Fulcrum turns trash to treasure at new plant
US-based Fulcrum BioEnergy has announced that it has successfully demonstrated the ability to economically produce renewable ethanol, using ordinary household waste as feedstock.
This milestone, achieved at the Turning Point Ethanol Demonstration Plant, confirms construction of the Sierra BioFuels Plant in Nevada in July. The facility is scheduled to begin operations in 2011, and will turn 90,000 tonnes of municipal waste into 10.5 million gallons of ethanol every year. 90,000 tonnes is the average amount of waste produced by a city with a population of 165,000 each year.
The company, already benefiting from its other ethanol business using different feedstocks, claims the price of the fuel produced could be as low as $0.5 (€0.35) a gallon, significantly cheaper than conventionally produced fuel.
The company uses an engineered catalyst to convert synthesis gas into ethanol suitable for running cars. Hundreds of hours of testing at the company’s demonstration facility produced the same results consistently. The company now plans to use the plant to fine-tune its processes, increasing efficiency and yield.
Fulcrum licensed the technology for the entire process, taking the gasification technology from InEnTec, and the catalytic part of the process from the Nipawin Biomass New Generation Cooperative and Saskatchewan Research Council, which still owns half of the technology. Fulcrum simply put the two technologies together, tested the process, and had the resources to bring it to market.
Fulcrum says its municipal waste process could also be used to make synthetic diesel, butanol or electricity, but that it focused on ethanol as it’s the most profitable sector.
The company is backed by US Renewables Group, and Rustic Canyon Partners.
This milestone, achieved at the Turning Point Ethanol Demonstration Plant, confirms construction of the Sierra BioFuels Plant in Nevada in July. The facility is scheduled to begin operations in 2011, and will turn 90,000 tonnes of municipal waste into 10.5 million gallons of ethanol every year. 90,000 tonnes is the average amount of waste produced by a city with a population of 165,000 each year.
The company, already benefiting from its other ethanol business using different feedstocks, claims the price of the fuel produced could be as low as $0.5 (€0.35) a gallon, significantly cheaper than conventionally produced fuel.
The company uses an engineered catalyst to convert synthesis gas into ethanol suitable for running cars. Hundreds of hours of testing at the company’s demonstration facility produced the same results consistently. The company now plans to use the plant to fine-tune its processes, increasing efficiency and yield.
Fulcrum licensed the technology for the entire process, taking the gasification technology from InEnTec, and the catalytic part of the process from the Nipawin Biomass New Generation Cooperative and Saskatchewan Research Council, which still owns half of the technology. Fulcrum simply put the two technologies together, tested the process, and had the resources to bring it to market.
Fulcrum says its municipal waste process could also be used to make synthetic diesel, butanol or electricity, but that it focused on ethanol as it’s the most profitable sector.
The company is backed by US Renewables Group, and Rustic Canyon Partners.
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