Grassoline Projects Fuel Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley

Source - GreenPowerMagazine.com

The University of Tennessee will build a $40 million “grassoline” plant to create ethanol from switchgrass and other plants. UT will build and operate the demonstration scale facility in partnership with cellulosic biofuels developer Mascoma Corp. in the Niles Ferry Industrial Park in Monroe County, Tenn. It is the second major alternative fuels project announced this year for the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley.

In June, the Department of Energy awarded Oak Ridge National Laboratory $125 million to build a Bioenergy Science Center to address fundamental science and technological challenges to cellulosic ethanol production. Researchers at the new biorefinery hope to use innovations that emerge from the national lab’s Bioenergy Center. The University of Tennessee manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory in partnership with Battelle and shares numerous joint institutes and professorships.

The university’s biorefinery will be about one-tenth the size of a commercial production facility. It will allow researchers to create a system that can be expanded to larger plants across the state in coming years. Construction will begin by the end of 2007. The plant will be operational in 2009. Researchers say that eventually Tennessee could produce over one billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year, which could offset up to one-third of the state’s petroleum usage.