BP and Verenium Announce Vercipia Biofuels

BP and Verenium Corporation announced on Wednesday (July 29) that its 50-50 joint venture company will operate under the name Vercipia Biofuels. Corporate headquarters will be located in Florida. Quoting from their website, "Vercipia, which means 'green beginnings', will utilize dedicated energy canes and [other tall-stature] grasses, both abundant biomass feedstocks, in conjunction with novel enzymatic conversion technology being developed by its parent companies, Verenium and BP, in its production process. Vercipia plans to develop one of the first fully integrated cellulosic ethanol production facilities..." The plant will have a production capacity of 36 million gallons of ethanol per year, or about 25 times the capacity of the plant they built near Jennings, Louisiana. As can be seen on their PDF fact sheet, this location is in Highlands County, Florida, just NW of Lake Okeechobee, and not too far from Florida's sugarcane country, which is mostly on the south side of Lake Okeechobee. Vercipia Biofuels has entered into a long-term agreement with Lykes Bros., Inc, a well-known, family-owned Florida agricultural business, to provide the energy grasses for conversion to fuel. I can only assume Lykes Bros. plans to grow energy cane as well as forage sorghum on their farm, based on the short list of feedstocks mentioned in the fact sheet. Presumably, they will use energy canes that were bred at the USDA Field Station in Canal Point by Dr. Peter Tai. Dr. Tai's semi-wild canes certainly looked superior to Louisiana's released energy canes in the energy crop test I saw last winter in Florida, which should be no surprise, since they were selected in that environment.