Coskata, Inc.

"Coskata" redirects here. For the community in the northeastern United States, see Coskata, Massachusetts.

Coskata, Inc. is a Warrenville, Illinois based energy company researching the production of cellulosic ethanol from woodchips. Costaka's process combines both biological (i.e., microbes) and thermochemical (heat and chemicals) processing. The estimated cost of production via this technology is under $1 per gallon, as opposed to corn-based ethanol costing approximately $1.40 per gallon ^[1]

Coskata announced in April 2008 that the company would begin producing ethanol on a small scale at a plant being built near Pittsburgh, PA. With a capacity of about 40,000 US gallons (150,000 L) annually, the fuel will be used by General Motors to be tested in their vehicles. The pilot plant is being constructed in a modular design by Zeton Inc. in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.^[2] A full scale production plant capable of producing 50 to 100 million US gallons (380,000 m³) of cellulosic ethanol is expected to go online in 2011.^[3]

Coskata recently signed a deal with US Sugar Corporation to build a cane-waste biofuels conversion facility in Florida.^[4]

Competitors include Fulcrum BioEnergy and LanzaTech. LanzaTech has successfully demonstrated its technology at Pilot scale in NZ –using Industrial waste gases from the steel industry as a feedstock for its microbial fermentation. ^[5]

References

1. ^ "Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn" in Wired, January 24, 2008. Retrieved May 30, 2008.
2. ^ "Anaerobic Organisms Key to Coskata's Rapid Rise" in Ethanol Producers Magazine, July 2008. Retrieved July 28, 2008.
3. ^ "Making Ethanol the Coskata Way" in The Auto Writer, May 2, 2008. Retrieved May 30, 2008.
4. ^ U.S. Sugar wants to turn sugar into fuel
5. ^ Voegele, E. November 2009. “Waste to ethanol projects move forward”, Ethanol Producer Magazine

External links

• Official Webpage
• Partnership with General Motors