A U.S. bankruptcy judge approved the sale of Abengoa Bioenergy’s 25 million-gallon-a-year cellulosic ethanol plant in Hugoton, Kan., to newly formed Synata Bio for $48.5 million, or 12 cents on the dollar, says Ethanol Producer Magazine. The Hugoton plant, which opened in October 2014, is one of three commercial-scale cellulosic plants in the country.
The plant cost an estimated $400 million to build and “was in the middle of start-up when Abengoa’s financial problems surfaced,” said DTN. The plant has been in “cold status” for some time, it said. A variety of feedstocks, ranging from wheat straw, milo stubble and switchgrass to municipal solid waste, can be used by the plant to produce biofuels.
Cellulosic ethanol, made from grasses and woody plants, is one of the second-generation biofuels that were expected to follow corn ethanol. However, the “advanced” biofuels have taken far longer to develop than expected.