Range Fuels Declares Opening of its Bio-fuel Commercial Production

Range Fuels, a new bio-fuel company supported by Khosla Ventures, has officially declared the opening of its first commercial level bio-fuel production plant to manufacture cellulosic methanol from non-food feedstock. The company is planning to manufacture around 20 million gallons of ethanol and bio-diesel from its new facility located in Georgia.

Initially, the company proposes to use wood waste afforded by timber plants from nearby locations of Soperton Ga. The process deployed by the company will convert the wood waste into synthetic gas by heat and pressure method which will then undergo a patented catalytic process to generate an alcohol based blend. The bio-fuel derivative can be used in airplanes and domestic cars by mingling it with the existing gas tanks. The company will initially stick to producing bio-diesel in the first year and follow it by the production of cellulosic ethanol subsequently. It anticipates increasing its fuel production capability to 60 million gallons by the next year and 100 million gallons soon.

Range Fuels though had earlier set its plan to open the plant during 2008 and 2009 but the proposal ran into trouble due to a setback in getting the permission from Environmental protection agencies and receiving enough funding due to weak economy. For the startup operations the company has generated nearly $100 million through venture capital and an additional $80 million loan guarantee from the U.S. department of agriculture. The company in addition to the support from Khosla ventures also has the support of the venture capital companies such as Pacific Corporate Group, Pequot Capital and Morgan Stanley.