The funding will augment Mendota’s efforts to design, construct and operate an advanced biorefinery demonstration plant in Fresno County that employs sugar beets as feedstock.
California energy commission chair Robert B. Weisenmiller noted that development of the biorefinery will help the state cement its place as the leader in alternative fuel innovations.
"Developing advanced fuels is essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to protect the environment and public health, and to meet the state’s climate change policies," added Weisenmiller.
The demonstration plant will employ advanced enzyme and microbial techniques to convert 10,000 tons of sugar beets into 285,000 gallons of advanced biofuel ethanol.
Consequently, the project will undertake the construction of a commercial-scale biorefinery center with a capacity to generate 40 million gallons of biofuel per annum.
Mendota Bioenergy project manager Jim Tischer said, "This is the first energy beet project to advance to the pilot and demonstration phase in the United States. This could be an excellent re-establishment of an old crop to a new end – to make advanced biofuels."
The CEC award was approved under the Commission’s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program for the development and use of new technologies, and alternative and renewable fuels, to help the state meet its climate change goals.
