The next generation of biofuel plants will be hybrid facilities capable of converting grain and other organic products into ethanol, says an executive of the world’s second largest producer of bioenergy.
Add in biotechnology to develop energy producing crops and the future of the ethanol industry is bright, said Gerson Santos-Leon of Abengoa Bioenergy New Technologies.
Biofuel production represents 20 percent of the Spanish company’s business.
“In the U.S. we see a potential somewhere between 15 and 24 billion gallons of ethanol (production) per year,” he told an international biofuel conference in Calgary Nov.13.
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“The high number is really tied to the higher productivity that could come from biotechnology.”
Abengoa owns plants in Europe, South America and the United States, including a new state of the art facility being built in southwestern Kansas capable of producing ethanol from corn and cellulose.
The plant requires 700 tonnes of biomass a day, mainly straw, grass and corn stover. More than half of it will be turned into ethanol and the rest will be used in a gasification project to produce energy for the complex. The plant requires 35 million bushels of grain to make 88 million gallons of ethanol and 290,000 tonnes of feed per year.
Santos-Leon said there is enough biomass within 15 kilometres of the plant to keep it supplied. As well, ingredients such as switchgrass could be used if the company wanted to expand the plant.
