I hope this isn’t another dot-COM bubble driven by biofools. Personally, I’m guardedly optimistic about the Range Fuels thermochemical process — it doesn’t depend upon engineering new microbes or enzymes. Rather, their syngas process converts wood waste products to ethanol, and is close to conventional chemical plant methods. As I recall the process should be amenable to refinement to produce more efficient and practical methanol.
Range Fuels’s latest funding round includes an infusion from San Francisco hedge fund Passport Capital LLC, and includes new investors BlueMountain, Morgan Stanley and Pacific Corporate Group, the company said. Khosla Ventures, which had previously invested in the company, also contributed to the round.
Khosla Ventures’s other cellulosic-ethanol investments include Coskata Inc., of Warrenville, Ill., which also has raised funding from some large corporate partners, including Detroit-based General Motors Corp.
Other large companies are seeing the potential in cellulosic ethanol. In February, for example, San Ramon, Calif.-based oil-and-gas company Chevron Corp. and forestry giant Weyerhaeuser Co. launched a joint venture called Catchlight Energy LLC to develop ethanol facilities from cellulose sources such as woody biomass. Royal Dutch Shell PLC has invested in the Canadian company Iogen Corp., which is building its own cellulosic production facilities, and the two are working with Volkswagen AG to explore the use of the technology in VW cars.
Technorati Tags: Biofuel, Cellulosic Ethanol, Ethanol
0 Responses to “Range Fuels gets another $130 million in equity funding”