LONDON - The largest biorefinery in the European Union should be up and running in the first half of next year, consuming a substantial chunk of Britain's exportable wheat surplus, the head of UK biofuels firm Ensus said.Ensus chief executive Alwyn Hughes told Reuters the plant, which the company is building in Wilton, northeast England, will make bioethanol and a protein rich animal feed co-product from about 1.2 to 1.3 million tonnes of British wheat. "We are well into construction now and we will be producing ethanol and animal feed in Q1, Q2 next year," he said in comments released on Monday. Britain traditionally has an exportable wheat surplus of about 2.5 million tonnes. The plant will the first major bioethanol plant in Britain, producing around 330,000 tonnes of the biofuel, far larger than the current leader, a British Sugar facility in eastern England with an annual capacity of around 55,000 tonnes. It will also produce 350,000 tonnes of animal feed.
LONDON - The largest biorefinery in the European Union should be up and running in the first half of next year, consuming a substantial chunk of Britain's exportable wheat surplus, the head of UK biofuels firm Ensus said.
Ensus chief executive Alwyn Hughes told Reuters the plant, which the company is building in Wilton, northeast England, will make bioethanol and a protein rich animal feed co-product from about 1.2 to 1.3 million tonnes of British wheat. "We are well into construction now and we will be producing ethanol and animal feed in Q1, Q2 next year," he said in comments released on Monday. Britain traditionally has an exportable wheat surplus of about 2.5 million tonnes. The plant will the first major bioethanol plant in Britain, producing around 330,000 tonnes of the biofuel, far larger than the current leader, a British Sugar facility in eastern England with an annual capacity of around 55,000 tonnes. It will also produce 350,000 tonnes of animal feed.
Ensus chief executive Alwyn Hughes told Reuters the plant, which the company is building in Wilton, northeast England, will make bioethanol and a protein rich animal feed co-product from about 1.2 to 1.3 million tonnes of British wheat.
"We are well into construction now and we will be producing ethanol and animal feed in Q1, Q2 next year," he said in comments released on Monday.
Britain traditionally has an exportable wheat surplus of about 2.5 million tonnes.
The plant will the first major bioethanol plant in Britain, producing around 330,000 tonnes of the biofuel, far larger than the current leader, a British Sugar facility in eastern England with an annual capacity of around 55,000 tonnes.
It will also produce 350,000 tonnes of animal feed.
Outputs: 330 thousand tonnes of ethanol + 350 thousand tonnes of animal feed
By the law of conservation of mass, this will produce at least 600,000 tonnes of waste products. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Scene One - Camera sweeping across plains of grain, then following jolly looking lorries carrying the bounty through healthy village roads with smiling patrons raising a pint in their passing.
Another sweep through the modern stainless steel plant, past the safety inspector with her clipboard and a lens flare off the glittering pure effluent water trickling into the village steam.
And look!!! There's Helen's pony tied to the corral adjacent to the elementary school, and as the crane shot pulls us back and above, we see gleeming truck loads of refined fuel for our cars. Only a few will notice the CEO's Porsche passing them on the blind corner of the cute country road. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
ScienceBusiness » Critics of biofuels under no obligation to be accurate
This week sees the start of another of those green initiatives that set out to meet the environmentalists' demands to "do something about climate change". As from today, under something called the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), transport fuels sold in the UK have to contain 2.5 per cent biofuel. Just two weeks before it was due to come into effect, and after companies had committed themselves to spending billions to meet the RTFO, Greenpeace, aroused by reports of shippers wanting to grab at US subsidies by shipping biofuels to and fro across the Atlantic, suddenly decided that it didn't like the idea. ... Sustainable energy is a hot area for investors these days. The Carlyle Group, for example, has invested in a bunch of businesses including Ensus. This startup company, with both a chairman and CEO who spent years developing their engineering skills in ICI, before that bastion of the chemical sector evaporated, is spending £250 million building a plant on Teesside to turn wheat into bioethanol. What can they be thinking of? Wheat? Should that be going into loaves of bread? ... The point of the story is that Ensus has backed up its sales pitch, and the all important business plan, with a detailed sustainability analysis, and one that it has thrown to the wolves, in the shape of a bunch of expert scientists. ... It is for someone else to tell if Ensus really does have a strong case. The point is that it is irresponsible of groups like Greenpeace to flail around indiscriminately knocking a whole industry. If the EU had heeded the organisation's warnings, then a bunch of investors could have kissed goodbye to their money. Companies cannot turn investment strategies on and off just because a bunch of greenies have had second thoughts. After all, they were the ones pushing for transport to do its bit for climate change. Let's hope that they don't put off too many investors. More important, let's hope that Brussels ignores their shrill screams. The first wave of biofuels may not be perfect, but, as Alwyn Hughes says, you cannot have a more efficient second generation process without building a first generation.
