NextFuels to start commercial production of biofuel from agricultural waste

By Editor

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Greentech Lead America: NextFuels, a company specializing in converting agricultural residue into biofuels, has unveiled strategy to economically produce transportation and industrial fuels from wet, unprocessed agricultural waste.

The company will use the technology developed by Shell Oil over several years that will allow NextFuels and its partners to produce bio-based petroleum at commercial scale for $75 to $85 a barrel out of wet biomass that has not been mechanically or thermally dried.

NextFuels will also provide palm plantation owners and others a way to transform the tons of residual plant matter generated by agricultural operations into a new, profitable second crop.

The company has also formed collaboration with Enagra, a biofuel trading company with extensive contacts and partnerships throughout the industry, on the development of its technology. Over the past ten years, Enagra has conducted over $1 billion in biofuel transactions and will achieve revenues of approximately $150 million in 2013.

NextFuels

Approximately 4.4 to 6 metric tons of agricultural waste is generated for each metric ton of oil. There are over 1,000 crude palm oil (CPO) mills in Southeast Asia and a single (60 tons per hour) mill can generate 135,000 tons of agricultural residue a year.

Unlike many other biofuels processes, NextFuels does not need to dry biomass before processing. The process is uniquely and specifically designed to work with wet biomass. As a result, the energy balance achieved by NextFuels process is approximately 65 to 70 percent, or 65 to 70 percent of the energy put into the system becomes useable energy. By contrast, processes like Fischer-Tropsch achieve energy balances of 40 percent or less.

NextFuels is currently raising funds to rebuild a bio-liquefaction demonstration plant originally created by Shell in 2005. The system ran for over 1,000 hours and is capable of producing 5 to 8 barrels of oil a day. Enagra and others will finance the cost of reassembling it and demonstrating production over the next 18 months.

Within two to three years, NextFuels anticipates it will start to build its first commercial scale modules capable of producing 250 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

NextFuels will partner with plantation owners and others on various projects. NextFuels estimates that transforming residue into fuel could raise the value of plantation real estate by 30 percent or more per hectacre.

NextFuels has appointed Michael Petras as its CEO. Petras has been in the biofuels and energy sectors for more than a decade; most recently he founded Enagra, a biofuel trading company that generated over $33 million in revenue in 2012.

The team also includes Dr. Ralph Overend, NextFuels chief scientist; and Dr. Jaap Naber and Dr. Frans Goudriaan. Dr. Naber and Dr. Goudriaan, who are co-founders of the bio-liquefaction technology.

editor@greentechlead.com

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