Fuel Ethanol and the
Future
Globally the fuel ethanol industry has been struggling with the increase in the cost of feedstocks. The soaring price of corn in the US in particular is making fuel ethanol production increasingly uneconomical in its current form. AFC's food co-production technology is one way of overcoming increased costs, by increasing the value the ethanol producer will derive from the feed stock.
In addition, with increasing global competition over food resources AFC is developing a second generation "Gen 2" fuel ethanol feed stock that will be non-food competitive, and able to grow on marginal land. Preliminary crop trials have shown good promise and interest is being sought for the further commercialisation of this technology. As well as trialing the fuel ethanol production process with this new feed stock, AFC will continue with its pursuit of food product co-production to realise increased economic
value for fuel ethanol producers.
Globally the fuel ethanol industry has been struggling with the increase in the cost of feedstocks. The soaring price of corn in the US in particular is making fuel ethanol production increasingly uneconomical in its current form. AFC's food co-production technology is one way of overcoming increased costs, by increasing the value the ethanol producer will derive from the feed stock.
In addition, with increasing global competition over food resources AFC is developing a second generation "Gen 2" fuel ethanol feed stock that will be non-food competitive, and able to grow on marginal land. Preliminary crop trials have shown good promise and interest is being sought for the further commercialisation of this technology. As well as trialing the fuel ethanol production process with this new feed stock, AFC will continue with its pursuit of food product co-production to realise increased economic
value for fuel ethanol producers.
Innovating an Old
Process
Agritechnology together with a former associate identified and evaluated an opportunity to modify the traditional fuel ethanol process to enable the co-production of food grade products, thus increasing the productivity and margins of ethanol producers. Importantly the technology is not feedstock specific (i.e. various feed stocks are used to make fuel ethanol such as wheat, barley, sugar, corn etc and the process modification can work
with all), enabling potential global application.
A spin-off company, Alternative Fuels Corporation Pty Ltd (AFC) was founded to develop the technology. AFC was successful in raising funds from venture capitalists, government grants and ASX listed investors to carry out Proof of Concept. By utilising Agritechnology's food science and fermentation expertise this has now been successfully achieved and the technology is now covered by international patent applications.
Agritechnology together with a former associate identified and evaluated an opportunity to modify the traditional fuel ethanol process to enable the co-production of food grade products, thus increasing the productivity and margins of ethanol producers. Importantly the technology is not feedstock specific (i.e. various feed stocks are used to make fuel ethanol such as wheat, barley, sugar, corn etc and the process modification can work
with all), enabling potential global application.
A spin-off company, Alternative Fuels Corporation Pty Ltd (AFC) was founded to develop the technology. AFC was successful in raising funds from venture capitalists, government grants and ASX listed investors to carry out Proof of Concept. By utilising Agritechnology's food science and fermentation expertise this has now been successfully achieved and the technology is now covered by international patent applications.
