Wood Bioenergy | a Hatton-Brown publication

Biofuels producer KiOR recently received Part 79 registration for its Renewable Gasoline Blendstock 5 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The registration, required by manufacturers of motor vehicle fuels by the EPA, must be completed prior to the sale of the product.

According to KiOR President and CEO Fred Cannon, KiOR’s action represents the first renewable cellulosic gasoline the EPA has registered for sale in the U.S. Under EPA’s Part 79 registration program, manufacturers are required to analyze combustion and evaporative emissions generated by fuel and fuel additive products, survey existing scientific information for each product and, where adequate information is not available, conduct tests to screen for potential adverse health effects of these emissions.

KiOR began construction on its fully funded commercial facility in Columbus, Miss. in early 2011, and the refinery is scheduled to begin production later this year. The “initial scale” refinery is projected to produce 11 million gallons of renewable gasoline, biodiesel and fuel oil blend stock annually, using in-woods biomass as feedstock. The plant should use around 500 BDT of biomass daily, according to the company.

Boosting the plant’s commercial potential are offtake agreements already in place with Hunt Refining, Catchlight Energy (a Chevron and Weyerhaeuser venture) and FedEx Corporate Services. Catchlight also has a feedstock supply agreement with KiOR. KiOR officials recently announced that once the Columbus plant is fully operational, plans are to break ground on a second biofuel facility near Natchez that’s considerably larger and will utilize approximately 1,500 BDT of feedstock per day.