McCarthy said that instead of giving biofuels companies monetary incentives to stay in Massachusetts, the state could offer companies space in the Chicopee facility.
A small pilot facility at the Qteros lab in Marlborough where plant matter is transformed into ethanol using a microbe discovered by University of Massachusetts researchers in the soil around Quabbin Reservoir.By KYLE ALSPACH
Boston Business Journal
With the major costs associated with proving out new biofuels technologies, John McCarthy says he’s seen a number of Massachusetts startups in the space enticed to do larger-scale work in other states.
McCarthy, CEO of Marlborough-based cellulosic ethanol firm Qteros Inc., wants to help remediate that with his company’s new fermentation facility in Chicopee, expected to open during the second quarter. The company plans to use just about a third of the 15,000-square-foot facility for itself, and believes the rest should be developed for use by other Bay State biofuels firms - ideally with state government backing
“I think the challenge for Massachusetts is that we’ve got to figure out a way to not only incubate these businesses in the renewables space, but figure out a way to employ the continuing buildout of these organizations,” McCarthy said.
Massachusetts, he said, must “not allow contiguous states to outbid us.”
Qteros CEO John McCarthyOn his mind are examples such as cellulosic ethanol firm Mascoma Inc., which moved its headquarters from Boston to New Hampshire in 2009 and has done its larger-scale fermentation in New York state, and Cambridge-based Verenium Corp., which pursued cellulosic ethanol at a facility in Louisiana before selling the business unit to partner BP last year.
McCarthy said he’s been in talks with six or seven Massachusetts-based biofuels companies about the idea, and he’s seeking support to help get state officials involved. He said he is not yet seeking commitments from companies to move into the facility. One company familiar with the plans is Medford-based Agrivida Inc., which is re-engineering crops such as corn and switchgrass with the goal of producing lower-cost biofuels.
“This is something we would potentially use in the future as we do larger grow-outs,” said Agrivida President Michael Raab, of the Qteros facility. “We’re interested in using it when we’re ready.”
McCarthy said that instead of giving biofuels companies monetary incentives to stay in-state and add jobs here, the state could offer companies space in the Chicopee facility.
The Qteros Inc. bio fuels ethanol plant at 150 Padgette St. in Chicopee.A spokeswoman for state economic development Secretary Greg Bialecki said officials from the department have met with Qteros representatives in recent months, and said the meetings will continue. An upcoming meeting will include Richard Sullivan, the state’s new secretary of energy and environmental affairs, said the spokeswoman, Kimberly Haberlin.
McCarthy said the Chicopee facility will have the capacity for producing about 1,000 gallons of biofuels, roughly 10 times the size of what the company can do in Marlborough. The facility will help the company to gather more data in its effort toward commercialization, he said.
Qteros itself has recently announced plans to go outside the state for proving out its technologies. In January, the company said it had inked a partnership deal with a major Indian ethanol firm, Praj Industries Ltd., which will be retrofitting a plant in India to serve as a demonstration facility for the Qteros technology.
Qteros officials have said the deal and the company’s recent $22 million Series C round give the company a clear path to commercialization within two years. Qteros has developed a microbe, dubbed Q Microbe, that produces ethanol from non-food feedstocks.
Qteros and Praj are working to develop “Process Design Packages” that will be licensed to companies that want to produce cellulosic ethanol. Qteros expects that the first customers could be existing ethanol plant customers of Praj, McCarthy said.