Summer 2008

Wes Bolsen Brokers Next Generation Ethanol Deal

The biggest news coming out of this year’s North American International Auto Show wasn’t the latest vehicle model being developed by automakers but the announcement of General Motors Corp.’s partnership with a relatively unknown cellulosic ethanol company that could enable the production of ethanol for less than $1 a gallon.

This groundbreaking development was brokered and massaged for nearly a year by Wes Bolsen (Elect. Eng., ’00), part owner, chief marketing officer and vice president of business development for Coskata, Inc., an 18-month-old company based in Warrenville, Ill.

Coskata’s unique three-step “next generation ethanol” process converts carbonbased materials into synthetic gas using well-established gasification technologies. After the chemical bonds are broken using gasification, patented microorganisms convert the resulting syngas into ethanol by consuming carbon monoxide and hydrogen in the gas stream. Once the gas-to-liquid conversion process has occurred, the resulting ethanol is recovered from the solution using “vapor permeation technology.”

The Coskata process has the potential to yield more than 100 gallons of ethanol per dry ton of carbonaceous feedstock, reducing costs to less than $1 per gallon, according to Bolsen.

Also, Coskata claims that its process uses less than one gallon of water to make one gallon of ethanol compared to three gallons or more for other processes.

“Our process addresses many of the constraints lodged against current renewable energy options, including environmental, transportation and land-use concerns,” Bolsen said. “Alternative fuels from a variety of new sources and raw materials are coming faster than a lot of people realize.” Then, the fifth-generation central Illinois farm boy proudly stated, “Let’s make American farmers the Saudi oil kings of the next century.” General Motors executives like those messages, with Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner stating at the auto show that “we are very excited about what this breakthrough will mean to the viability of biofuels and, more importantly, to our ability to reduce dependence on petroleum.”

Wagoner’s announcement showed that GM is ramping up its efforts to advance the production of cellulosic ethanol rather than corn-based ethanol. GM produces more than one million flexible-fuel vehicles per year and, in the United States, has more than 2.5 million FFVs on the road. The automaker is committed to making half its production flexible-fuel capable by 2012.

David Cole, chairman of the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research, praised GM’s equity investment in Coskata.

“I think there’s a potential for this statement here to be one of the most important of the last 50 years in terms of the auto industry,” Cole said. “Just look at the value of displacing, say, a million barrels a day of petroleum with ethanol. I mean, it’s huge.”

And, everything started with a simple business development “cold call” in early 2007 from Bolsen to Mary Beth Stanek, director of GM’s environment and energy and commercialization division.

“Wes was key to the development of the partnership between Coskata and General Motors,” Stanek said. “General Motors and Coskata plan to develop sustainable transportation fuels globally and Wes will be integral to those efforts.”

And, of course, Bolsen had big fans at Coskata. “I hired Wes with the expectation that he would help drive the business development function at Coskata and provide some entrepreneurial activity support as well,” stated Coskata founder Todd Kimmel. “What I got was a highly motivated, resourceful, smart and thoughtful young executive that not only spearheaded the business development activities he was hired to focus on, but stepped up to the plate on marketing, recruiting, finance and many other items that were thrown his way.”

On the web at www.coskata.com

INSIDE THE “NEXT GENERATION ETHANOL” PROCESS
Specially patented microbes do their work inside Coskata’s reactors, which look like long tubes filled with membranes. That membrane technology is already used in water purification, according to Coskata President and CEO Bill Roe. Inside the pipes are filaments as thick as electrical wire. Hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide move through the inside of the filaments. Anaerobic microbes feed on the gases and release ethanol into water. The ethanol is separated from water using membranes as well.

Creating the gases used by the microbes is done through gasification. One such example is the Westinghouse Plasma gasification system. The gasifier generates temperatures hotter than the sun’s surface—5,500 degrees Celsius. But the work of the microbes does not require high heat or pressure. The process uses less than one gallon of water to produce a gallon of ethanol, compared to three or four gallons of water needed for ethanol made by conventional distillation methods. Using enzymes to break down cellulose instead of gasification requires six to seven gallons of water for a gallon of ethanol.

Source: Coskata Inc.