Mascoma Corporation announced that the company’s demonstration
facility in Rome, New York, is now producing ethanol from non-food cellulosic biomass.
Completed in December 2008, the Rome, NY plant is one of the largest cellulosic ethanol facilities in the United States. The facility
currently has a production capacity of up to 200,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year.
The demonstration facility has the flexibility to run on numerous biomass feedstocks
including wood chips, tall grasses, corn stover (residual corn stalks) and sugar cane
bagasse. The company has committed to partnering with local businesses for feedstock
supply and is currently purchasing wood chips from a local sawmill.
“The early success of this project demonstrates that feed stocks for renewable fuels can
be harvested right here in New York State,” said Francis J. Murray, Jr., President and
CEO of NYSERDA.
The plant was funded in part by grants from the State of New York which were approved
in December 2006. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
(NYSERDA) and the New York State Power Authority (NYPA) provided the funding on
the State’s behalf.
Research partners at the facility include State University of New York
– College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Cornell University and Clarkson
University.
“The successful start up and operations at the Rome facility are an essential step
towards our commercial goals and underscore the effectiveness of Mascoma’s unique
technology,” said Jim Flatt, Executive Vice President of Research and Development and
Operations at Mascoma. “The State of New York and our local business partners have
together helped us move one step closer to our goal of producing cost competitive
cellulosic ethanol at commercial scale.”
Mascoma Corporation Consolidated Bioprocessing method converts non-food biomass feedstocks
into cellulosic ethanol through the use of a patented process that eliminates the need for enzymes and additives. Mascoma is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts,
with research and development labs in Lebanon, New Hampshire and Woburn,
Massachusetts. Its affiliate, Frontier Renewable Resources, is developing a
commercial scale production facility in Kinross, Michigan.
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