Why not Poplar Pulp to produce Ethanol?

As discussed in my earlier post, poplar pulp is an excellent source of cellulosic biomass. The poplar trees grow to a height of about 10 feet a year. When they grow they completely change a desert into a forest.

Earlier, this was used to produce paper, but energy entrepreneurs now believe that the poplar pulp can be used to produce ethanol and they are ready to begin investments to ascend the biofuel industry.

To date there are not many commercial-scale cellulose-to-ethanol plants operating in North America. Most of the plants are in a pilot or demonstration stage, and, like the ZeaChem project near Boardman mentioned below which are still under development.
Mentioned below are some efforts by some cellulosic biomass to ethanol companies.

1. ZeaChem, formed in 2002 near Boardman, is using a technology that harnesses the same bacteria used by termites as they feast on wood. They plan to invest about $34 million to build a biomass plant. This was planned even earlier, however, the regions farms and economies but the first three biofuel industries which was started few years back crashed.

They employ a technology wherein, the bacteria break down the cellulose into acetic acid and then eventually into ethanol and ethyl acetate. This ethyl acetate is used as a solvent in varnishes and lacquers.

ZeaChem researchers say that this process allows a more complete conversion of cellulose to ethanol, offering a fuel yield more than fivefold greater than an acre of corn and considerably more than other cellulosic technologies.

Zeachem has planned to develop two of its biomass plants

- One of the first investments in this region will be near Boardman, where construction is scheduled to begin later this year on a demonstration plant that will produce about 1.2 million gallons a year of ethanol from poplar.
- A second corn-ethanol plant near Boardman still operates. But the plant is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization as its parent company, Pacific Ethanol, struggles to pay off debts.

2. Imperium, a company which has its biomass plant in Scotland is idle. It was actually constructed to use Canadian Canola.

Efforts ar underway to bring in the involvement of federal government’s involvement as it will help a great deal in the expansion of the biofuels industry . Federal governments support is expected to make poplar ethanol conversion to ethanol a dream come true. A federal mandate requires the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels by 2022. The law calls for some 15 billion gallons of that fuel to come from wood, wheat straw, corncobs or other cellulosic materials rather than foods such as corn or sugar cane.

However, producing cellulosic ethanol are still facing a lot of hurdles and is still a costly undertaking when compared to converting starch or sugar to ethanol.

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