.jpg)
Our First Commercial Plant
A new plant, a new vision
On November 6, 2007 Range Fuels broke ground on our first commercial-scale cellulosic biofuels plant near Soperton, Georgia. This plant will be the first in the United States to produce commercial quantities of low carbon biofuels from biomass, which includes all plant and plant-derived material, such as wood, grasses, and corn stover. The plant will also generate clean renewable power from energy recovered during the process of converting biomass into low carbon biofuels.
The Soperton Plant will initially use wood from nearby timber operations and leftover wood residue over time. Construction on the first phase of the plant is scheduled to be completed by the first quarter of 2010, with the production of ethanol and methanol at a run rate of less than 10 million gallons per year to follow in the second quarter of 2010. At full-scale, the Soperton Plant is permitted to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol and methanol each year.
The plant will employ Range Fuels’ innovative and proprietary two-step thermo-chemical process, which uses heat, pressure, and steam to convert biomass into synthesis gas or syngas. The syngas is then passed over a proprietary catalyst and transformed into cellulosic biofuels, which can then be separated and processed to yield a variety of low carbon biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol and methanol. In addition to low carbon biofuels, the plant will generate clean renewable power from energy recovered in the conversion process.