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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Energy Department awarded $114 million in grants Tuesday to build four small-scale biorefineries in Missouri, Oregon, Colorado and Wisconsin, hoping to demonstrate production of cellulosic ethanol.

The government grants will cover about a third of the cost of the projects.
The companies selected are ICM Inc., of Colwich, Kan., which will build a facility in St. Joseph, Mo.; Lignol Innovations Inc., of Berwyn, Pa., which will build in Commerce City, Colo; Pacific Ethanol Inc., of Sacramento, Calif., which will build in Boardman, Ore.; and Stora Enso North America of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., which will build in Wisconsin Rapids.

Pacific Ethanol Inc. will receive $24.3 million and each of the other three companies $30 million.

very intrested in seeing what comes of this. I hope that its at least semi effective to ease the transition to fuel electric and given a source of clean fuel to those applications that can not use full electric.

Great lets fund inefficient ethanol with 114M and fund phez with only 30M.

Well Koreberg, isn't the point to find an efficent ethanol source? If there is one to be had, cellulosic is most likely to be it. I won't pass judgment on it until I see the results.. I for one hope it turns out to be what they are aiming for.

After long thinking about the fuel issues, I think it might be a pipe dream to think that one power source will work for everything. Obviously its not the best option, but for those applications that will need a liquid fuel to continue to operate: a clean, efficent, carbon neutral ethanol fuel is MUCH better than gasoline. Just keep in mind that there are other users of fuel than just automobiles.

I just wish they would spend more money on something that has already been shown to work, so it can come to market sooner, rather than a pipe dream that no one is really that sure about yet.

Well, if we only spent money on stuff that was shown to work, how would we ever make new advances? That is what science is all about. It might work great, it might not... Lets see what happens first. This isn't going to stop BEV's and PHEV's from coming to market. But remember a BEV or PHEV airplane just isn't going to work... and the emissions from air travel far outweigh automobiles ;)

I'm just not a fan of ethanol, id rather see something thats doesn't require a combustion motor in an electric vehicles.

I'm just not a fan of ethanol, id rather see something thats doesn't require a combustion motor in an electric vehicles.

I don't think you saw what I wrote above. I agree with you in terms of electric vehicles... but there is more to it than just cars. The aerospace industry uses LARGE amounts of fuel and produces LARGE amounts of emissions that can be eliminated by the use of a carbon neutral fuel such as cellulosic ethanol.

Think of the big picture ;)

I did I think you can power aircraft with hydrogen fuelcells too :D The main issues right now seem to be cost and weight, unlike ethanol that seems to be, how do we even make it. Nuclear would be another option i'd rather see than ethanol.

Ethanol really isn't such a bad transportation fuel. If you have enough production capacity to make it as ubiquitous as gasoline is today, engines can be designed to run efficiently on it unlike the low compression hack jobs running around today. Maybe it won't be the answer, but it could easily be part of it. So if cellulosic ethanol can be made commercially and ecologically viable, great!

Don't get me wrong, for many reasons I would much prefer a BEV-type solution. (Well-to-wheels efficiency, electric grid load levelling, drivetrain longevity...oh and TORQUE :) ) But I don't see a problem with investing in biofuels, especially when it moves us away from the silly corn thing.