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Environment

Waste Gets Backing As Biofuel Feedstock

by Melody M. Bomgardner
February 14, 2011 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 89, Issue 7

Waste-to-biofuels firm Kior will have access to a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy for a $1 billion project consisting of four biorefineries—two in Mississippi and one each in Georgia and Texas. Together, the four plants are expected to produce about 250 million gal of cellulosic biofuel per year, or about one-quarter of the cellulosic fuel required by the National Renewable Fuel Standard for 2013. The company points out that the loan guarantee will not take effect until it has financing from a private lender. Kior, a start-up backed by well-known cleantech investor Vinod Khosla, converts biomass such as wood chips into what it calls renewable crude in a catalytic cracking process similar to that used by traditional oil refiners. The project’s first plant, in Newton, Miss., will be the largest cellulosic biofuels facility in the U.S., Kior expects. Separately, Ineos Bio has broken ground on a waste-to-biofuels plant in Vero Beach, Fla. The $130 million facility will convert yard, vegetative, and household wastes into ethanol and electricity. The company recently received a $75 million loan guarantee from USDA. And renewable chemicals firm Genomatica has signed an agreement with Waste Management to develop technology for making chemicals from syngas derived from municipal solid waste. (For more on renewable biofuels, see page 11.)

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