Whatever happened to jatropha, and all those other wonder feedstocks?

Corn stover, bagasse, wheat stalks

Last month, Comet Biorefining announced at ABLC 2016 the location of its commercial-scale biomass-derived sugar facility in the TransAlta Energy Park in Sarnia, Ontario.  The 60 million pounds per year plant will come online in 2018 producing dextrose sugar from locally-sourced corn stover and wheat straw.  Corn stover consists of residues left in the field after harvest including stalks, leaves, husks and cobs.

Earlier that month, Bioindustrial Innovation Canada concluded a Phase 2 assessment that “there is sufficient economic value with available technologies to support the development of a commercial plant to produce cellulosic sugar and co-products in southwestern Ontario utilizing locally-harvested corn stover. “

And last month, we reported on a €110 million joint venture cellulosic ethanol project of Chempolis Ltd and Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) is moving towards construction after getting approval from NRL’s board. The project is expected to come online by 2019. The bamboo-based facility will be located in Assam, producing 49,000 metric tons of ethanol annually (15 million US gallons per year, or 56 million liters) for supply to the country’s Eastern and Northeastern markets that are not so easily supplied by sugarcane mills. With government permissions expected next week and inclusion of the project in ‘Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 for Northeast’, the companies expect work on the project to start shortly. Co-production of furfural and acetic acid is also in the cards.