Nippon Steel, Oji Paper plan wood-stoked bioethanol plant

Nippon Steel Engineering Co. and Oji Paper Co. have joined forces to develop a biofuel refinery that can use scrap wood and paper as catalysts for bioethanol production. Most bioethanol refineries use such resources as corn and sugar cane, which are difficult to procure in Japan. A refinery that can use scrap wood and wastepaper would be more attractive to domestic fuel manufacturers, and would create a market for the refinery in southeast Asia and other places where forests are abundant. As a first step, Nippon Steel Engineering, a unit of Nippon Steel Corp., and Oji Paper will invest up to ¥1.5 billion (US$16.43 million) to build a pilot plant, as early as Fiscal 2011, in the city of Hiroshima which is capable of processing some 1-2 tons of pulverized wood materials a day, producing bioethanol through a process of saccharification and fermentation. The goal is to have a commercial-scale plant ready for marketing in fiscal 2014 with the capacity to process several hundred tons of material a day and yield bioethanol at a cost of around ¥40 (US$0.44) per liter. (June 12, 2010)