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Inbicon Takes 20-Million-Gallon Step Into Cellulosic Ethanol Future

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 June 2009, 12:00 CDT

DENVER, June 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop, Inbicon CEO Niels Henriksen introduced a new 20-million-gallon-a-year engineering model designed to demonstrate the Inbicon Biomass Refinery in North America. For the Danish bio-technology group, "this marks a major step along a practical pathway to cellulosic biomass conversion and commercial production of The New Ethanol," says Henriksen.

Henriksen also announced working agreements with two U.S. grain-ethanol plants, Global Ethanol and another still undisclosed, to tailor Inbicon's 20 MMgy model to their individual operations. Global CEO Trevor Bourne says, "Working with Inbicon matches our culture of continuous improvement and helps us remain a top performer in the industry."

According to Jeff Robert, G-team Consultants, working for Inbicon in North America and directing the engineering scale-up to 20 MMgy, "By integrating an Inbicon Biomass Refinery with an existing 100 MMgy grain plant, we expect to not only produce enough green energy to drive our process 100%, but also produce enough surplus steam and electricity to reduce their energy requirements by 50-100%, depending on their business model."

This scale-up of Inbicon conversion technology will process 1320 tons of corn stover or wheat straw per day, turn the biomass into three products besides ethanol, run without fossil fuels, and emit virtually no greenhouse gases. One co-product -- the solid botanical remains not converted to ethanol -- becomes the biofuel driving the cogeneration of steam and electricity.

While the new model is being launched in North America, Inbicon is completing another major cellulosic project in Denmark. By the end of 2009, the company will process 110 tons of biomass a day when a demonstration model of the Inbicon Biomass Refinery opens at the port of Kalundborg. Construction is now being completed on the $50 million plant, the first stage of the new Inbicon Biomass Technology Campus. "Beyond its comprehensive R&D capability, the tech campus will support new clients, collaborating partners, and worldwide scientific cooperation," says marketing director Christian Morgen.

The New Ethanol will begin flowing from Kalundborg in time for Inbicon to showcase its biomass conversion technology during the 15th annual United Nations World Climate Summit, a gathering of world leaders in Copenhagen this December.

Inbicon will sell the first year's production of the plant's ethanol to Statoil, who will mix and distribute a fuel blend to Danish motorists through its 300 service stations. This marks Inbicon's first commercial sale of The New Ethanol.

A key feature of the Kalundborg project is energy integration with the adjacent power plant owned by Inbicon's parent company, DONG Energy, Denmark's largest ($7.6 billion USD) energy group. Steam from the power plant cooks the wheat straw, and a solid biofuel produced by the ethanol plant is converted into electricity at other power plants.

For each North American plant, Inbicon expects to convert 460,000 tons a year of either corn stover or wheat straw. A task this large requires "specialized machinery, synchronized logistics, a reliable infrastructure, qualified people, and a well-planned business model," says Larry Johnson, G-team Consultants. "Tapping DONG Energy's 14 years of expertise in handling biomass will give Inbicon a decided edge in North America."

It was the search for a higher-value use of wheat straw that first led DONG Energy into biomass conversion, inventing new methods of mechanical conditioning, hydrothermal pre-treatment, and enzymatic hydrolysis. By 2003, Inbicon had developed its proprietary cellulosic conversion technology and was optimizing its new pathway for turning biomass into ethanol.

Learn more about Inbicon at www.inbicon.com.

SOURCE Inbicon

Source: PR Newswire

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