This week sees the start of another of those green initiatives that set out to meet the environmentalists' demands to "do something about climate change". As from today, under something called the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), transport fuels sold in the UK have to contain 2.5 per cent biofuel.
Just two weeks before it was due to come into effect, and after companies had committed themselves to spending billions to meet the RTFO, Greenpeace, aroused by reports of shippers wanting to grab at US subsidies by shipping biofuels to and fro across the Atlantic, suddenly decided that it didn't like the idea.
...
Sustainable energy is a hot area for investors these days. The Carlyle Group, for example, has invested in a bunch of businesses including Ensus. This startup company, with both a chairman and CEO who spent years developing their engineering skills in ICI, before that bastion of the chemical sector evaporated, is spending £250 million building a plant on Teesside to turn wheat into bioethanol.
What can they be thinking of? Wheat? Should that be going into loaves of bread?
The point of the story is that Ensus has backed up its sales pitch, and the all important business plan, with a detailed sustainability analysis, and one that it has thrown to the wolves, in the shape of a bunch of expert scientists.
It is for someone else to tell if Ensus really does have a strong case. The point is that it is irresponsible of groups like Greenpeace to flail around indiscriminately knocking a whole industry. If the EU had heeded the organisation's warnings, then a bunch of investors could have kissed goodbye to their money.
Companies cannot turn investment strategies on and off just because a bunch of greenies have had second thoughts. After all, they were the ones pushing for transport to do its bit for climate change. Let's hope that they don't put off too many investors. More important, let's hope that Brussels ignores their shrill screams. The first wave of biofuels may not be perfect, but, as Alwyn Hughes says, you cannot have a more efficient second generation process without building a first generation.
As Jérôme says, famine is a market solution. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Because obviously, investors losing their investments is so much more of a problem than people not being able to eat the food.
Er, yes. Of course.
The only surprise is why more people don't understand that this is exactly how it works.
INTERVIEW-Largest EU biorefinery to come onstream H1 2009 | Markets | Reuters
Ensus, a start-up company which was acquired last year by two U.S. private equity funds, the Carlyle Group and Riverstone, has a contract to sell all the bioethanol produced in Wilton to oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) while Glencore will supply grain and take the animal feed, Hughes said. ... He said the animal feed, which is more suitable for cattle than pigs and chickens because of its high fibre content, should displace imported South American soymeal. "That will reduce the pressure on deforestation," he said.
He said the animal feed, which is more suitable for cattle than pigs and chickens because of its high fibre content, should displace imported South American soymeal.
"That will reduce the pressure on deforestation," he said.
So the claim that they will reduce deforestation by replacing soy oilcake looks like greenwashing to me. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
The plant is expected to supply one-third of UK demand for ethanol under Britain's Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) which mandates that 5 percent of motor fuel should come from renewable resources by 2010.
By the way, if the EU's target is behind the RTFO, I don't know why Greenpeace is complaining to the UK rather than to the European Commission. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
