Maverick Biofuels Plans to Build Pilot Biorefinery in North Carolina

Maverick Biofuels, a second-generation biofuels company, today announced that it is planning to build a pilot scale biorefinery to produce mixed-alcohol biofuels from biomass and municipal solid waste. With 85% of the energy of gasoline, Maverick’s mixed-alcohol biofuel is a superior replacement for ethanol in fuel blends and can eliminate the use of gasoline in flexible-fuel vehicles. The pilot scale biorefinery is the next step towards design and construction of a large-scale commercial facility.

Unlike first-generation ethanol-based biofuels that rely on edible feedstocks, Maverick uses clean-energy technology and a gasification-based process to convert biomass such as crop and timber waste or municipal solid waste into high-energy biofuels that are cleaner burning than gasoline.

Mixed-alcohol biofuel can be blended at higher percentages than pure ethanol, thereby further offsetting the use of gasoline as compared to pure ethanol. The higher energy content of Maverick’s mixed-alcohol translates to higher gas mileage when compared to ethanol or ethanol blends and contributes to reducing the dependency on petroleum.

The market opportunity for biofuels continues to grow. US law mandates that 36 billion gallons per year (BGPY) of alternative fuels be produced and distributed by 2022. With the current U.S. ethanol production at approximately 13 BGPY, there remains a large gap in production to be filled with second-generation biofuels.

There is an immediate need for renewable energy, including biofuels. This is influenced by the fluctuation in oil prices and its effect on the world economy, the political instability in several countries with known oil reserves, the dependency on foreign countries for crude oil, the awareness of diminishing oil supplies with higher marginal cost of production, and concerns about greenhouse gases and climate change. However, the only proven biofuel technologies, to date, are biodiesel produced from food oil (soybean, used cooking oil, etc.), and ethanol produced from food sources such as corn grain and sugar cane.

"There is a tremendous amount of interest, in the U.S. and abroad, in environment-friendly, second-generation biofuel production technologies that don't use food sources and that help increase energy independence," said Sam Yenne, CEO for Maverick Biofuels. "Our technology uses waste not food as a feedstock and involves three well-understood thermochemical and chemical processes that have never been combined to produce mixed-alcohol biofuels."

In addition to using biomass as a feedstock, the Maverick process can use municipal solid waste for the production of biofuels. Estimates indicate that at least 60% of the materials going into landfills can be diverted for commercial biofuel production. This could more than double the life of the landfill and significantly reduce its operating cost.

Source : Press Release