The LSU AgCenter’s new biofuels pilot plant will combine two of Louisiana’s sweetest ventures: sugarcane and fuel.
The ribbon-cutting is slated for 10 a.m. Friday at the plant, which is located at the Audubon Sugar Institute in St. Gabriel. According to a Jan. 3 AgCenter news release, the pilot plant is part of a project funded by a five-year $17.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Director of the AgCenter’s Louisiana Institute for Biofuels and Bioprocessing Vadim Kochergin said the plant will process feedstocks into a stable sugar syrup that will be distributed to the plant’s partners to make biofuels and bioproducts.
University chemical, biological and mechanical engineering students will be able to use the plant to learn about biofuel production, Kochergin said.
“It’s a paradise for students to learn because when you go to the factory, you see big, big equipment,” Kochergin said. “Here you can see the whole layout, the whole thing in front of you.”
Kochergin said the plant has partnered with companies such as DuPont for isoprene production and Virent for gasoline production.
The plant will use feedstocks such as energy cane, or high-fiber, low-sugar varieties of sugarcane and sweet sorghum, a plant similar to sugarcane with a high sugar content, Kochergin said. The AgCenter farms some feedstock near the plant, he said.
First, the feedstock is shredded, chopped and squeezed for juice. It is then rinsed with water multiple times to extract more sugar content, Kochergin said.
The water is evaporated to create the sugar syrup, which has a consistency similar to Coca-Cola, he said.
Kochergin said the plant can process one ton of feedstock per hour, which translates into about 300 pounds of syrup. He said the plant expects to process its first batch of feedstock in June.
Louisiana Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain said both a need to decrease America’s dependency on foreign oil and environmental reasons make development of the biofuels industry important. Global population is also growing and developing, creating greater demand for energy, he said.
“Energy usage is going to increase by 25 percent to 30 percent over the next 30 to 50 years, even with the best efficiencies possible because of the growing population worldwide,” Strain said.
Strain said biofuel production is worth exploring because “things that come from biomass are infinitely renewable and infinitely sustainable if it is done properly.”
Louisiana is well-suited for making biofuels, he noted, because it is an agricultural state that produces a large amount of biomass.
Strain said farmers would benefit from increased biofuels production because they would “find another avenue for that portion of crops he has not been able to sell.”
Michael Salassi, agricultural economics and agribusiness professor, said Louisiana already has the harvest equipment and expertise required for growing and transporting feedstocks. Production and harvesting methods for new feedstock crops are almost identical to sugarcane, he said.
“Some of the varieties have been around for decades, but now there’s interest in it, so breeding new varieties of energy cane with those characteristics is starting to take off,” Salassi said.
Significant acreage of energy cane is not yet being farmed in Louisiana, Salassi said, with most growing in small-scale trials.
“The basic goal of the research that we’re doing is can we grow these crops, can we process them into final products that can develop an industry in this state, and that’s sort of yet to be determined,” Salassi said.
Salassi said he doubts biofuels will be able to compete with oil and natural gas in the U.S. because such a comparatively small amount is produced. Biofuels “will have a niche,” he said, but likely only for nontraditional applications.
“Bioproducts may be more feasible than biofuels initially because bioproducts may cost more, and so with biofuels you have to compete with regular gasoline,” Kochergin said.
Kochergin said a key issue will be finding what price will encourage farmers to plant feedstock instead of currently competitive crops.
“We’re trying to find the questions that need to be answered to build an economical business case for the grower and for the producer of the feedstocks,” he said. “We’re trying to build a bridge between the ag and the processing.”
“We’re trying to build a bridge between the ag and the processing.”
