DowDuPont to exit cellulosic biofuels business

DowDuPont announced that it intends to sell its cellulosic biofuels business and its first commercial project, a 30 million gallon per year cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa. The Nevada project is still going through start-up. The Nevada plant will be ‘kept warm’ but not operated going forward until a buyer is found. 90 workers are currently employed at the plant, and it can be assumed that this will be reduced to a skeleton staff until a buyer is found. Ever since the Dow and DuPont merger was announced, there have been concerns about exactly where the cellulosic ethanol technology would fit in a company which avowedly planned, post-merger, to divide itself into three companies — one based on traditional chemicals, one on agriculture, one on speciality products and including the industrial biosciences.