Coskata starts up cellulosic ethanol production in Pennsylvania: “Open for business and ready to scale,” says CEO

In Pennsylvania, Coskata announced the successful start-up of their semi-commercial flex ethanol facility located in Madison.  The accomplishment by the #1 company in last year’s 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy “represents the successful scale-up of the company’s technology, and will serve as a showcase for the world’s first commercially-viable flex ethanol process,” according to a company statement.

“Coskata is open for business and ready to scale,” said Bill Roe, president and CEO of Coskata, in an interview with the Digest.  The start up is a big deal – we are able to run 24/7 on our platform, demonstrate our ability to scale directly from this size, affirm our designs and begin our built out. A lot of strategic partners wanted and needed us to complete this step.”

As far as expansion, Roe described two camps of potential partners. The early movers, with whom the company is now in discussions about licensing its technologies, who have been “simply waiting to see us operate at scale” before proceeding in licensing. The second cam Roe described as “more conservative, generally larger oil companies, who are going to create multiple sites using some biofuels platform. They do not want to build the first.” In addition, the company expects to complete construction and build out on its first commercial-scale plant, to demonstrate its technology at that scale to larger partners, in the next 18 months.

According to Coskata, their flex ethanol facility will be producing ethanol from numerous feedstocks, including wood biomass, agricultural waste, sustainable energy crops, and construction waste.  This flexible approach at the Madison facility is enabled by plasma gasification technology from Westinghouse Plasma Corporation. Coskata’s technology, as demonstrated through Project Lighthouse, will be able to reduce greenhouse gasses by as much as 96% over conventional gasoline, while using less than half the water that it takes to get a gallon of gasoline.  In addition, the company’s ability to produce non grain-based ethanol that is as much as 7 times as energy positive as the fossil fuel used in the process, addresses many concerns related to traditional processes, including energy efficiency and the use of grain.

“Our mantra from the start,” added Roe, “is that next generation fuel is going to have to compete at parity with oil without long term subsidies. With $90-$100 oil, we’re competitive now. We know that even environmentalists say ‘this is great, but if it costs more I don’t want it.”

The facility is a demonstration of “minimum scale engineering”, an industry standard term which means it is the smallest size that will still allow the company to scale directly to 50 million and 100 million gallon Coskata facilities.  Some of the ethanol that is being produced at the facility has been delivered to the General Motors Milford Proving Grounds for early testing, as well as to another major strategic partner.

Coskata leverages proprietary microorganisms and efficient bioreactor designs in a unique three-step conversion process that can turn virtually any carbon-based feedstock into ethanol, from anywhere in the world. Coskata’s biological fermentation technology is ethanol-specific and enzyme independent, contributing to high energy conversion rates and ethanol yields.  Additionally, the process requires no additional chemicals or pre-treatments, serving to streamline operational costs.  In fact, the company has one of the lowest production costs in the industry, allowing them to directly compete with gasoline without long-term government subsidies.

On the potential for competition with electric vehicles, Roe said “I don’t think it’s a debate, we’re all sympatico. Propulsion systems will evolve over time and eventually we are going to migrate to an all-electric fleet using clean power. But it takes 15 years to turn over a fleet, and it is going to take time to change the way that we generate power. For the all-electric fleet, we are looking at a 2030-2050 proposition, not 10 years away. For now, bioethanol is a great, early, near-term solution.”

Roe paid tribute to the Coskata team, adding “it really is a fairy tale story to complete this stage of the project. At the core of the Madison project, we’ve got Dick Tobey, our technical guru, a 20-year Dow guy who left before his retirement package was mature because of his belief in this opportunity. Jeff Burgard, a 27-year veteran of UOP’s engineering team; James Fawley, our strategist who came to us from BP; Wes Bolsen, who joined us from ICM. The fact that we all like each other has made the hard work easier.”

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