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Working for the greater good

Posted: November 23, 2009 at 12:37 PM CST

Denmark celebrated an ethanol milestone last week when Inbicon and its parent company, Dong Energy, celebrated the grand opening of its demonstration-scale, wheat straw-to-ethanol production facility in Kalundborg. The 1.4 MMgy facility will process 30,000 metric tons of straw annually, 110 tons per day, and will produce 11,100 tons of C5 molasses for animal feed and 10,500 tons of lignin fuel pellets as byproducts of the ethanol process.

The grand opening event was held as a pre-cursor to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18. During the conference, Inbicon’s facility will serve as an example of how ethanol can be produced in an environmentally friendly, sustainable manner and world leaders will have the opportunity to tour the facility and see firsthand the benefits of ethanol production. In addition, a portion of the UN’s fleet used at the conference will be fueled with Inbicon’s cellulosic ethanol.

It is not surprising that one of the world’s first cellulosic production facilities is located in Denmark. The country has been far ahead of the rest of the world in environmentally sustainable energy practices for decades, and continues to serve as a leader in this area. Why is that? What does this little country have that the U.S. doesn’t? The simple answer would be: oil. The country began developing renewable energy during the oil crisis of the late 1970s. However, as a Midwesterner of Scandinavian descent, I have always secretly believed it has something to do with the no-nonsense, hard-working ethic that characterizes Scandinavians. Turns out, I might really be on to something.

I wrote about Inbicon’s Denmark facility and North American ventures in the August issue of EPM (“Everything ‘Old’ can be New Again”). While researching the article, I spoke with many people, both and off the record, about the Danes’ energy accomplishments. One interview in particular has stuck in my mind because it offered some insight into the fundamental differences between Denmark and the U.S. and gives some examples why the U.S. has not been nearly as successful at implementing renewable energy practices.

“Scandinavians are more pragmatic in their approach to technology advancements,” he said. “The U.S. tends to move too fast, too aggressively and, as a result, makes a lot of costly mistakes. We over-extend, over-commit and don’t deliver. Denmark, on the other hand, has been developing this technology and Inbicon has been working on this project for 10 years. What Denmark has done, it has done very thoughtfully and methodically,” he added.

In addition, my confidante told me he believes it’s the socialist nature of Scandinavian culture that has assisted renewable energy project development as a whole. Inbicon, for example, worked with both Novozymes and Genencor to develop enzymes for its production process and is willing to share its technology with the world. These companies are, of course, highly competitive, but they are also both based in Denmark? Could that have something to do with their dual-involvement in the project? Maybe. It’s hard to say. But I do know that in the United States, enzyme development is highly guarded and technology advancements are kept close-to-the-chest. As my interviewee put it, “[U.S. project developers] don’t share information mentality and they certainly don’t share information for the benefit of the entire industry.”

I’ve interviewed U.S. companies who don’t even want to specify if they’re using an enzymatic process at all, much less give any details about the specifics. To be fair, I’ve also spoken with representatives who are more than willing to share specifics - at a price. I don’t know that ethanol producers can change the make-up of U.S. society, and I’m not saying they should. I’m also not saying Inbicon isn’t in the ethanol business for the money. Sure they are. But, as I’m afraid we will hear at the conclusion of December’s climate conference, time is running short for the world to come up with energy alternatives. And for all of the industry’s claims that we need to work together to achieve the greater good of energy independence, it might serve us well to look at Denmark’s example of what can be achieved if we actually do it.

-Kris Bevill