U.S. Ethanol Maker Eyes Low-Carbon Sugar as Its ‘Moonshot’

November 05, 2021

Print This Article Share it With Friends

by Kim Chipman (Bloomberg Green) ...Shares of Green Plains Inc. rebounded to a seven-week high after the U.S. ethanol maker touted progress in its attempt to transform into a powerhouse of high-value ingredients made from corn.

At the top of the list is so-called clean sugar technology, which involves making dextrose and glucose used to produce an array of products, including in the growing renewable chemicals industry. Chief Executive Officer Todd Becker says the push could be the company’s “moonshot.”

...

The CEO has been working to sharply reduce Green Plains’ reliance on ethanol, with an aim of fully remaking the company into a low-carbon manufacturer of clean sugar and high-protein ingredients for use in products ranging from pet food to candy, with biofuel merely a byproduct.

Non-food grade corn oil, which can be used to make renewable diesel, as well as capturing and storing ethanol-related carbon emissions are also key areas of future growth, according to Becker’s plan. READ MORE

Related articles

Ethanol Maker Green Plains Shares Plunge After Surprise Loss (Bloomberg)
Green Plains to break ground on clean sugar project in August (Ethanol Producer Magazine)
Dextrose… with a 40% lower carbon footprint? Green Plains gears up to launch ‘truly disruptive’ tech at ethanol plant in Iowa (Ag Funder News)

Excerpt from Bloomberg: “Results were surprisingly weaker than expected,” Stephens Inc. analyst Ben Bienvenu, who has an “overweight” rating on the stock, said in a note. “However, the story continues to be about transformation.”

Shares are likely to remain volatile until the second half of the year, when the “rubber meets the road” in the company’s overhaul plans, Bienvenu said. READ MORE

Excerpt from Ag Funder News: Ethanol producer Green Plains is gearing up to open a first-of-its-kind facility at a dry corn milling plant in Shenandoah, Iowa, that it claims will be able to produce dextrose at a commercial scale with significantly lower capital intensity and a 40% reduction in carbon footprint vs the standard wet milling process.

The facility is mechanically complete and in the commissioning phase, with shipments to customers beginning in the second quarter of 2024.

“We haven’t seen a new wet corn mill in the US for years,” Green Plains SVP Anand Sundaresan told AgFunderNews. “It’s just so capital intensive. We have a process [‘clean sugar technology,’ developed by subsidiary Fluid Quip Technologies] that can produce dextrose with a much lower carbon intensity and a much lower capital intensity.

“And we think it’s going to be truly disruptive, both to support the food industry [for bakery, confectionery etc] and for the growing bio-economy [dextrose is used as the primary feedstock for precision fermentation].” READ MORE