DuPont and Danisco, a cellulosic ethanol company, are finalizing the plans for a new ethanol plant, with the possibility of it being built in Iowa.

“We’re still in the decision-making process of our final site; there are a lot of criteria in the evaluation,” said Jennifer Allison Hutchins, director of marketing and communications for DDCE. “We looked across the Midwest, and we saw very high potential for feedstock as well as transportation in the states we evaluated.”

With grant terms approved by the Iowa Power Fund, DDCE will be rewarded a grant of $9 million once finalized.

“What the Power Fund Board did was approve the terms of the contract; they haven’t actually awarded any money yet,” said Don Tormey, public information/communications at Iowa Office of Energy Independence. “They’ve approved the terms of the contract, which would result if the contract is approved, in a $9 million fund to DuPont Danisco to build this cellulosic ethanol plant in Iowa.”

Cellulosic ethanol, the product from this plant in progress, is fermented from the waste products of corn, called corn stover, which includes the stalks, cobs and leaves.

“The current ethanol industry is by and large … made from corn,” Hutchins said. “Cellulosic ethanol takes cellulosic materials such as crop residues, so that would be your corn stover, corn cobs, stalks and leaves or something like energy grasses like switchgrass.”

What DuPont and Danisco want to prove is the technology, Tormey said. The goal is to produce 25 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year, and they want to use corn stover material to do that.

Despite DDCE’s work in progress, the company is confronted with the concern of food competition, shared amongst environmentalists and farmers.

This issue has environmentalists urging ethanol producers to switch from corn stover cellulosic ethanol to grass cellulosic ethanol. Bruce Babcock, professor of economics, thinks otherwise.

“A lot of the environmentally-oriented people around here are pushing for switchgrass rather than corn stover and that’s ironic because that will use land, and right now we need all the land we can get for food production,” Babcock said.

Robert Brown, distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State, stresses a vital distinction to be clarified between ethanol produced from the grains of corn versus corn stover, or corn waste.

“What we call corn ethanol is produced from the corn grain, which is a starch material,” Brown said. “That is how we currently produce it today.

“What you’re seeing is these new plants that are going in are going to be what we call cellulosic ethanol, and those are produced from any kind of fibrous biomass.”

Brown emphasized his lack of concern about the issue, arguing a lack of correlation between the price of food and production of ethanol.

Babcock argued that the land value for farming compared to the production of an ethanol plant is far less valuable, particularly from an economic perspective. Corn stover, he stresses, has already become a small market for farmers.

“The number of jobs, the value added, the income generated is so much higher,” Babcock said. “It’s really important for this plant to be built because everyone is saying how cellulosic biofuels are great, because they don’t use land, they don’t compete with food. Furthermore, even if they do compete for land, such as switchgrass, which would take land out of production for corn or soybeans, that creates habitats for birds and other things that don’t like corn and soybeans, so it varies the landscapes.”

Chad Hart, assistant professor of economics at Iowa State, addressed another concern for farmers.

“A lot of farmers are worried,” Hart said. “They are looking to maintain their soils because they see that being a farmer, if your soils aren’t kept up to speed, you won’t be in business all that long. They’re worried about, ‘If we do pull the stover, are we reducing the nutrients to give back to the soil?'”

“Part of the argument is the idea that producing corn ethanol entails both the grain and the stover, and this may take away from food production. It’s the same problem with people switching to ethanol made from switchgrass: it takes land away,” Hart said.

“We’re wrestling with what’s the best way to make a fuel while at the same time protecting our food and environmental interests, and the idea is that there’s tradeoffs within the choices that we make.”

With ethanol as a mandated industry, the idea of ethanol becoming competitive with other fuels such as petroleum can be expected in the near future.

“There are several mandates for the use of renewable fuels. Right now, [ethanol] is a mandated industry,” Hutchins said.

“We do expect eventually we will be competitive with gasoline. The mandates will enable the industry through the early commercialization as the technology and supplies are optimized.”

Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, a new renewable fuel standard was created. It established the first renewable fuel volume to be mandated in the U.S., requiring 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended into gasoline by 2012.

The Energy Independence and Security Act expanded the renewable fuel standard in 2007, including the addition of diesel to gasoline, enabling the production of biodiesel. The act also increased the volume of renewable fuel from nine billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

DDCE plans to have the plant built by 2013, as an attempt to prove this new technology using corn stover exclusively.

“It’s a new industry, so the technology will continue to improve,” Hutchins said.

“We’re just as anxious as they are to get the project approved and rolling because it will be good for Iowa,” Tormey said.

Tormey advocates the grant. When finalized, the plant alone will provide about 60 jobs for construction and additional jobs throughout and construction and maintenance afterward.

“[Building the plant is] going to help keep Iowa in the forefront of the ethanol industry by developing cellulosic ethanol from sources other than corn-based grain,” Tormey said.

As petroleum becomes more expensive, DDCE hopes this plant will make ethanol an attractive alternative.

“Everyone’s waiting for someone else to build these plants and prove the technology, and DuPont’s a big enough company that if they can’t prove the technology then nobody can,” Babcock said.