INEOS Bio produces cellulosic ethanol from waste, at commercial scale

Industry reaction

Brent Erickson, Executive Vice President of BIO’s Industrial & Environmental Section, said, “The production of commercial scale cellulosic biofuels is a very significant achievement and a direct result of American biotech innovation. INEOS Bio’s biorefinery is the first to prove a biotech process successful at commercial scale. It has already created hundreds of jobs and brought economic growth – as well as renewable electricity – to its Florida community. This shows the Renewable Fuel Standard is working, plain and simple.

“There are many additional projects scheduled to achieve commercial production over the next few years. The industry has already invested more than $5 billion over the past six years to commercialize the technology, and investors are ready to commit more, following the success of first-of-a-kind facilities. These projects have created several thousand jobs, and growth of the industry could create several hundred thousand more.

“The RFS has encouraged this investment and progress. Current efforts to destabilize the program are short-sighted and motivated solely by the oil refining industry’s desire to block competition and consumer choice at the pump. If Congress does what the oil refining industry is asking and repeals or revises the RFS at this critical juncture, it will strangle the advanced biofuels baby in the cradle. The INEOS announcement is just the first of many advanced biofuel announcements to come over the next few years. If there was ever a time when Congress needed to keep the RFS in place it is now, when the advanced biofuels industry is reaching these milestones. When oil refiners attack the RFS, they are attacking American ingenuity and innovation in order to keep their stranglehold on American fuel consumers.”

The Digest’s Take

It’s a massive step forward for the technology. We expect to see quite a number of 1X and 2X Veroesque plants dotting the globe in the second half of the decade.