Fulcrum bioenergy, Inc., a leader in next generation of advanced biofuels, today announced that it has successfully demonstrated the ability to economically produce renewable ethanol. This milestone – achieved in the company’s ethanol plants TurningPoint Demonstration – confirms Fulcrum second of two new technologies that will be used for large scale production of transportation fuels from waste should be buried.
“The results of operations of our TurningPoint Ethanol Plant represents the event for Fulcrum watershed and this new industry. This opens the door to our major construction program that will reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and creating new green jobs, “James E. Macias said, President and CEO of Fulcrum. “The first shows a clean and efficient conversion of waste into syngas, and syngas for ethanol now, we have shown that the technology is ready to be placed on our first large-scale projects, biofuels Sierra Plant.”
Sierra Biofuels Plant, located about 20 miles east of Reno, Nevada in Storey County, is scheduled to begin operations in 2011 and will be one of the nation’s first large-scale waste-to-ethanol facility. This project will convert 90,000 tonnes of post-recycled municipal solid waste (MSW) – the amount of waste generated by a city with a population of165, 000 – to 10.5 million gallons of ethanol per year. With long-term raw material contracts in place, Fulcrum expects production costs less than $ 1 per gallon, far below the current conventional ethanol production.
With the ability to produce 120 gallons of ethanol from each ton of MSW, Fulcrum initial projects throughout the U.S. will have the capacity to produce one billion gallons of ethanol annually. “It just kind of program that President Obama, Congress and the Department of Energy has called for achieving a target nation’s renewable fuel,” said Macias.
TurningPoint Ethanol Demonstration Plant which is showing an innovative Fulcrum alcohol synthesis process, which turns into catalytically the synthesis gas fuel grade ethanol. Combining the full-scale facility and the reactor tube – identical to the tube to be used in large scale plants Fulcrum. The results produced for hundreds of hours of testing and confirm the previous results achieved in the two-year pilot plant testing.
Fulcrum will continue to operate the facility to improve results TurningPoint even higher than currently indicated. “The production was a historic date and there is so much we can and will do,” said Stephen H. Lucas, Fulcrum’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. “We’ve just started to optimize the process.”
Fulcrum’s process will create a much needed low-cost, reliable and environmentally clean renewable transportation fuels reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, reducing the need for landfills and stimulate economic growth with new industry of green jobs. By utilizing MSW as the feedstock, Fulcrum will produce biofuels that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 75% of the basic life cycle without causing indirect land use impacts or strain our nation’s food supply.
In the two-step thermochemical process, Fulcrum’s plant to convert MSW to ethanol utilizing new and innovative technologies. In the first step, the organic materials recovered from MSW is gasified in a plasma enhanced gasifier – a very efficient method for converting organic materials to synthesis gas. This synthesis gas is then converted into ethanol using an exclusive proprietary catalytic technology jointly developed and owned by Nipawin Biomass Ethanol New Generation Co-operative Ltd. and Saskatchewan Research Council.
Based in Pleasanton, California, Fulcrum bioenergy is emerging as a leader in developing next generation cellulosic ethanol production in the United States. Private held company focused on developing, owning and operating efficient, environmentally responsible facilities that convert MSW and waste products other to a much needed low-cost, reliable and environmentally clean renewable transportation fuels.
