Bioenergy company Ineos Bio has got the green ball rolling on a project to convert locally-generated biodegradable household and commercial wastes into carbon neutral road transport fuel and clean electricity

The green player has begun a £3.5 million (€3.9 million) feasibility study, which includes detailed engineering design work for a plant at the company’s Seal Sands site in the Tees Valley, UK.

The study is fortified by a £2.2 million grant from the Regional Development Agency One North East and the Department for Energy and Climate Change. When completed, the feasibility study will inform an investment decision in 2010 for a commercial Ineos Bio ethanol and bioenergy plant.

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‘Essentially, our aim is to provide biofuel for cars and bioenergy at competitive cost without harming the environment, with very low or zero net carbon emissions and without competing with food production,’ Peter Williams, CEO of Ineos Bio, comments.

The company hopes the feasibility study will ultimately lead to the construction of the initial commercial phase of an ethanol plant at Seal Sands. Subsequent expansion could turn the initial plant into a fully integrated biorefinery by 2015.

The Ineos Bio process is a combined thermochemical and biochemical technology for the production of ethanol and renewable power from a wide range of low-cost carbon materials, including biodegradable household and industrial wastes. In the anaerobic fermentation step naturally-occurring bacteria converts gases derived directly from biomass into ethanol. The process supports high recycling and high landfill diversion rates.

Ineos Bio is a subsidiary of Ineos Technologies, one of the companies in the Ineos Group. Ineos is the world’s third largest chemicals company and a manufacturer of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products.

Once the plant is up and running Ineos biofuel will power cars