This Company has been awarded funding from the DOE. Looks like this company has a good future with a pilot plant that has been operating overseas for a few years now. Bluefire Ethanol turns waste products from landfill and garbage sites into Ethanol through a proven Acid Hydrolsis system.
Look back on what the price of the stock was a year ago or less.
US DOE Applauds Range Fuels For Winning Ethanol Plant Permit
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Department of Energy is applauding private company Range Fuels for winning a key permit Monday that could help the company meet its goal of building the nation's first commercial-scale ethanol plant.
"The department is pleased that the country is one step closer to making the widespread use of cellulosic ethanol a reality," Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said in a statement. "This furthers the president's goal of deploying clean, renewable energy into the marketplace."
Range Fuels is funded by Khosla Ventures LLC, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital firm specializing in alternative energy investments. Founder Vinod Khosla has been making his mark as a key investor in ethanol and other alternative energy products.
The state of Georgia awarded Range Fuels a construction permit to build a plant that can produce motor fuel from wood waste.
"We are thrilled to receive this permit and anticipate the construction of many plants throughout Georgia and the Southeast using wood waste to make ethanol," said Mitch Mandich, chief executive of Range Fuels.
Range Fuels is expecting to break ground on the project this summer in Treutlen County, Ga., and is in negotiations with the Department of Energy for a grant of up to $76 million that could help it build the plant.
In February, the Energy Department announced plans to invest $385 million in six biorefinery projects over the next four years.
In addition to the Range Fuels project, the department plans to help fund projects being proposed by Abengoa Bioenergy Corp., a division of Spanish-based Abengoa SA (ABG.MC); Bluefire Ethanol Inc. (BFRE); Iogen Corp.; Alico Inc. (ALCO); and Broin Cos.
The department has said the funding could cover up to 40% of the cost of each of the projects.
The Department of Energy and members of Congress have been touting cellulosic ethanol - a renewable fuel produced from non-edible crops or agricultural waste - as a way to help reduce the nation's dependence on oil.
Currently, most ethanol used in the U.S. is derived from corn and mixed in with gasoline to make a cleaner burning motor fuel for the nation's smoggiest cities.
But as the use of ethanol as either a component of gasoline or an alternative to gasoline grows, experts say feedstocks other than corn will be needed to keep up with fuel demand without hurting the nation's demand for corn as food.
Although legislative proposals on Capitol Hill are calling for ethanol production to grow to 36 billion gallons a year in 2022, experts say it will be hard for corn ethanol production to soar past 15 billion gallons a year because production will be limited by the agricultural land available to grow the crop.
Policy makers are touting cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from plants such as switchgrass and corn stover, as the next-generation technology that can fill in the gap and answer the growing food-versus-fuel debate surrounding the use of corn-based ethanol.
Still, cellulosic ethanol plants are costly to build and research is needed to find the easiest ways to break down plants and wood into cellulose, which can they be turned into a motor fuel.
Source: Maya Jackson Randall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9263;
Maya.Jackson-Randall@dowjones.com
Shares Outstanding 21.5M
Market Cap 95.7M
website -
www.bluefireethanol.com
BFRE Bluefire Ethanol
Linear Mode
