Fulcrum Bioenergy raises $100 million
US company Fulcrum Bioenergy has raised $100 million (€74.5 million) in an venture capital financing round.
The company uses municipal solid waste (MSW) to produce renewable fuel and currently makes about 700 million gallons a year from 13 million tonnes of rubbish taken from landfills in the US.
The company uses heat generated from its refinery process to power its plant, therefore reducing production costs and minimising its carbon footprint.
Last month Waste Management closed an equity investment with Fulcrum for $70 million which will be invested into the company’s proposed Sierra BioFuels plant.
At the time, Joe Vaillancourt, MD for Waste Management’s Organic Growth Group, said: ‘This investment underpins our commitment to supporting innovative technologies that extract the value in waste and converts it into clean renewable energy. We look forward to the development of Fulcrum’s commercial-scale plant that is designed to convert over one hundred thousand tonnes of waste a year into clean, renewable transportation fuel.’
The Fulcrum technology uses a thermochemical gasification system that converts the MSW into a syngas. However, the technology can take a variety of feedstocks and is designed to be scalable, currently producing 10 million gallons a year in its facilities but has the potential to produce 60 million gallons.