Cellulosic Ethanol Gets $130 Million Cash Infusion.... By Jonathan Shieber and Don Clark, WSJ, April 1, 2008, subscription. "A group of investors is placing one of the biggest bets yet on a type of ethanol production that doesn't involve food crops. Range Fuels, a start-up in Broomfield, Colorado, [announced today] $130 million in new equity funding. The money will go toward the first phase of construction on a plant in Soperton, Georgia, which is expected to create ethanol using wood material that typically goes unused when timber is harvested. The company, which has received a $76 million grant commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy, expects the plant to be the first of its kind to operate on a commercial scale. The effort comes as publicly traded ethanol companies have taken a pounding in the markets, reflecting rising corn prices and a widening debate over the environmental impact of... biofuels made from food crops -- or from crops grown on land that environmental activists argue would be better used for growing food... Investors are racing to back companies that are developing technology to convert cellulosic biomass... and some... argue that Range Fuels and others using what is called a thermochemical process to convert cellulosic material have the best chance of success... [though] cellulosic ethanol hasn't proved it can be produced economically in large quantities."
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