Bumpy ride for clean fuel

[Bdog]

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OTTAWA—When delegates at next week's global conference on renewable energy in Germany slip into selected courtesy vehicles, they'll drive between sites thanks to wheat straw from Canada.

That straw was the starting material for ethanol, the renewable fuel blended with gasoline in the tanks of the conference's Volkswagen Phaetons and other luxury cars from DaimlerChrysler.

And the ethanol was produced in a pioneering plant operated by Iogen Corp. next door to the Ottawa airport. Right now, it is the only facility in the world regularly transforming the cellulose of agricultural waste into ethanol in any quantity, about halfway to an eventual demonstration output of 1 million litres a year.

The boutique shipment of the fuel to Bonn, arranged by Iogen partner Royal Dutch/Shell Group, marks the first time European car manufacturers have used cellulose ethanol, although grain ethanol is available in Europe. It also marks a symbolic coming-of-age for a home-grown processing technology after nearly three decades of research and development.

"Cellulose ethanol is ready to go commercial and we want to do it in Canada," says Iogen vice-president Jeff Passmore.

Iogen's success is also being heralded by Shell in print ads in up-market magazines such as National Geographic, Harpers and The New Republic, plus the U.S. editions of Time and Newsweek. The ads feature Iogen founder Patrick Foody near a truck piled with bales of wheat straw.