Washington company envisions promising future
Sustainable Industries
A Bellingham, Wash.-based company is bringing a new cellulosic biofuel technology to market.
Whole Energy Fuels Corp. has received global, exclusive licensing rights to the technology, which converts biomass and other recycled material into liquid biofuels, from Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) Foundation at the University of North Dakota.
The announcement comes at an opportune time for Whole Energy Fuels Corp., a four-year-old company with retail locations throughout Western Washington. Currently, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Renewable Fuel Standard Program requires that 36 million gallons of biofuels be used in transportation fuel by 2022, including at least 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels, with 16 billion gallons being cellulosic biofuels.
And because cellulosic biofuel reportedly achieves a 60 percent greenhouse gas emissions reduction, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, producers such as Whole Energy Fuels could be well-positioned if federal climate legislation is passed.
While federal and even state biofuel regulations has helped grow the advanced biofuel industry, interest in cellulosic biofuel is not new. The Department of Energy (DOE) granted $385 million in funding to six cellulosic ethanol plants in 2007. Pacific Ethanol Inc. received a DOE grant in 2008 to build the first cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in the Northwest.
“There’s a lot of concern that there won’t be enough advanced or cellulosic biofuels available,” says Karl Seck, president of Mercurious Biofuels and a contracted worker for Whole Energy Fuels. “As long as there is a mandated market, if you can figure out how to make it more efficient, then I think it’s a healthy market and industry. The down side is it can be very capital intensive and there are a lot of problems getting capital.”
Whole Energy Fuels has six employees and had revenues of about $6.5 million in 2008.
