Cellulosic ethanol maker breaks ground on new plant

Breaking ground on the new EdeniQ ethanol plant in Visalia are, left to right: John Rockwell, EdeniQ board of directors; Gregg Deluga, Logos; Visalia Mayor Bob Link; Mike Porte, Visalia Economic Development Council; Dan Derr, Logos Project Manager; Daniel Lane, EdeniQ Director of Engineering Applications; Sandi Jacobson, EdeniQ Section Head-Microbiology; Brian Thome, EdeniQ CEO; Tulare County Supervisors Allen Ishida and Phil Cox; and Cam Cast, EdeniQ Director of Engineering

A groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning in Visalia's industrial park not only celebrated the beginning of construction of a new ethanol biorefinery, it promised a new wave of technological and industrial employment.

EdeniQ, a developer of cellulosic ethanol technology in partnership with Logos Technologies of Arlington, Va., will build the plant at the site of EdeniQ's Visalia headquarters at 2505 N. Shirk Road.

"The ethanol that's produced by this plant will allow us to showcase our technology to a larger scale to be replicated throughout the U.S. and eventually around the world," Brian Thome, president and CEO of EdeniQ, told the crowd of backers and elected officials.

The project is the result of a $20 million Department of Energy grant in 2009 and the progress made in the past two years at a pilot plant in Visalia. The grant was available through the Integrated Biorefinery Program funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

EdeniQ's investors, including such groups as Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, the Angeleno Group, the Westley Group, Morgan Stanley and Cyrus Capital, among others, are backing the project in Visalia.

Dan Derr, the on-site project manager with Logos who has been at the Visalia pilot plant since October, said he was excited about the groundbreaking beyond the opportunity to be involved in world-class technology

"Participating in the development of a domestic, secure and environmentally responsible biofuels industry is core to the energy systems division mission," he said.

The Visalia plant has grown to 34 employees, including scientists and engineers. Another 25 jobs will be created during the construction and operation of the plant.

The plant takes agricultural waste in the form of corn stalks, wood chips and switchgrass, for example, and converts it into ethanol for blending into the existing fuel supply. The goal is to reduce U.S. dependence on imported fuel by creating a renewable supply of biofuel.

Visalia Mayor Bob Link and Tulare County Supervisors Phil Cox and Allen Ishida were on hand to help break ground on the project.

Link said he is most proud of the fact that Visalia will be able to provide high-tech jobs to the next generation of Visalians and hopefully build from there.

"This is the type of [project] that will help us start the process to get more and more of these types of organizations and business in our community that will make it easy to bring our kids back to where they want to live," he said.

SOURCE: visaliatimesdelta