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Kansas cellulosic plant will use variety of feedstocks

Last week, Abengoa Bioenergy officially opened its new cellulosic ethanol plant in Hugoton, Kansas.

Spokesman Chris Standlee says the plant will utilize crop residue as its feedstock, with about 80 percent of that being corn stover.

“We have already done four or five years of harvest—and we’ve done harvests with both corn stover and wheat straw—but the majority of the feedstock for this facility will be corn stover with the rest being either wheat straw or the stubble from grain sorghum residues,” Standlee says. “We also have a dedicated plot of about 400 acres of switchgrass—we’re going to try and use some of that also.”

Standlee says Abengoa plans to market its proprietary “enzymatic hydrolysis technology” to existing corn-ethanol plants.

“They could increase their capacities with relatively low additional costs and create a product that is now—instead of just being 20 percent better than gasoline from a greenhouse gas emissions standpoint—it could now be roughly 90 percent better than gasoline from a greenhouse gas emissions standpoint,” he says.

The Abengoa plant has the capacity to produce up to 25 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year.

AUDIO: Chris Standlee