55 Mgy grain ethanol plant announced in Kern County, California; expandable to 220 Mgy multi-feedstock

In California, Global Fuels  announced a 55 Mgy grain ethanol plant that would ultimately be expanded to a multi-feedstock 220 Mgy. The plant would be constructed near Mojave in Kern County. The project, which will be developed with assistance from Cargill and Delta T, would create 200 direct jobs, and expect to commence production in late 2009.

Several California ethanol projects are in the news.

Earlier this month, Bluefire Ethanol Fuels was invited by the US Department of Energy to participate in its loan guarantee program. BlueFire was recognized for its proposed commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant using an array of low-cost feedstocks including landfill waste, in El Sobrante, CA. BlueFire holds the exclusive North American license to employ the Arkenol Process Technology, a patented system that transforms cellulosic waste into usable ethanol.

Last week, the Emeryville site of a new $135 million, 65,000 square foot biofuels lab at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) was announced.

The Emeryville lab will fuse the research efforts of UC-Berkeley, UC- Davis, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , Lawrence Livermore and Sandia. The new venture, which will be known as the Joint BioEnergy Institute, will focus on cellulosic ethanol research including feedstocks such as rice straw, switchgrass and Arabidopsis, a plant in the mustard family. The lab will also research microbes found in the termite gut of the common termite, which assist in breaking down wood into edible sugars.

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