Brazil's Petrobras Turns To South Dakota For New Ethanol Technology

Brazilian oil company Petrobras has teamed up with South Dakota firm KL Energy Corporation to develop cellulosic ethanol from sugarcane residues.

Through its US subsidiary Petrobras America, Inc., the company has signed a joint development agreement with KL Energy to help optimize its technology.

KL Energy has improved its technology since 2008 at a demonstration plant in Upton, Wyoming, using Ponderosa Pine as a feedstock.

The process has been developed to use various feedstocks, and under the new deal Petrobras will provide $11 million to adapt the Upton facility to use sugarcane bagasse – the fibrous residues left after sugarcane juice has been extracted.

The project will aim to produce cellulosic ethanol and bio-lignin from the material, and then license the technology.

Ultimately, the two companies are planning on developing an industrial-scale bagasse-based cellulosic ethanol plant for deployment at a Petrobras Group site in Brazil in 2013.

“Promising”

Miguel Rossetto, CEO of Petrobras Biocombustível, explained: “Petrobras views cellulosic ethanol as a very promising technology to substantially increase the ethanol output by some 40% without increasing the planted area output and further improve the carbon footprint of its sugarcane mills.”

KL Energy is aiming to develop cellulosic ethanol plants in the US, Europe and Brazil from 2012.

“We believe that bagasse is a perfect feedstock for our process. KLE plans to be at the forefront of the emerging cellulosic ethanol market in Brazil,” said Peter Gross, President and CEO of KL Energy Corporation, which has its head office in Rapid City, SD.

“We are very excited about this opportunity and we can think of no better partner for this endeavor than Petrobras.”

source: brighterenergy.org