Chemical Solution

The Wall Street Journal Business
OCTOBER 19, 2009
By ANA CAMPOY

With demand for fuel falling, ethanol plants look for other products to sell.

Can green chemicals save the ethanol industry?

Ethanol producers, who focused on transforming corn into transportation fuel, got whipsawed by skyrocketing corn prices and collapsing demand as consumers cut back on driving.

Now a group of biotechnology and chemical companies is proposing a different model: using the existing ethanol infrastructure to make higher-margin chemicals.

Worries about global warming and government efforts to make chemicals more environmentally friendly are pushing the industry to find alternatives to the building-block materials they make mostly out of oil and natural gas. Ethanol itself, and other chemicals that can be brewed at ethanol plants, are emerging as viable options.

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