Aemetis land’s exclusive California license for Lanzatech’s gas-to-ethanol technology

In California, Aemetis, Inc announced the acquisition of exclusive rights LanzaTech’s patented technology for the conversion of agricultural waste, forest waste, dairy waste and construction and demolition waste (CDW) to ethanol in California. The LanzaTech gas-to-ethanol technology enables Aemetis to convert these local California biomass wastes to advanced ethanol.

Aemetis is the first licensee of the LanzaTech technology in North America. The agreement provides for 12 years of exclusive rights in California based upon achieving certain milestones.

The first phase of the adoption of the LanzaTech technology by Aemetis will be an eight million gallon per year processing unit related to the Keyes plant, which under the agreement is planned to be built by the end of 2017. The agreement provides for an expansion to 32 million gallon per year process unit, as well as licenses for units that would be installed at other existing ethanol plants. The current price of advanced ethanol in California including federal, state and tax credit incentives is approximately $4.60 per gallon, compared to corn ethanol at about $1.60 per gallon.