DuPont-Danisco to join U of Tenn biofuels project

Wednesday's announcement by Gov. Phil Bredesen and DuPont officials marked a change in development partners for the University of Tennessee-managed ethanol project, which has received a $40.7 million commitment from the state and a $26 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Mascoma Corp. of Boston was Tennessee's original technology and financing partner on the "cellulosic ethanol project", a program to pioneer commercial processes for converting the cellulose--or woody stem fibers of nonfood plants and feedstock--into ethanol fuel. Delaware-based DuPont will now fill that role as part of a joint venture with Genencor, a division of Denmark-based Danisco AS.

"This announcement marks an important step forward in our goal to leverage the best of Tennessee's agricultural and academic resources in a way that will maximize our potential as a farm-based fuels leader," Bredesen said in a statement from Nashville.

Tennessee plans to begin construction later this year on the biorefinery in Vonore, about 34 miles south of Knoxville. Sixteen farms within a 50-mile radius already are growing switchgrass, a common prairie grass, under contract to supply the biorefinery.

"We hope by the fourth quarter of next year to be making the first ethanol," UT Executive Vice President David Milhorn told The Associated Press.

The pilot refinery has been scaled back from original plans and will produce about 250,000 gallons of ethanol annually instead of the 5 million gallons initially envisioned. But project officials say they believe that will be enough to demonstrate and test the processes and move such ethanol from the laboratory into commercial production.

As oil prices continue to soar over $100 a barrel, scientists around the world are racing to find commercially viable energy sources to reduce U.S. dependence on petroleum-based fuels.

The Tennessee project is one of handful in the United States that seeks to turn agricultural waste or "biomass" such as switchgrass, corncobs, wheat straw and other fibers into the fuel called cellulosic ethanol.

Milhorn signaled last month that Mascoma, which has other biofuels projects under way in New York and Michigan, would be reducing its role to a technology provider and a search ensued for another partner, leading to DuPont.