Biofuels plant will convert municipal waste to ethanol

A California company plans to build a commercial-scale plant to convert municipal solid waste to ethanol at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.

Fulcrum Bioenergy Inc. says the Sierra BioFuels plant will produce more than 10 million gallons of ethanol per year, processed from nearly 90,000 tons per year of municipal solid waste that would otherwise have been disposed of in landfills.

Fulcrum BioEnergy will design, finance, construct, own and operate the plant. Set on 11 acres on Peru

Drive, the facility will include four buildings.

Construction will start late this year and the plant is projected to begin operations in early 2010. Estimated cost is about $120 million.

"We call it intelligent biofuel," said James Macias, president and chief executive officer at Fulcrum.

"Unlike conventional ethanol technology, which uses corn and other agricultural feedstock, our plant will

utilize processed municipal solid waste which will not affect the cost or availability of our nation's food

supply, he said.

The Sierra BioFuels plant is the first of several projects that Fulcrum is developing nationwide. The plant will use gasification technology licensed from Integrated Environmental Technologies. And a proprietary catalytic technology to convert gas to ethanol. Fulcrum says the process is environmentally benign and will not create significant levels of emissions like waste-to-energy incineration technology.

Fulcrum, based in Pleasanton, Calif., was launched early last year.