June 12, 2009
The start of FEW marks the beginning
of cellulosic commercialization.
Inbicon’s scale-up timetable is accelerating as we turn our biomass conversion technology into a commercial reality. We’ve recently completed our 110 ton/day engineering model for the Kalundborg, Denmark plant. And in just a few days, at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Denver, Colorado, Inbicon CEO Niels Henriksen will announce our 1320 ton/day demonstration model of the Inbicon Biomass Refinery, designed to produce 20 MMgy of The New Ethanol for North America.
Niels will also announce working agreements with two U.S. grain-ethanol plants, Global Ethanol and another that’s still undisclosed. We’ll be tailoring our new 20 MMgy model to their individual operations. As Global CEO Trevor Bourne puts it, “I like how Inbicon combines technical experience with biomass logistics know-how to improve the odds of success.”
More than a few of us at FEW. We’ve boosted our FEW participation this year. Niels is leading an 11-member team from Denmark and US. Four will make conference presentations. So if you want to talk with us at FEW, you’ll have plenty of people to choose from.
Mark your FEW calendars:
You’ll find us working booth #536. And making these presentations.
Thomas Corle, Gteam Consultants, working for Inbicon in North America, will present “The New Ethanol: New hope for a struggling industry” on Monday, June 15, 10:45 a.m. at the Advanced Biofuels Workshop. He’ll talk about how cellulosic and grain ethanol can collaborate to create a new business model that could transform the industry.
Larry Johnson, Gteam Consultants, will be happy to schedule a review with you of where we are and how we can work with you. Larry will participate in a panel discussion on “Research, technology, and the future of ethanol production.” Tuesday, June 16, 10 a.m.
Inbicon Press Conference on Tuesday afternoon will announce major new steps along our path to commercial production of The New Ethanol. Made from a new biomass refinery in Demark in 2009. Made in the U.S. by 2011. Contact Thomas Corle if you haven’t gotten your invitation yet.
Christian Morgen, Senior Manager-International Business & Marketing, will present the new Inbicon Biomass Refinery project slated for start-up in Denmark this year. Catch him Wednesday, June 17, 3:30 p.m. on Track 5: Business Management, “The Global Picture: Technology, Projects, Production.”
Jeff Robert, Gteam Consultants, has scheduled a detailed presentation explaining the production of The New Ethanol from our new 20 MMgy Inbicon Biomass Refinery. If you’ve got cellulosic biomass conversion on your agenda, make sure you head to Jeff’s presentation Wednesday, June 17, 3:30 p.m. on Track 3: Cellulosic Ethanol, “Bioconversion Pathways 2.”
Big goals for North America. As you’ll hear from Thomas on Monday, we’ve set a big, audacious goal on this continent: to collaborate with old ethanol businesses in demonstrating a practical pathway to The New Ethanol. We hope to help the industry retain its leadership for decades to come as producers of the green fuel of choice for North American vehicles. Our short-term goal is to collaborate with the two 100 MMgy-plus grain-ethanol plants, and design a co-located and integrated Inbicon Biomass Refinery for each. We hope to be producing 40 MMgy of The New Ethanol by 2011. And by then we expect to have a full pipeline of new projects. Maybe one of them should be one of yours.
The basis for our optimism springs from Inbicon’s proven process for mechanical preparation of the biomass, hydrothermal pre-treatment, and enzymatic hydrolysis. Since 2003, we’ve been using this technology for converting wheat straw and other soft biomass like corn stover to ethanol at our pilot plants in Denmark. As we go forward, we’ll support our licensing agreements with international patents.
Creating synergies. Each step builds on the ones before. Our latest Danish project is building a $50 million demonstration model of the Inbicon Biomass Refinery integrated with a coal-fired power plant at the Kalundborg port. From the energy integration, Jeff Robert took ideas of waste energy capture and cogeneration and adapted them for the North American model. Jeff intends to show “significant synergies leading to upside economic benefits.” More specifically: “By integrating an Inbicon Biomass Refinery with an existing 100 MMgy grain plant, we expect to not only produce enough green energy to drive our process 100%, but also produce enough surplus steam and electricity to reduce their energy requirements by 50–100%, depending on their business model.”
This is a significant step toward green, sustainable production. Inbicon's engineering solutions provide practical applications for building a bigger business than ethanol alone and for creating more ways of optimizing total returns.
What the path to cellulosic ethanol will look like. Our 20 MMgy demonstration model of the Inbicon Biomass Refinery is just the beginning of commercialization, just the start of a path of continuous improvement in technology and operations that will lead to greater and greater efficiencies as the years go by. Think of the evolution of the computer, specifically Moore’s Law of computing power, predicting that processing speed would about double every 18 months. Think back to the evolution of the old ethanol industry and the impact of technology over time. Remember how capital cost, energy cost, water use—all came down dramatically over the years, driven by technology, affected by market developments, and buttressed by the certainty of government support during a long transition period.
We expect to see similar reductions with the evolution of biomass-to-ethanol technology, only over a much shorter timeline. For example, we estimate the velocity of change will shrink capital costs per gallon perhaps 80% in less than a decade. This is a fundamentally different approach from that taken by many who are currently engaged in cellulosic technology development. Ours is not an all-or-nothing, once-and-done solution. With each installation, we climb higher on the learning curve. There is no finish line. So our continuous improvements of Inbicon technology will never stop. We will keep reaching out to a world committed to a revolution in green energy, one where we’re doing all we can to make a difference.
Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Inbicon Vice President Michael Persson has just addressed the Biofuels International Expo & Conference on May 27, speaking about our latest findings and progress toward commercialization, particularly as it applies to Europe. We hope many of you in Europe were able to hear Michael and get a clearer picture of the enormous upside this industry can have.
Questions? We’ll try to answer them. As we spread the word about what’s new to our Inbicon partners and friends, we’re sure you’ll have questions we haven’t addressed here. Or maybe you’d like our slant on an industry story or news report. Or you’d like to find out more about how Inbicon technology applies to your work in the clean energy industry.
For More Information go to www.inbicon.com or
call Christian Morgen +45 99 55 29 83 Corporate or
Thomas Corle +717 626 0557 North America
To pursue your interest in projects worldwide email us at: mailto:info@inbicon.com
Biomass Refineries™
© 2009 Inbicon, Kraftværksvej 53-Skærbæk, 7000 Fredericia, Denmark, Tel +45 76 22 20 00
The New Ethanol™ and Inbicon Biomass Refinery™ are trademarks of Inbicon A/S and DONG Energy A/S.
