Nearly two months after the announcement by General Motors of its equity investment in Mascoma, the Massachusetts company has announced the location of its first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant. Mascoma CEO Bruce Jamerson and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm announced a plant would be built near Sault Ste. Marie in northern Michigan. Mascoma will be collaborating with Michigan State University and Michigan Technical University to further enhance its processing technology for turning biomass into liquid fuel.

MSU will offer help with the pre-treatment technology for the cellulosic biomass and identifying renewable crops for feedstocks while MTU will help with sustainable forest management practices. The Sault Ste. Marie plant will primarily use wood waste from the forestry industry in northern Michigan as a feedstock. Michigan has passed legislation creating grants for Centers of Energy Excellence. The new law will make Mascoma eligible for a grant of $15 million dollars for the new plant. The plant should be operational by 2012 producing 40 million gallons a year of cellulosic ethanol.

[Source: Mascoma]

Last week, Mascoma and GM announced that the automaker would invest an undisclosed amount in the cellulosic ethanol process being developed by Mascoma Corporation. Perhaps its a sign of the times that
Marathon Oil Corporation has also ponied up a $10 million equity investment in research and development for the second-gen biofuel process.

As part of the Marathon deal, Marathon senior vice president Cliff Cook joined the Mascoma Board of Directors. Mascoma has also netted $26m from the Department of Energy and Domestic Fuel says that Mascoma has raised a total of $61m in its third round of funding. Considering that GM's investment was part of that $61m, we can calculate that GM's investment is no larger than $25m. Considering there are other investors that make up that $61m, GM's total is something less than $25m. Earlier this year, GM invested (also an undisclosed amount) in Coskata, another company working on bringing cellulosic ethanol to the masses.

[Source: Domestic Fuel]

Following this morning's announcement that GM was taking an equity stake in cellulosic ethanol developer Mascoma, the two companies held a conference call. Like the earlier Coskata investment, GM researchers will be working with scientists at Mascoma to refine the process that they have developed for converting many kinds of biomass that might otherwise be considered waste.

Mascoma's Consolidated Bioprocessing (CBP) system is different than more traditional cellulosic production methods in that when fully developed, no additional enzymes will need to be added. Enzymes are currently the most costly part of the production process. Mascoma has developed microbes that can consume the pre-processed material and produce their own enzymes for breaking down the cellulose into sugars and then fermenting it.

The pre-processing consists of chopping the raw materials and mixing it with water in the presence of some heat. This results in a spongy peat moss-like material that is fed to the microbes. The output of the microbes is ethanol that only needs distillation. Mascoma is still refining the microbes which currently don't produce as much enzyme as needed to complete the process. For the pilot plant that is currently under construction, Mascoma will have to add some enzymes to the process although the amount is much smaller than normally required. By the time a commercial scale plant is ready in about 2010, Jamerson expects that no additional enzymes will be required. The CBP system also doesn't require any of the acids or other chemicals normally required for pre-treating biomass.

Mascoma CEO Bruce Jamerson explained that the process requires about 2-3 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol produced which is more than the Coskata's process but it requires less energy input. The cost of fuel from the process is similar to Coskata's at about $1-1.50 a gallon. Mascoma's agreement with GM is not exclusive and in the future they expect to license the process to other fuel producers. When questioned about why they were investing in multiple processes, GM's Candace Wheeler explained that they were potentially complementary. The lignin left over from the Mascoma process could be fed into the syngas process developed by Coskata, increasing the ultimate yield.

[Sources: General Motors, Mascoma]

General Motors today announced their second equity investment in a developer of cellulosic ethanol technology in recent months. The automaker is buying into Mascoma Corp. Mascoma has developed a single-step cellulose to ethanol process that apparently requires fewer enzymes and other additives. Mascoma has proprietary microbes that are used in its Consolidated Bioprocessing (CBP) technology. The CBP process can convert most forms of biomass such as straw, wood, paper pulp, and agricultural waste into liquid fuel. So far, Mascoma has received more than $60 million in federal and state grants for their work. To date Mascoma has been testing their technology in the lab with a demonstration plant due to come on line later this year in Rome, NY. GM President Fritz Henderson is not disclosing how much the automaker is investing. Earlier this year GM invested in Illinois-based Coskata. GM is holding a conference call later this afternoon where we will hopefully get more details. We do know that Mascoma has been trying for a while to have the first cellulosic ethanol plant up and running, with projects announced in Tennessee, New York state and Michigan.

[Source: General Motors]

Late last week, the U.S. Department of Energy picked three cellulosic ethanol projects as recipients of up to $86m in federal funding for fiscal years 2008-2011. These "small-scale biorefinery projects" are located in Maine, Tennessee and Kentucky and are intended to bring "cost-competitive" second-generation ethanol to market by 2012 (the plants will also make other bio-based chemicals and products). DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman said the projects would help President Bush reach his goal of stopping greenhouse gas emissions growth by 2025. The three winners are:

• RSE Pulp & Chemical of Old Town, Maine. (DOE share: up to $30 million.) This plant will use a wood extract made at an existing pulp mill.
  
