Tennessee Biofuels Initiative switchgrass program set to commence

In Tennesee, switchgrass farmers who applied for incentives under the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative will commence planting this spring for a fall 2008 harvest. The five-year, $70 million cellulosic ethanol program will incentivize both feedstock production and construction of a pilot ethanol plant which will be constructed in Vonore. The $100 million plant will open in 2010.

Senator Lamar Alexander recently gave a speech on the benefits of the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative, a partnership between the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Sen. Alexander said the partnership would result in 4,000 new jobs in rural Tennessee, $400 million in new state and local revenues annually, 3,000 jobs and $1 billion in revenue from producing the chemicals that process biofuels, $100 million in annual farm income, and 1 billion gallons per year of Grassoline annually at a wholesale price of $1.20 per gallon.

Mascoma, a start-up out of Dartmouth which pioneered high-yield enzymes for ethanol production, is a partner in the proposed ethanol plant created by the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative. The initiative received a jump start this year when Oak Ridge was the recipient of a Department of Energy grant to produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercially-viable scale.

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