What’s New in Biofuel?

Gevo held the groundbreaking of its first commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) facility, Net-Zero 1 (NZ1) in Lake Preston, South Dakota. Gevo’s management team was joined today by a large contingent of dignitaries and honored guests, including government officials, representatives from partner companies and customers, business leaders, local farmers, and members of the media to ceremoniously break ground. Gevo broke ground for the Net-Zero 1 plant on the 245-acre site it acquired in Lake Preston, South Dakota, in July. While under construction, the NZ1 project is expected to employ 1,000 people. Once operation, the facility will be staffed with around 90 full-time employees. The facility will be constructed on 245 acres, considered very favorable for producing low-carbon SAF. Site preparation will begin now, and official construction expected to begin in 2023. Building production facilities like Net-Zero 1 is a key element of Gevo’s business plan. The production facility will use de-fossilized energy, create a business system that rewards sustainability improvements, and will be equitable for all parties in the value chain. All the elements of the circular economy come together in this one facility, farmers deliver sustainably grown corn feedstock, renewable wind power and renewable natural gas provide electricity and...

Gevo has closed on the purchase of approximately 245 acres near Lake Preston, South Dakota, for its first commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) facility, Net-Zero 1. We initially optioned the site for purchase in December of 2020, and we chose this site because it is very favorable for producing low-carbon SAF. Gevo completed more than 18 months of due diligence at the site. By doing our homework, we expect to incorporate the following sustainable features and functions to the Net-Zero 1 facility: There is a good local market for the high-protein nutritional products that we expect to produce as part of our circular economy model.We are working to bring more sustainable agriculture methods to area feedstock producers, and this is expected to capture carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and sequester it in the soil.From day one, the plan for Net-Zero 1 has been to build a windfarm to provide electricity to power our processes, and local wind conditions suggest abundant wind-generated power will be available.The windfarm is also expected to provide the electricity to power the electrolysis to make renewable hydrogen with no carbon intensity.Eliminating waste from our business system is expected to provide additional advantages: Retaining sugary residues...

Gevo, Inc. is partnering with Google Cloud to measure and verify the efficacy of next-generation biofuels across the supply chain via full lifecycle sustainability data tracking. Using technology developed by Verity Tracking, a division of Gevo, the collaboration is expected to enable users to track and verify emissions using datasets and analytics tools from Google Cloud. The goal will be to help companies create a more data-driven approach to understanding and lowering greenhouse gas intensity globally. Together, Google Cloud and Verity expect to work on product-level engagements to address market and customer needs. Utilizing Google Cloud’s analytics tools and Google Earth Engine’s multi-petabyte catalog of Earth observation data, Gevo and Verity expect to provide measured verification of asset-level atmospheric emissions reductions, renewable energy-powered electricity for processing, and land-use changes with soil quality and water impacts to support Gevo’s smart agriculture and carbon intensity claims, from farm to flight. While many organizations around the world are prioritizing sustainability and are focused on reducing the carbon intensity of their operations, many of them are unsure how to track and measure their impact. The core issue to understanding greenhouse gas emissions is to get good data and analyze it effectively. Nowadays that means...

At Gevo, we build our entire business around sustainability. That’s the whole principle behind our new Net-Zero 1 plant that we’re building in Lake Preston, South Dakota, where we expect to create energy-dense liquid hydrocarbons through processes that are sustainable.

Gevo’s Bio-Based Isobutanol Production Process Explained: As the ethanol industry evolves, more production plants are seeking ways to add additional products to their production capability and ways to increase margin at their site. One of those options is production of isobutanol and its derivatives including octane, jet fuel blendstock, and other drop-in hydrocarbons. Commercial production of biobased isobutanol, alongside ethanol, has been in operation since 2014 at Gevo’s Luverne, MN, facility in a ‘side-by-side’ operation where various streams in the plant are shared between the operations to minimize capital and operating cost. Read about it in this white paper “An Overview of Gevo’s Biobased Isobutanol Production Process” by Christopher Ryan, PhD.