermo-chemical conversion, first converting the biomass into a synthesis gas, and then processing the gas into ethanol.

This new technology and first of many plants employing it is beneficial for two main reasons. We've already covered the lessened dependency on foreign oil. It also means that with the alleged simplicity and adaptability of this processing method, we could see a boom in the number of ethanol plants across the country, thereby producing much more supply of ethanol, lessening demand, and lowering the price to something far more competitive to gasoline. That would then make the decreased efficiency of ethanol-burning engines more tolerable. Of course, as that technology advances as well, fuel efficiency could soon be on par with its oil-based competition.

Related:

• Range Fuels (ex-Kergy) will open wood-waste-using cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia

[Source: Range Fuels]

Range Fuels, Inc., known until just the other day as Kergy, Inc., will build a cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia to turn wood waste into the biofuel. Range Fuels says its proprietary cellulosic ethanol technology can turn wood chips, agricultural wastes, grasses, cornstalks, hog manure, municipal garbage, sawdust or paper pulp (whew) into ethanol. Without using enzymes, the K2 system first turns the biomass into a synthetic gas and then into ethanol.

This new plant will be funded by Vinod Khosla's Khosla Ventures (Range Fuels itself is privately owned by Khosla Ventures) and can potentially create one million gallons of ethanol a year, along with and 70 new jobs. Khosla recently said at a Reuters Global Biofuels Summit that he thinks cellulosic fuel prices could sink to $1 per gallon within 10 years, and that would make them very attractive at the pump.

This cellulosic ethanol plant is a big step forward, since most ethanol plants in America use corn or soy as the biomass feedstock. Turning a waste product into fuel seems like a no-brainer. I'm not entirely sure if this waste is lumber industry by-product or things like fallen branches. The former seems much more likely, but the company's announcement reads, "Wood waste from the state's millions of acres of indigenous Georgia Pine will be the main source of biomass for the ethanol production." So, what does that mean exactly?

[Source: Range Fuels, Inc.]