Ethanol Enzyme Facility Opens

Big Picture Agriculture:

This week marked the ribbon cutting ceremonies for the new Novozyme plant located on the Missouri River just North of Omaha, Nebraska. Blair was chosen by Novozyme as the site for their largest and most advanced enzyme plant in the U.S. because it was “within a day’s drive of 60 percent of all ethanol production in the United States.” A $28,400,000 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act tax credit was awarded to Novozymes for building the plant which created 400 construction jobs and 100 career jobs.
Novozyme uses microorganisms as its workhorses to ‘express’ enzymes, stating that one microorganism can divide into trillions in 24 hours. The high cost of “enzyme cocktails” strong enough to break down stubborn cellulose fiber has been a stumbling block in reaching cellulosic ethanol production goals to date. This cost has been cut gradually from as much as $8 to $10 per gallon of ethanol, just for the enzyme mix, to 50 cents per gallon and now lower. Biofuels currently make up 16% of Novozyme’s $2 billion in revenues. Novazyme also has plants in China, Brazil, and Denmark.
The new facility in Nebraska will produce enzymes for the production of both first and second generation bioethanol. First generation bioethanol is produced from sugar or starchy raw materials such as corn. Second-generation bioethanol is produced from feedstock containing cellulosic biomass such as the stalks, leaves, and husks of corn plants, wood chips, sawdust, and switch grass. They expect demand for the company’s enzymes to grow because it takes about 10 times as much enzyme to produce a gallon of cellulosic ethanol as for corn. The Blair plant is designed to expand its capacity by five or six times as demand for the second-generation biofuel grows.

The stimulus in action.  I'm afraid cellulosic ethanol is just slightly more likely than cold fusion.  Actually, you would think scientists could figure out a way to process the cellulose like cows do.