Cantwell-backed program seeks camelina growers

August 10, 2011

Tri-City Herald – U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) marked the launch of the state’s first large-scale program for growing a non-food feedstock for aviation biofuels earlier this week.

Seattle’s AltAir Fuels is looking for Eastern Washington farmers willing to grow camelina sativa, the feedstock, on up to 10,000 acres as part of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Biomass Crop Assistance Program, according to a news release.

The camelina will be used as a feedstock for sustainable, low carbon aviation fuel. AltAir is designing and building a network of renewable jet-fuel production facilities. The biofuel refinery in Western Washington is expected to go online in 2014.

The AltAir refinery should have the capacity to produce up to 100 million gallons of renewable jet and diesel fuel per year from camelina, which will replace approximately 2.38 million barrels of oil per year, according to the news release.

The crop production operations to supply the biorefinery are expected to create about 1,200 full-time jobs in rural areas throughout the Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest, and hundreds of jobs during the design, construction, and operation of the facility, according to the news release.

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