New Era Of Biofuel: US Ethanol Plant

The fabled road to U.S. energy independence has wound its way to this small town east of Lake Charles, where a plant opening today could help usher in a new era for ethanol.

The 1.4 million-gallon-per-year demonstration plant will attempt what others have found difficult — to produce large quantities of ethanol as cheaply from agricultural waste and nonfood crops as from corn, the main crop used to make the fuel in the U.S.

It may be a big bet. Some experts say that so-called cellulosic ethanol still costs at least $1-per-gallon more to produce than corn-based ethanol.

But Verenium Corp, the Cambridge, Mass.-based energy firm behind the project, has developed a process it believes will help reduce costs, pave the way for wide-scale cellulosic ethanol production and silence ethanol's detractors.

President Bush has signed legislation calling for production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, five times the current level, to help reduce what he has called the nation's addiction to oil. Ethanol typically is blended with gasoline to stretch the fuel supply and help curb smog-forming tailpipe emissions.

The new law is a boon for companies like Verenium because it shows a clear preference for moving away from corn-based ethanol, which has been blamed for driving up food prices and creating a global food shortage.