• Mascoma Corporation of Boston, Massachusetts Proposed Plant in Vonore, Tennessee. (DOE share: up to $26 million.) The source here will be switchgrass and will be the largest cellulosic ethanol plant in Tennessee.
  
• Ecofin, LLC, of Nicholasville, Kentucky. (DOE share: up to $30 million.) Ecofin will use a variety of feedstocks, including corncobs, in this plant.
  

You can read more about the awards at the DOE website.

[Source: DOE]

We've mentioned Mascoma a couple of times recently in relation to the cellulosic ethanol conversion technology developed by Prof. Lee Lynd at Dartmouth College that they have been set up to commercialise. The latest news is that they have received a $14.8 million award from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). This will allow them to build and operate a cellulosic biomass-to-ethanol demonstration.

The proof of concept facility is set to be built in Rochester, New York pending approvals and agreements. A consortium that includes International Paper Co., Cornell University, Clarkson University, Genencor and the Natural Resources Defense Council will partner with Mascoma to support the project. The biomass feedstock required for the plant is set to be sourced from a variety of products including agricultural and/or forest waste, paper sludge, wood chips, switch grass and corn stover.

Related:

• Mascoma and Tamarack Energy Partner on Cellulosic Ethanol; Focus on Forestry Waste
• SunOpta building new wood chip cellulosic ethanol plant
• Crunching the numbers between ethanol, cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel
• Corn ethanol or cellulosic ethanol? To Congress, the difference is sometimes irrelevant

[Source: RenewableEnergyAccess.com]

The real potential for ethanol lies not in the corn fields of the Nebraska and Iowa but in cellulose. The amount of sugar that can be converted to alcohol that is locked up in cellulosic biomass far exceeds what is available from corn kernels. The problem is, well, that it's locked in there. The chemical bonds in cellulosic materials are much harder to break by normal methods than the bonds in the corn itself.

Mascoma Corp. is developing biomass-to-ethanol conversion processes and they will be teaming up with Tamarack Energy to develop production facilities beginning in New York. Eventually they will expand to other Northeastern states focusing on areas close to lumber mills and other factories that use wood in order to take advantage of the scraps as raw materials. Mascoma is a startup created earlier this year to commercialize the cellulosic ethanol conversion technologies developed by Prof. Lee Lynd at Dartmouth College.

[Source: Mascoma via GreenCarCongress]

When I hear the name Vinod Khosla three things immediately come to mind - lots and lots of money, Sun Microsystems and ethanol. If you're not familiar with Mr. Khosla, the first thing you need to grasp is that he's one of Silicon Valley's most influential people. In 1982, he co-founded Sun Microsystems. In 1986, he became a partner at one of the Valley's largest venture capital firms. And in 2004, he went off on his own to start Khosla Ventures. So why do we keep talking about him on AutoblogGreen? Because he's one of ethanol's most outspoken and enthusiastic proponents. His company has invested millions upon millions in ethanol companies such as Altra, Mascoma and Cilion.

You'd think that after investing so much money in an industry, you'd be parading around endorsing it. Well, Khosla has certainly done his share of that, however, at the California Clean Tech Open event last Tuesday, he withdrew some of that enthusiasm and said that ethanol probably won't be the ultimate fuel of the future. "Contrary to what you might believe," he said, "I think it's extremely unlikely that in 20 years we will be using any ethanol in cars." Instead, Khosla now believes that ethanol - even cellulosic ethanol - is a stepping stone to other alternative fuels. He points out that BP and DuPont are currently working on biobutanol while other Khosla Ventures companies are researching fuels that are better than both ethanol and butanol.

I don't imagine the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) or any other ethanol organization is going to ask him to speak at their next pep rally.

Related:

• Mascoma getting closer to commercial production of cellulosic ethanol
• Vinod Khosla video on Google
• Khosla challenges oil companies with cheap ethanol offer
• Venture capital going to all things green

[Source: Red Herring]

Mascoma Corp., a company solely focused on converting cellulosic biomass to ethanol, announced last week that a new partnership with Dartmouth College will bring commercial production of cellulosic ethanol one step closer. The partnership gives Mascoma access to several of Dartmouth's patents, and is not too surprising, considering the history of Mascoma's co-founder. Dartmouth Engineering professor Lee Lynd (pictured), is an expert in microbial cellulose conversion and a cellulosic ethanol production pioneer. He also co-founded Mascoma and is the company's chief scientific officer. The college has taken an undisclosed equity position in the company. Flagship Ventures and Khosla Ventures have also sent some funding to Mascoma. Ethanol moneybags Vinod Khosla serves as Mascoma's Chairman of the Board.

The research at Mascoma/Dartmouth is focused on finding "advanced biocatalysts" that will "significantly reduce the cost of ethanol and expand the use of ethanol production from a wide range of cellulosic material," said Alla Kan, Director of the Technology Transfer Office at Dartmouth.

[Source: Mascoma]