Turning Trash Into Fuel
Is it possible to fly a jet with trash? Fulcrum Bioenergy thinks it is.
With millions of tons of trash going to landfills and local dumps, companies like Fulcrum Bioenergy and others have started to work on alternative ways to use garbage.
Fulcrum is using a proprietary process to turn trash in Reno, Nevada into jet fuel.
“We’re producing a newer alternative, cleaner-burning fuel that the market demands, and we’re doing it in a manner that saves money for consumers and makes a profit for our investors”
Fulcrum is turning household trash into biofuel for airplanes, and the company plans on having its plant in Reno completed in 2019. The company already has partnerships in place with local waste companies that will deliver trash to Fulcrum.
Fulcrum has been experimenting with biofuels since 2014 when it was operating a demonstration plant in South Carolina.
After over three years of trying to find a process that could municipal solid waste into energy, Fulcrum finally found a way.
How Jet Fuel Is Made From Trash
As we mentioned earlier, Fulcrum already has deals with local waste management companies for trash delivery. This is where the process of converting trash into fuel begins.
Once trash is delivered to Fulcrum's processing plant, pushers guide trash down a conveyor belt. Once on the conveyor belt, the trash is shredded into two-inch long pieces.
Workers than sort thrash by pulling paper, wood, fabrics, and textiles from large piles. They do this because only organic materials can be used to create fuel.
The sorted and shredded trash is the sent to the bio-refinery where the garbage is introduced to heat and pressure that produces syntheses gas. Synthesis gas is a combination of carbon monoxide, methane, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide.
The synthesis gas then enters a tube where it reacts with a secret catalyst that condenses it into liquid fuel.
From the time the garbage is delivered, it takes fulcrum two hours to have it converted into jet fuel.
Is This Jet Fuel Any Good?
According to Joanne Ivancic from Advanced Biofuels USA, Jet biofuel like what is produced by Fulcrum," meets all of the same performance requirements."
“Renewable jet fuel is cleaner, runs cooler, and they say they’ll probably have less maintenance when they use renewable jet fuel because it’s not as hard on the engines.”
Not only is biofuel better, but it also costs less. Fulcrum states that they can produce their biofuel at half the cost of traditional oil-based fuel.
This is in part because Fulcrum pays little to no money for the trash that is being delivered. They get free materials and then have to worry about processing. Where with oil-based fuels, you have to extract the raw material before starting your processing.
“We’re producing a newer alternative, cleaner-burning fuel that the market demands, and we’re doing it in a manner that saves money for consumers and makes a profit for our investors.”
If that isn't enough to tell you that what they are producing works, Fulcrum already has fuel supply agreements with air a few airlines.
United Airlines, the Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific airline and Air BP are all equity investors in Fulcrum and have long-term jet fuel supply agreements in place to buy a combined 175 million gallons per year once the plants start production.(Smithsonian)
Conclusion
As we continue to increase our trash production, having creative ways to reprocess waste is going to become more and more critical.
Fulcrum is showing that you can turn ordinary household trash into something that is very valuable and in demand.