Novozymes sees bioethanol viable in China

Bioethanol produced from farm waste will be cost-competitive in three to four years, Danish enzymes producerNovozymes’ head of Chinese operations said. Novozymes, the world’s largest producer of industrial enzymes, said that it expected China to launch its first commercial plant for cellulosic ethanol, also known as second-generation bioethanol, in 2013. “As a starting point, our plans and expectations are for this (second-generation biofuel) to be competitive with regular gasoline in three to four years,” Micheal Fredskov Christiansen told Reuters. Novozymes launched its enzyme to produce cellulosic ethanol in February in the United States and said at the time that production costs of fuel made with it could be less than US$2 per gallon, which would make it competitive with gasoline. (June 4, 2010)