Commercial operations have commenced at the Inbicon Biomass Refinery located Denmark, in prompting the Company to declare the milestone an Energy Independence Day for Planet Earth. The refinery is designed to convert wheat straw into 1.4 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year, making it currently the largest producer of cellulosic ethanol in the world.

"We're producing not only The New Ethanol to replace gasoline but also a clean lignin biofuel to replace coal," says Inbicon CEO Niels Henriksen. "But our renewable energy process is as important as our renewable energy products. The Inbicon Biomass Refinery can demonstrate dramatically improved efficiencies when integrated with a coal-fired power station, grain-ethanol plant, or any CHP operation. Symbiotic energy exchange helps our customers build sustainable, carbon-neutral businesses."

The Kalundborg refinery will be integrated with the Asnaes Power Station, Denmark's largest. A variety of feedstocks can be used: straw, corn stalks and cobs, sugar bagasse, and grasses. Further, waste steam from the power station will run the biomass refinery, increasing the refinery's total energy efficiency to 71%. To produce green electricity, the refinery's lignin biofuel co-product is so clean it can augment coal-firing in power plant boilers without further purification.

(Source: Inbicon)