Carinata developer Nuseed expands bioenergy platform to include energy cane
Carinata-oilseed developer Nuseed announced Sept. 13 that it has entered into a long-term strategic alliance with Sao Paulo, Brazil-based GranBio to accelerate R&D and commercialization into global energy-cane markets.
Nuseed acquired GranBio’s energy-cane breeding and commercial assets, as well as its R&D program, aiming to fundamentally improve the output energy value through innovation in bioenergy cane.
“This is an enormous opportunity, with ready-now technology and is a fundamental step change in energy creation and renewable-product generation from cane,” Nuseed stated.
The opportunity includes two platforms:
Scalable, drop-in improvement in energy output with the existing ethanol and cogeneration bioelectricity cane industry in Brazil (and other markets)
And expansion of energy cane as a reliable feedstock into emerging second-generation process technology, which will make it possible to help decarbonize hydrocarbons for applications such as biochemicals and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
Nuseed will accelerate breeding-product development and broad-scale commercial adoption into the existing ethanol and bioelectric cane industry in Brazil and other world markets.
GranBio will continue to invest in energy-cane development through Nuseed and will be the exclusive licensor of energy-cane feedstock into GranBio proprietary process applications in the lignocellulosic field, such as cellulosic sugars and lignin, second-generation ethanol, biochemicals, SAF and renewable materials worldwide.
Nuseed and GranBio’s agreement will enable the biomass-to-fuel value chain to become a powerful solution to the challenge of securing renewable feedstock at large scale.
Dedicated energy-cane next-generation clusters will also enable carbon-neutral biorefineries to respond to global SAF demand and the International Air Transport Association’s 2050 goals.
“This is a fundamental step change in energy creation and renewable-product generation from cane,” said Brent Zacharias, Nuseed Group executive. “Nuseed sees enormous opportunity with this exciting new acquisition and strategic partnership with GranBio. As part of our bioenergy platform, we are focused on building technology, capability and partnerships to optimize delivery of bioenergy feedstocks and industrial materials. The proprietary energy-cane platform, combined with existing Nuseed innovation, global reach and partnerships, can transform sustainable energy output from a highly scalable crop.”
GranBio’s CEO and founder Bernardo Gradin said, “GranBio has been developing energy cane since 2012 as one of the most effective feedstocks to enable and secure sustainable advanced biofuels and biochemicals with a biopower-to-biomass value chain with net-zero carbon footprint. The long-term alliance with Nuseed will accelerate and improve the worldwide agricultural and technology advancement of energy cane and allow GranBio to focus on its core technology deployment of its Net Zero Carbon Renewable Biorefineries Program. This cooperation agreement will create a very powerful global solution to secure biomass as a reliable feedstock at scale to biofuels including 2G ethanol and 2G SAF. GranBio’s biorefineries, powered by proprietary and partner technologies, projects 50,000 hectares of planted energy-cane clusters capable of producing the equivalent of 100 million gallons of cellulosic SAF, which aims at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, starting in 2028. There are tropical and subtropical zones in regions of Latin America, the Southern U.S., Africa, Asia and Australia corresponding to over 700 million hectares of potentially available land not used for food crops.”
Energy cane, with GranBio’s demonstrated technologies, can potentially reduce gasoline consumption in tropical countries where the biomass from sugarcane is superior to other crops. It has the potential to reduce its carbon footprint to neutral or even negative.
