Aemetis receives grant for carbon zero project

Aemetis Inc., a renewable natural gas and renewable fuels company in Cupertino, California, has recently been awarded a grant from the U.S. Forest Service. The grant will go toward the commercialization of a patented process that extracts cellulosic sugars from waste orchard wood, waste forest wood and other biomass. 

“We are thankful to the U.S. Forest Service team members who have supported our efforts to reduce the amount of waste wood in forests, improve the health of forests and reduce orchard wood field burning while producing valuable, low-carbon-intensity biofuels,” says Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis. “Our planned deployment of the sugar extraction plant supported by this grant is expected to occur as we construct the Carbon Zero 1 renewable jet and diesel production plant in Riverbank, California.” 

The Carbon Zero 1 biorefinery will be completed and begin operations in 2023 with a capacity of 45 million gallons per year of renewable jet and diesel fuel, then double production capacity to 90 million gallons per year by 2025. 

The sugars from waste wood could potentially be used to produce high-value cellulosic ethanol at the existing 65 million gallons per year Aemetis ethanol plant in Keyes, California. The remaining lignin material is expected to be used in the production of negative carbon intensity, cellulosic hydrogen for use in renewable jet and diesel production at the Aemetis Carbon Zero 1 plant.

“The ionic liquids technology has the potential to extract sugars from waste wood at an industrial scale to create valuable biofuels from materials that otherwise may contribute to forest fires [that create] air pollution and carbon emissions as well as property damage and loss of life,” says Larry Swan, Wood & Biomass Utilization program leader for the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Regional Office. “We look forward to the eventual deployment of this technology to use forest wood waste to supply Aemetis ethanol plants with low-cost cellulosic sugars and provide lignin as a feedstock for other uses.”

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technology Office (BETO) has identified more than 1 billion tons per year of renewable, low-cost waste wood from forests, orchards and other biomass sources that can be used for biofuels and biochemicals production. The DOE has provided extensive funding for process technologies that convert this abundant, domestic feedstock source into renewable fuels, resulting in patented technologies such as ionic liquid process developed by the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in Berkeley, California.

The ionic liquids sugar extraction technology is exclusively licensed to Aemetis by the JBEI, which receives significant funding from the DOE. 

“Aemetis has an exclusive license from JBEI for a patented process that extracts cellulosic sugars comprising up to 55 percent of woody biomass, and we have already produced cellulosic ethanol that tested equal in performance to traditional ethanol,” says Goutham Vemuri, vice president of technology development at Aemetis.