Ottawa, Canada will be the home to the world’s first service station to use gasoline containing an advanced biofuel made from wheat straw. The Shell service station will contain 10% cellulosic ethanol, produced locally from non-food raw materials at Iogen Energy Corp.’s demonstration plant, for one month starting June 10.
Royal Dutch Shell plc and Codexis, Inc. announced an expanded agreement to develop better enzymes that could speed up the commercialization of next generation biofuels in March as reported on Alternative Energy Africa. The agreement involved Codexis working closely with Shell and Iogen Energy Corp. to enhance the efficiency of enzymes used in the Iogen cellulosic ethanol production process. The Iogen demo plant produces hundreds of thousands of liters of cellulosic ethanol from agricultural residue like wheat straw. The technology used by Iogen uses enzymes to break down the cellulose in agricultural fiber, converting the cellulose to sugars which are fermented and distilled into ethanol.
Cellulosic ethanol, as an end fuel, is identical to ethanol but it can offer up to 90% less lifecycle CO2 emissions than gasoline. It is a key part of Shell’s strategic investment and development program in sustainable biofuels.
“I am excited we are leading the pack in cellulosic ethanol production technology and, with this event, showing what is possible in the future,” said Dr. Graeme Sweeney, Shell Executive Vice President Future Fuels and CO2. “While it will be some time before general customers can buy this product at local service stations, we are working with governments to make large-scale production economic.”