Genencor, a subsidiary of Danisco A/S, and DuPont have announced a joint venture that promises cheaper cellulosic ethanol. Both companies will be investing $140 million in a plant that will use sugarcane bagasses and corn stover, although other sources such as straw will be used in the near future. A pilot plant will be ready by 2009. The joint venture integrates the proprietary DuPont pretreatment and ethanologen technologies with the innovative enzyme technology of Genencor. Cellulosic ethanol is expected to be a $75 billion market in the following years.

[Source: Dupont Danisco via Energías Renovables]

Seems like AutoblogGreen's been on to something these last couple of years as it relates to the greening of the automotive industry. For the first time in fourteen years, the annual DuPont Automotive/SAE survey of OEM and supplier designers and engineers, conducted by Consumer Insights, Inc, found that environmental concerns topped cost as the biggest hurdle automakers must overcome.

Other highlights:

• Fifty-four percent of respondents say that fuel efficient vehicles with reduced environmental impact are important to consumers -- that number seems a bit low to us.
• For the fifth consecutive year, alternatively powered vehicles are predicted to have the greatest impact on the industry.
• Fifty percent of respondents see diesel engine technology as a key focus to help achieve 2020 efficiency regulations, compared with forty-six percent for hybrids
  
• In 10 years, most people predict the majority of vehicles will run on bio-based diesel fuel (27 percent); petroleum-based diesel (20 percent) and E85 (20 percent). Only 18 percent predict gasoline will dominate.

Diesels look to make a strong impact on the American market, according to this survey. We see no real mention of electric cars here, which we believe could makea a big impact in the coming years.

DuPont has announced a new type of resin that can work as a metal substitute. The new Zytel® nylon resin has replaced steel in exhaust system parts on all Volkswagen vehicles built on the current Golf platform, cutting weight of the component by nearly 50 percent. The resin is used in the catalytic converter bracket to substitute a previous multi-assembled metal and rubber part, so the benefits are not only from the reduced weight but also in the ease of assembly. As stated in the press release (which you can find after the jump), this might be a small step, but it's one small way to achieve higher mileage figures.

This week at the Piper Jaffray Alternative Energy Symposium, which focused on industry and investment trends in solar, cleantech and biofuels, DuPont Biofuels Vice President and General Manager John Ranieri said that DuPont is well on its way to commercializing their biofuel technologies. These technologies include some of the lesser talked about fuels, such as biobutanol and cellulosic ethanol. They are doing this in cooperation with Pioneer, which is a subsidiary of DuPont.

These fuels are considered "next generation" biofuels, and hold promise of higher yields than the current corn-based ethanol that plants are achieving. New feedstocks are being researched to find which ones produce the most "bang for the buck", so to speak.

According to Ranieri, "From our strong seeds and crop protection products offering for biofuels today to significant transformative opportunities in new biofuel technologies, I am confident in DuPont's capabilities to meaningfully increase the use of renewable feedstocks with smaller environmental footprints in place of petroleum."

DuPont also features other alternative energy solutions such as their solar cells on a separate part of their website, which I also found to be of interest. Check it out here.

The whole of the Press Release is after the break, and is worth reading.

[Source: Earthtimes]

While was researching the article about DuPont that will be available tomorrow on our site, I ran across these videos on Pioneer's site. Pioneer is a subsidiary of DuPont, and is involved heavily with agriculture and ethanol production. I am sure that there are other processes for creating ethanol, and this one is based solely on what DuPont and Pioneer are doing, but it may be of interest anyway.

Tour an Ethanol Plant by clicking on the links below. Each of these videos will open in a separate window, and they are all in .wmv format.

• 1. Dry Milling
• 2. Liquefaction
• 3. Saccharification
• 4. Fermentation
• 5. Batch Fermentation
• 6. Distillation
• 7. Molecular Sieve
• 8. Distillers Grain

Remember, these videos are by DuPont. If you would like to visit their site, click here. Hope you enjoy the videos!

[Source: Pioneer]