Biofuel specialist INEOS Bio has been awarded a £7.3m grant from the development agency One North East and the Department for Energy and Climate Change towards construction of Europe’s first advanced bioethanol from waste plant using the the company's BioEnergy Process Technology.
Located at Seal Sands, Teesside, the 30 million-litre commercial-scale plant will convert biodegradable household and commercial waste to carbon-neutral biofuel for use in cars and renewable electricity for homes and industry. The £52m plant, which could be operational by 2012, will help to create 350 construction jobs and over 40 permanent skilled posts.
Once operational, it is intended that the facility will be expanded into a larger integrated biorefinery, combining advanced bioenergy production with advanced waste treatment by 2015. The biorefinery would help to meet the UK’s renewable energy targets for transport fuel, power and heat set for 2020 through the Renewable Energy Directive.
“Using our technology, the waste that is collected from homes and offices and otherwise thrown away, can be re-cycled into clean biofuel for cars and renewable electricity for homes and industry," said Peter Williams, CEO of INEOS Bio. “This grant from One North East and the Department for Energy and Climate Change, together with the considerable support that we are receiving from organisations such as the National Non Food Crop Centre, is enabling us to make progress with our commercialisation plans in North East England.”
The INEOS BioEnergy Process Technology combines thermochemical and biochemical technologies to achieve energy-efficient and low-cost biofuel production from a wide range of biomass materials, including household and industrial waste. At the heart of the technology is an anaerobic fermentation step, through which naturally occurring bacteria convert gases derived directly from biomass into bioethanol.
This bioethanol production is integrated with combined heat and power generation. The process supports high recycling and high landfill diversion rates, and an independent life cycle assessment indicates that the bioethanol produced would deliver 100 per cent green house gas savings compared to using petrol in today’s cars.
