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Cool Planets Wood Waste to Fuel Project

Biofuels Digest has an article on a new biochar / pyrolysis project being proposed for Louisiana - Cool Planet to invest $168M in Louisiana – stealthy biotechnology heads for scale. The updated program looks to be using wood waste rather than miscanthus.

In Louisiana, Cool Planet Energy Systems CEO Howard Janzen, flanked by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, announced the company will build three bio-refineries in Louisiana with a capital investment of $168 million. The project will consist of modular biomass-to-gasoline refineries in Alexandria, Natchitoches and a site to be determined. ...

Its not hard to see why everyone has been excited — sometimes laced with skepticism — about Cool Planet. With claimed operating costs of $1.00 to $1.15 per gallon, and adding another 13 cents or so for the capital costs (amortized over 15 years) – well, you get the picture. It’s drop-in, renewable gasoline, in prospect, for about half the price of the incumbent fossil fuels.

Now those claims were built around – to some extent, an emerging feedstock, miscanthus. That was the secret sauce in reports of 4,000 gallons per acre yields for production of renewable gasoline, Ahem, there’s been a change.

Now, Cool Planet will harvest wood waste and forest byproducts to make gasoline at its initial commercial-scale facilities in Louisiana. Each bio-refinery will be capable of producing 10 million gallons of high-octane, low-vapor pressure gasoline for strategic distribution through existing market channels and for blending at Louisiana refineries.