BlueFire Renewables (previously BlueFire Ethanol) is a biofuel company that produces a

cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell w ...

-to-

ethanol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a ...

solution using wood waste, agricultural residue and

municipal waste Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, a ...

. The company is headquartered in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on December 28, 197 ...

and is publicly traded in the U.S. on the

OTC Bulletin Board The OTC (Over-The-Counter) Bulletin Board or OTCBB was a United States quotation medium operated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for its subscribing members. FINRA closed the OTCBB on November 8, 2021. The board was used fo ...

under the

ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...

"BFRE". On August 17, 2010, BlueFire Ethanol Fuels rebranded itself as BlueFire Renewables.

Technology

BlueFire Ethanol employs what it calls a "concentrated acid hydrolysis" process of converting waste material to ethanol. The technology, developed by and licensed from Arkenol Fuels in

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...

, reduces waste material to minuscule dimensions, where it is combined with sulfuric acid. This releases lignin structures within the biomass, where the sugar and acid are separated. The sugar goes into a yeast-fermenting process that results in its conversion to ethanol.“BlueFire to Break Ground,” GreenTech Media, May 8, 2008
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Projects

In 2007, BlueFire Ethanol received US$40 million funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to construct a per year

cellulosic ethanol Cellulosic ethanol is ethanol (ethyl alcohol) produced from cellulose (the stringy fiber of a plant) rather than from the plant's seeds or fruit. It can be produced from grasses, wood, algae, or other plants. It is generally discussed for use as a ...

plant in

Fulton, MS Fulton is a city in and the county seat of Itawamba County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 3,961 at the 2010 census. The city is part of the Tupelo Micropolitan Statistical Area. History Fulton was established in 1837 as a count ...

. In 2008, the company unveiled plans to create a network of ethanol refineries located at landfills around the world. Under this plan, the landfill operators would receive US$6.00 per ton for the removal of their trash for processing into ethanol. In 2009, Bluefire announced a teaming agreement with

Solazyme TerraVia Holdings, Inc. (formerly Solazyme) was a publicly held biotechnology company in the United States. TerraVia used Proprietary software, proprietary technology to transform a range of low-cost plant-based sugars into high-value oils and w ...

, a renewable oil production company and leading algal synthetic biology company, that sugars produced through BlueFire's patented process will be used by Solazyme to produce various oils for fuel production. In October 2014, BlueFire announced that it has received a Letter of Intent from The Export Import Bank of China (China EXIM) to provide up to $270 million in debt financing for its bio-energy project in Fulton, Mississippi. The Fulton, MS project will allow BlueFire to utilize green and wood wastes available in the region as feedstock for the ethanol plant that is designed to produce approximately 19-million gallons of ethanol per year.

References

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2009/apr/22/local/me-biofuels22

External links

New websiteBlueFire Ethanol
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bluefire Ethanol Alcohol fuel producers