Medford pair creating way to use husks for ethanol

Foresee product on market by 2012

By Davis Bushnell
The Boston Globe Correspondent / May 15, 2008

Renewable energy is a hot topic these days, given soaring gasoline prices and discussions of how production of ethanol, now primarily a home-grown, cornstarch product, can be boosted to reduce the nation's reliance on imported oil.

One way to do that, industry specialists say, is to develop ethanol based on cellulose, or glucose units found on plants' cell walls. And that's exactly the goal of Agrivida Inc., a small five-year-old Medford company that is researching the use of corn husks and leaves for the ethanol process.

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