First U.S. garbage-to-ethanol plant gets the OK

Back in the beginning of June, we talked about BlueFire’s hopes to build its first commercial-scale plant in California. Well, it just got the go-ahead from the county of Los Angeles to begin construction on 10 acres next to the Lancaster landfill. It is expecting this to be America’s first bio-waste-to-ethanol plant of this scale, though others are breathing down the company’s necks for similar “firsts” spots.

BlueFire hopes to have the plant up and running by the end of 2009, converting about 170 tons of woody and grassy grossness dumped daily into as much as 3.2 million gallons per year … just a portion of the 3 billion gallons it hopes to produce from as many as 20 similar plants by 2017.

The permits and plans fly in the face of all the ethanol plants that are losing ground -- mainly this is possible because BlueFire uses a non-food-based fuel for creating ethanol. No one wants to eat garbage, and using landfill land is far less controversial than using farmland.

With the push to use cellulosic ethanol more and more as a sustainable fuel source, including for jets, BlueFire is sure to have a strong consumer demand to fill -- DuPont and Genencor estimate the market for non-food-based fuel will eventually be worth $75 billion. I don’t doubt it.

Via Earth2Tech, Denver Post