A Purdue University-based company has reached a deal giving Chinese and Danish firms access to a patented product that makes
it easier to turn wood chips, grasses and other agricultural wastes into ethanol.
For years, ethanol fuel derived from corn was almost politically untouchable, thanks to powerful advocates on Capitol Hill.
The ethanol industry has consequently exploded over the last decade, thanks to government subsidies and incentives. But skepticism
about ethanol is rising, prompted by fluctuating food prices and an organized campaign by anti-ethanol advocates to discredit
the industry.
Carmel-based Telamon Corp. rose to become one of the largest minority-owned businesses in the area largely by serving telecommunications giants. Now it is veering off its traditional course to supply racing teams with an ethanol-based fuel made from Indiana corn.
A company planning to build a $285 million plant that would turn trash into ethanol has narrowed its site search to three
locations in northwestern Indiana.
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and other city officials will travel to Brazil in May to explore renewable-energy production,
in hopes of making the city a leader in the technology.
Poet Biorefining has four more Indiana ethanol plants on the drawing board, but they’ll stay on paper until capital markets
and demand for the biofuel improve, an executive of the South Dakota company said on a recent trip to Indianapolis
A state fund supporting an 18-cent-a-gallon tax credit for gas stations selling E85 ethanol was exhausted in the first three
months of the state’s new fiscal year.
The Indy Racing League suddenly finds itself at odds with Midwestern farmers over a decision to make a Brazilian consortium
its ethanol supplier starting next year.
Last month, Purdue University launched the Center for Energy Systems and Policy to make sure its researchers
are working early in the process with business and public-policy experts at the university.
Indianapolis-based engineering and consulting giant RW Armstrong has become lead investor in an upstart ethanol firm that
would apply novel technology to make the automotive fuel without using corn as the key ingredient. It would be the first big
commercial plant in Indiana to make the alcohol fuel with so-called cellulosic material–the holy grail, of sorts, in the
ethanol
industry.
The list of potential Hoosier ethanol plants is nothing short of astounding for a state that had just one ethanol-fuel distillery
as recently as 2005. Beyond the six ethanol plants now operating and six others under construction, Purdue University agricultural
economist Chris Hurt counts 27 others under consideration for Indiana.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management proposes a change in regulations that could reduce the time it takes to approve air permits for ethanol plants. The change would establish industry-specific control standards for emissions.
Indiana’s plan to become the Middle East of biofuels could be a boon well beyond the rural towns that will welcome more than a dozen refineries . Firms that make and supply parts and expertise needed to build the $1.8 billion in ethanol and biodiesel plants–and related infrastructure–are gearing up.
