GM invests in ethanol

SIGNIFICANTLY cleaner, cheaper and environmentally sound ethanol is the outcome of General Motors’ new partnership with US specialist Coskata Inc.

Announced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which ended last week, GM managing director and CEO Rick Wagoner described Coskata’s ethanol-making process as “a breakthrough technology that affordably and efficiently makes ethanol from practically any renewable source”.

GM has an undisclosed equity stake in Coskata, which was established in 2006.

In a nutshell, instead of using water-intensive, grain-based material that potentially impacts on the global food chain, GM/Coskata ethanol uses “practically any renewable source, including garbage, old tyres and plant waste” in a bio-fermentation process that uses bacteria that breathe in CO2 and other gases and exhale ethanol, which then goes into bio-fuel production and results in fuel-grade ethanol. Depending on which material is used, the waste from this process is water, and some ash, which Coskata CEO Bill Roe described as harmless. The potential is global, with GM and Coskata suggesting woodchips as the preferable renewable resource because it is plentiful and available, particularly as existing paper mills can be converted to help with global ethanol production.



Left: The Corskata process, and bioreactions take place in a fermenter, generating ethanol (below).

The Illinois-based company promised that its technology can be employed “practically anywhere in the world where a carbon-based feedstock is available”.

GM has yet to announce whether Holden in Australia will take up the process.

Coskata says it “uses a proprietary process that leverages patented micro-organisms and bioreactor designs to produce ethanol for less than $US1 ($A0.89) a gallon (3.785 litres), about half of today’s cost of producing gasoline”.

Mr Roe revealed that the process creates 7.7 times the energy that it consumes that very little fossil fuels are required – resulting in up to an 84 per cent reduction in greenhouse gasses) and that less than a litre of water is required to produce the same amount of ethanol.

“We are very excited about what this breakthrough will mean to the viability of biofuels and, more importantly, to our ability to reduce dependence on petroleum,” GM chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner said.

Coskata claims that its process addresses many of the well-publicised issues relating to grain-based ethanol production.

In a press release issued at the Detroit show, Coskata said that, according to the Argonne National Laboratory, which analysed Coskata’s process, for every unit of energy used, it generates up to 7.7 times that amount of energy, and it reduces CO2 emissions by up to 84 per cent compared with a well-to-wheel analysis of petrol.

“Coskata’s process uses less than a gallon of water to make a gallon of ethanol compared to three gallons or more for other processes,” the company said.

GM claims it will receive its first Coskata ethanol from a pilot plant late this year, with testing of the fuel to be conducted at its Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan.

With over one million vehicles produced annually and with some 3.5 million on the road globally, GM is currently the largest supplier of ‘flex-fuel’ vehicles that can run on E85 – any blend of ethanol and petrol that totals to 85 per cent ethanol – or petrol only.

Coskata said it will be in full ethanol production within three years.

“We will have our first commercial-scale plant making 50 to 100 million gallons of ethanol running in 2011, and that includes the two years it will take to build the plant,” Mr Roe said. “There is no question in my mind that making ethanol more widely available is absolutely the most effective and environmentally sound solution,” Mr Wagoner added. “And it’s one that can be acted on immediately.”