BlueFire Ethanol, Inc. is embarking on a journey which will place it as a leader in the worldwide cellulose-to-ethanol conversion of biofuels. The company’s Arkenol Process Technology allows for the successful conversion of cellulosic waste materials into ethanol.
BlueFire is a North American licensee of the technology, with the goal to develop and operate high-value, carbohydrate-based, transportation fuel production facilities, which will provide a viable alternative to fossil fuels throughout the world. The facilities will be equipped with the ability to convert inexpensive and readily available organic materials such as agricultural residues, high-content biomass crops, wood residues, and cellulose in municipal solid wastes into ethanol.
The company has made improvements to a well known conversion technology known as concentrated acid hydrolysis, a process in which widely available cellulosic materials, or biomass, can be converted into sugar in an economically viable manner, thus providing an inexpensive raw material for fermentation or chemical conversion. This is the company’s bioethanol concept. In recent studies it was concluded that companies which use the concentrated acid hydrolysis’s technology will grow to $1.5 billion in 5 years, and double that in ten years with proper capitalization.
The company’s technology is unique because it enables them to utilize numerous feedstocks. This allows the company to consider many locations worldwide where feedstocks can lead to the development of facilities for future production of ethanol. Currently, BlueFire has completed an arrangement containing the necessary commitments to proceed with final developments of the first North American waste to ethanol production facility to be located in California.
The company had already constructed and operated a pilot plant close to their Southern California offices for five years. Beginning in 2003, the technology was successfully used by an unrelated, independent, world-famous corporation to produce ethanol for the Japanese transportation fuel markets. During those years, testing on various potential feedstocks was completed both in the U.S. and various locations worldwide.
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