Texas Firm Developing 'Green Gasoline' Derived From Most Organic Materials
By Scott Doggett July 13, 2009
A Texas company is one of several firms reportedly developing a second-generation biofuel that will be compatible with the country's existing oil infrastructure.
The firm, Terrabon, is working on a biofuel it calls "green gasoline," the Houston Chronicle reported last week.
Unlike existing ethanol derived from food stock, the fuel would be nearly identical in structure to gasoline and could be made with nearly any organic material, from sewer sludge to cornstalks.
Scientists at Texas A&M University developed the acid fermentation process, called MixAlco, that Terrabon is now testing. By the end of the summer, Terrabon plans to produce 300 gallons of the green gasoline a day.
Unlike ethanol, Terrabon's fuel and others like it now in development are deemed "infrastructure compatible" - lacking the corrosiveness of ethanol, the fuels can theoretically be stored and pumped at existing gasoline stations.
At least a dozen companies are working on this type of second-generation biofuel, including Wisconsin's Virent Energy Systems (see our June 22 report) and Amyris Biotechnologies, located in Emeryville, California.
"It's definitely the long-term solution," Andy Aden, a biofuels researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, told the Chronicle.
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