Gevo Inc (NASDAQ:GEVO) has announced the closing on its purchase of approximately 245 acres of land near Lake Preston, South Dakota for the company’s first commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) facility, Net-Zero 1.
“After just over eighteen months of due diligence at the site, we are excited to commit and move forward. The potential of what we are creating here is, I think, immense,” Gevo CEO Dr Patrick Gruber said in a statement. “We are working to bring sustainable agriculture into the solution to capture carbon and catalyze the build-out of wind, renewable hydrogen, and biogas, combined with new paradigms for managing energy.”
“I expect that Lake Preston and South Dakota will showcase what works well when all the parts unite. I want to get on with it and show people what is possible,” he added.
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Gevo said it expects to break ground on Net-Zero 1 in September 2022, with a formal announcement of the ground-breaking event for state and local representatives, and select members of the media, next month. The wind energy project that will provide electricity to the facility is currently in development.
The company expects to begin delivery of initial volumes of SAF to fulfill a portion of existing supply agreements in 2025. Net-Zero 1 is expected to produce 55 million gallons per year (MGPY) of SAF, or 62 MGPY of total hydrocarbon volumes, it said.
“The local availability of corn as a feedstock for our process makes Lake Preston a favorable location for this operation,” said Tony Wells, Gevo’s site leader and general manager. “Additionally, the local wind conditions are ideal for the wind power that will provide electricity to our plant, and there is a good local market for the high-protein animal feed product that we will be selling,” he added.
Gevo’s mission is to transform renewable energy and carbon into energy-dense liquid hydrocarbons. These liquid hydrocarbons can be used for drop-in transportation fuels such as gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel that when burned, have the potential to yield net-zero greenhouse gas emissions when measured across the full life cycle of the products.
“Capturing renewable energy and transforming it into SAF and other liquid hydrocarbon fuels is game changing. It enables the transformation of renewable energy and carbon, in the form of liquids, to anywhere it is needed, and it can be done on a net-zero GHG life-cycle basis when all of the parts of the business system are accounted for. We expect that Middle America will continue to lead the energy transition," Gevo CEO Gruber said.
The company’s ability to penetrate the growing low-carbon fuels market depends on the price of oil and the value of abating carbon emissions that would otherwise increase greenhouse gas emissions. Gevo believes that its proven, patented technology enabling the use of a variety of low-carbon sustainable feedstocks to produce price-competitive low-carbon products such as gasoline components, jet fuel and diesel fuel yields the potential to generate project and corporate returns that justify the build-out of a multi-billion-dollar business.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com