Garbage gas?
1 Buck Ethanol from Garbage, Tires, Landscaper Waste, etc…
Speaking loud and clear about the potential to produce cellulosic ethanol right now with production costs of less than US $1.00 per gallon was Wes Bolsen, chief marketing officer and vice president of business development for Coskata.
“We’re ready to go today,” he said. The company uses a syngas to ethanol process, converting, Bolsen said, virtually any feedstock, to syngas via a plasma gasifier and then using proprietary microorganisms and bioreactor designs to convert that gas to ethanol.
“”That’s the great flexibility, Coskata can use trash, tires, plastic bottles, diapers, it really doesn’t matter because all we’re doing is getting the carbon, we really just need those carbon atoms, and then the biological process reassembles the carbon atoms into fuel,” he said.
Bolsen envisions ethanol plants breaking out of the corn belt and setting up in Texas, California, Florida and outside of New York city. The process is able to use any feedstock and therefore “tires and trash, construction and demolition waste, those things are wonderful sources of carbon,” he said.
Right now, the company is building a demonstation plant in Madison, Pennsylvania. Bolsen said that since it takes about 2.5 years to design, build, and start up a plant, if all goes according to plan, “We’re looking at late 2010, early 2011 before the consumer will actually see [Coskata’s cellulosic] ethanol on the market.”” </em>
