Enerkem to build $250M trash-to-ethanol plant in Mississippi
Thursday, March 19th, 2009There’s something about this company I just really like. Montreal-based Enerkem Inc. announced today that it will build, own and operate a waste-to-ethanol plant in Pontotoc, Mississippi, marking its first deal in the United States. The facility, called Enerkem Mississippi Biofuels, will involve an investment of $250 million. That will cover the cost of building the company’s cellulosic ethanol plant, which uses proprietary gasification, catalysis and gas conditioning processes. It will also cover the cost of an upstream solid waste recycling and pre-treatment facility.
The plan is for Enerkem to accept about 189,000 tons of unsorted waste per year from the nearby Three Rivers Solid Waste Management Authority of Mississippi. The two organizations are in the process of negotiating final financial and binding agreements. Enerkem figures that about 60 per cent of the incoming waste can be gasified at its ethanol plant to produce about 20 million gallons (about 75 million litres) of cellulosic biofuel annually. That would include crop and forest residues, urban “organic” waste, construction and demolition debris, including treated wood. The non-biomass portions that can’t be converted will be sorted and sent off for recycling.
This is a perfect example of green job creation. (more…)
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
