The federal government has made a minor investment in what many feel is the future of ethanol production.
The recently announced $7.7 million repayable investment is intended to help upgrade Iogen Energy Corp.’s cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in Ottawa.
It is part of a $25.8 million project to advance research and development into a promising technology that may address the moral issue of using food for fuel, provide significant energy efficiency compared to grain-based ethanol and reduce greenhouse gas more than its counterpart.
Iogen said the federal investment will help the company refine the technology behind what has been dubbed the second generation of biofuel.
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“This support will help us continue advancing our cellulose ethanol technology as we move to commercialization,” said company president Brian Foody.
Iogen has been operating its Ottawa demonstration plant since 2002 and has been promising to build a commercial scale plant in Canada or the United States long before that.
However, the company has said it won’t build a plant until it receives a government loan guarantee for the project.
While Iogen waits for backing from either the Canadian or American governments, SunOpta Inc. recently announced a joint venture with GreenField Ethanol Inc., Canada’s largest ethanol producer, to build a 40 million litre cellulosic plant in Ontario or Quebec that will convert wood chips into fuel.
The partners plan to build subsequent plants in Canada with capacities of 200 to 400 million litres per year.
