Samuel Ginn College of Engineering

PABE Receives Portion of DOE $114 million for Small-Scale Biorefineries

Harry Cullinan

The Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering (AC-PABE) at Auburn University will receive a portion of $114 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for four small-scale biorefineries. The award is part of more than $1 billion DOE has announced within the last year for multi-year biofuels research and development projects.

Building on President Bush's goal to reduce projected U.S. gas consumption by twenty percent by 2017 and make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive by 2012, these commercial scale biorefineries will use a wide variety of feedstocks and test novel conversion technologies to provide data necessary to bring online full size, commercial scale biorefineries.

Expected to be operational in four years, the selected small-scale biorefinery projects will produce liquid transportation fuels such as cellulosic ethanol, as well as bio-based chemicals and products used in industrial applications. Combined with an industry cost share, more than $331 million will be invested in these four projects.

These small-scale projects also complement the department's February 2007 announcement of projects selected to receive up to $385 million over four years for the development of six commercial-scale biorefineries. The full-scale biorefineries focus on near-term commercial processes, while the small-scale facilities will experiment with diverse feedstocks using novel processing technologies.

AC-PABE's part of the grant will come through NewPage Corporation, of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisc. This proposed plant will gasify wood wastes using a Fisher-Tropsch process, yielding diesel fuel. The DoE will provide up to $30 million for the project. Other partners in the plant include TRI; Syntroleum; and the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

"We are particularly proud to note that Auburn's AC-PABE is the only university partner among all of the participants in these four projects," said Harry Cullinan, director of AC-PABE.  "In addition, our project is one of the first biorefining projects in the U.S. based at an existing pulp mill, and it will lead the way for many more such projects in the future".

Other companies involved in this particular award include ICM Incorporated; Lignol Innovations Inc.; and Pacific Ethanol Inc. Negotiations between the selected companies and DOE will begin immediately to determine final project plans and funding levels.

Sidebar: Additional Grants Boost Biofuels Research

ACPBE has also received grants of up to $1 million each from the state and federal governments for research into developing and refining alternative sources of energy from byproducts of rural Alabama industries.

Although separate from each other, the grants are part of efforts at both the state and federal levels to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and improve the competitiveness of American industries, said Cullinan.

The state support is the second half of a $1 million grant to help agricultural and timber producers convert biomass from their operations into liquid fuels for commercial use.

"The vision is to provide the basis upon which a new and prosperous natural resource-based economy can be built in Alabama," said Cullinan.

"This will reinvigorate Alabama's established industries while creating new ones, satisfying state and national needs and moving Alabama toward sustainable development," he added.

The AU-based center is leveraging the state funds with other support from industry and the federal government to support research involving commercial demonstration projects in the state. These include small-scale biomass gasification to provide heat and power for farms and mills, pilot plants to convert biomass to ethanol or other liquid fuels and other projects to help agricultural and forest-related industries convert byproducts of production into alternative fuels.

The first project under the state grant involves conversion of process waste sludge to ethanol at a pulp mill in Alabama.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy has designated the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering for a grant of up to $1 million to support a project to convert paper mill waste wood into diesel fuel.

The Ginn College of Engineering center is the academic partner in a $30 million project involving NewPage Corp. The company will invest $32 million in the project, which will involve construction of a conversion facility at a paper mill in Wisconsin.

The other partners include TRI, Syntrolem and the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. AU researchers will aid in the development of an on-site plant to gasify wood wastes, yielding diesel fuel.

The applied technology will be especially beneficial to Alabama, where 14 pulp and paper mills across the state are a vital part of the state's economy, especially in rural areas, noted Cullinan.

He said a successful project will reduce or eliminate an environmental problem while solving an energy problem and providing an additional revenue source for a manufacturing sector that faces increasing competition from abroad.

"Our project is one of the first biorefining projects in the U.S. based at an existing pulp mill, and it will lead the way for many more such projects in the future," Cullinan added.