Range Fuels: 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile
Range Fuels
Based in: Colorado
2008-09 ranking: 5
Business: Range Fuels is focused on commercially producing low-carbon biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol, and clean renewable power using renewable and sustainable supplies of biomass that cannot be used for food. The company uses an innovative, two-step thermo-chemical process to convert non-food biomass, such as wood chips, switchgrass, corn stover, sugarcane bagasse and olive pits to clean renewable power and cellulosic biofuels.
Range Fuels’ thermo-chemical conversion process can generate a suite of low carbon biofuels from non-food biomass that can reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, create immediate jobs, and dramatically reduce GHG emissions. Major products potentially yielded include cellulosic ethanol, methanol, dimethyl ether, diesel fuel, green gasoline and clean renewable power. Potential customers for Range Fuels’ low carbon biofuels and clean renewable power include consumers, refined petroleum product suppliers, utilities and industrials, chemical companies, vehicle fleet operators and biodiesel producers.
Model: Design, build, own and operate.
Past milestones:
1. In the spring of 2008 Range Fuels, Inc. closed its Series B financing round, raising over $100 million to help finance construction of its commercial cellulosic biofuels plant near the town of Soperton, Georgia.
2. In November 2008 David C. Aldous joined the company as CEO, bringing 28 years of petrochemical experience to apply to the successful construction and operation of Range Fuels’ first commercial cellulosic biofuels plant. Immediately prior to joining Range Fuels, Aldous was Executive Vice President Strategy and Portfolio for Royal Dutch Shell.
3. In January 2009 the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded Range Fuels a conditional commitment for an $80 million loan guarantee to assist construction of its commercial cellulosic biofuels plant near Soperton, Georgia.
4. In spring 2009 the Company intensified construction efforts on Phase 1 of the Soperton Plant, reaching over 200 contractors and employees on site managing construction activities by the fall with major process systems delivered and installed at the site.
Future milestones:
1. To begin production of cellulosic biofuels from Range Fuels’ Soperton Plant in the second quarter 2010 and be first to market with commercially produced cellulosic biofuels in the U.S.
2. To advance build-out of the next phase of the Soperton Plant.
Metrics: Range Fuels’ carbon life cycle analysis using standard models shows the Soperton Plant project, at full capacity, will have a negative carbon footprint. This advantage relative to conventional starch-based ethanol production and traditional transportation fuels may become increasingly valuable as low carbon fuels standards and climate change legislation are implemented.
Range Fuels quotable quotes: “Range Fuels is currently constructing Phase I of its first commercial-scale cellulosic biofuels plant near Soperton, Georgia, which will employ Range Fuels’ innovative, two-step thermo-chemical conversion process. The plant will be the first in the U.S. to produce commercial quantities of low carbon biofuels from biomass, which includes all plant and plant-derived material, such as wood, grasses, and corn stover, and will also generate clean renewable power from energy recovered in the process of converting non-food biomass to cellulosic biofuels.”
“The Denver-based Optimization Plant is a 4th generation pilot plant employing the two-step thermo-chemical conversion process being used by Range Fuels’ commercial cellulosic biofuels plant currently under construction near Soperton, Georgia. Over 10,000 hours of testing were performed on the four generations of pilot plants, which over an eight-year period processed over thirty different non-food biomass feedstocks, including wood waste, grasses, municipal solid waste and hog manure.”
The Hot 50 for 2009-10 will be released Tuesday, 12/1. Between now and then, you’ll see profiles of potential candidates in the Digest, and you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites. Reader response will count for 50 percent of a company’s overall score in the preparation of the rankings. The remaining 50 percent is voted by a panel of experts.
Information on registering your company for the “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy” rankings is here. While registration is not required, completing the candidate profile allows companies to augment information provided to the panel of selectors – registration form materials are also used to create candidate profiles that are published daily in Biofuels Digest.
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