Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Joule's ethanol plant moves forward on $70M funding round

By Rodney H. Brown

Biofuels company Joule Unlimited Inc. has closed on $70 million in a third funding round from new, unnamed institutional and private investors, along with previous backer Flagship Ventures.

In an announcement released at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Bedford-based Joule said the new funds would be used in the build-out and operation of its ethanol production facility located in Hobbs, N.M., which is expected to be commissioned this summer. The Hobbs plant is being used to test Joule’s Helioculture process and SolarConverter system, to see how easily it will be to scale through hundreds to thousands of acres of feedstock for making ethanol.

Joule also said in the release that the new funds would go toward helping it expand globally, and toward further development of its technology. In July 2011, Joule landed two U.S. patents for its ethanol production process that the company said is more efficient and handles higher volumes than biomass processes.

In May 2011, Joule announced that it signed a lease agreement for access to 1,200 acres of land in Hobbs to produce renewable diesel and ethanol. Joule president and CEO Bill Sims has said previously that one acre of solar converter systems could produce 15,000 gallons of diesel per year or 25,000 gallons of ethanol per year.

Founded in 2007 by Flagship VentureLabs, an arm of Flagship Ventures, Joule holds six patents in the U.S. and has another 70 patent applications pending.