Tennessee Biofuels Initiative switchgrass program set to commence
Submitted by Biofuels Digest Blog
In Tennesee, switchgrass farmers who applied for incentives under the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative will commence planting this spring for a fall 2008 harvest. The five-year, $70 million cellulosic ethanol program will incentivize both feedstock production and construction of a pilot ethanol plant which will be constructed in Vonore. The $409 million plant will open in 2010.
Senator Lamar Alexander recently gave a speech on the benefits of the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative, a partnership between the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Sen. Alexander said the partnership would result in 4,000 new jobs in rural Tennessee, $400 million in new state and local revenues annually, 3,000 jobs and $1 billion in revenue from producing the chemicals that process biofuels, $100 million in annual farm income, and 1 billion gallons per year of Grassoline annually at a wholesale price of $1.20 per gallon.
Mascoma, a start-up out of Dartmouth which pioneered high-yield enzymes for ethanol production, is a partner in the proposed ethanol plant created by the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative. The initiative received a jump start this year when Oak Ridge was the recipient of a Department of Energy grant to produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercially-viable scale.
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