More commercial plants in pipeline for LanzaTech

LanzaTech chief executive Jennifer Holmgren. The company turns waste gas from steel mills into ethanol and other high value fuels and chemicals.

LanzaTech, the New Zealand-founded carbon recycling company, says it has other full-scale commercial plants in the pipeline following this week's announcement that China Steel Corp will invest US$46 million in a commercial scale ethanol facility in Taiwan.

The CSC board decision follows a successful pilot of the carbon recycling platform at the White Biotech joint demonstration plant in Kaohsiung, which was a joint venture with LCY Chemical Corporation, using steel mill off gases for ethanol production.

Construction starts on the new 50 tonne facility in the last quarter of this year and LanzaTech said other pilots likely to be scaled up include one with Baosteel in China.

Capital costs for LanzaTech's first commercial plant are estimated to be around $4.80 per gallon, or around US$81.6 million.

CSC's US$46 million investment includes the equity required for the project, plus additional plant modifications which are not part of the LanzaTech unit.

The rest of the project's cost will be financed by debt and although the debt/equity ratio has not been disclosed, LanzaTech said a typical project ratio would be in the 60/40 to 50/50 range.

Founded in New Zealand in 2005 and now headquartered in Chicago, LanzaTech turns waste gas from steel mills into ethanol and other high value fuels and chemicals.

The company announced last year it and a research team from India's IOC-DBT Center for Advanced Bio-Energy Research had developed a way of using carbon dioxide emissions to produce omega-3 rich fatty acids, using LanzaTech's unique microbial process.

LanzaTech has so far raised more than US$200 million from investors including US$60 million from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund last December, which became the second largest shareholder after Silicon Valley-based Khosla Ventures.