Fulcrum BioEnergy completes construction of its first waste-to-fuels plant

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Type of post: NEWS.

Fulcrum BioEnergy has announced that it has completed construction on its first commercial-scale plant converting household garbage into transportation fuels.
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Figure 1. Fulcrum’s first garbage-to-fuels facility, Sierra BioFuels, located near Reno (taken from Fulcrum’s website)

With construction complete, start-up and commissioning on the plant has commenced and fuel production is expected to begin during the fourth quarter of 2021. The Sierra BioFuels Plant located east of Reno (Nevada) will convert 175 ktons of prepared municipal solid waste (MSW) into approximately 11 million gallons of syncrude annually, which will then be upgraded to transportation fuels (sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel and renewable gasoline). Fulcrum Fuel has been patented and fully certified as a drop-in fuel for use in planes, cars and trucks, with improved performance over conventional petroleum-based fuels.

Beyond Sierra, Fulcrum’s large commercial growth program has identified eight future plant locations in the US with the capacity to produce more than 400 million gallons of drop-in transportation fuel each year. Fulcrum has secured feedstock for Sierra and for future plants from its waste services partners and has entered into fuel offtake agreements with its strategic partners including BP, United Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, World Fuel Services and Marubeni.

The next project (the Centerpoint BioFuels Plant) will be located in Gary (Indiana) with MSW sourced from the greater Chicago and northern Indiana areas. Fulcrum has secured the biorefinery site, completed initial engineering and has submitted permits for Centerpoint, which will have three times the capacity of Sierra, producing approximately 35 million gallons of drop-in transportation fuel annually. The company is also finalizing site selection for its third project, to be located in the Houston/Gulf Coast area, with planned capacity to also produce 35 million gallons of drop-in fuel annually. In addition, Fulcrum is working with its partners to develop waste-to-fuels projects in select international markets.

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