While many have been working on the technology for several years, a level of 30 percent renewable had been reached. But a tiny company in Wisconsin, Virent Energy Systems Inc., has figured out how to generate the missing 70 percent, gaining the interest of a powerful group: the PlantPET Technology Collaborative.
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Though its product is not being produced at commercial levels, Virent has a demonstration facility in its home state, with hopes of a full-scale factory by 2018. Last week's announcement of support comes on the back of 12 years of success with other products.
They were derived from the company's patented process for transforming sugars into products like biogasoline and jet fuel. The company partnered with Cargill Inc. in 2001 and Honda Motor Co. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC by 2006, also receiving funding from the Department of Energy's National Advanced Biofuels Consortium.
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Virent's fuel alternatives also boast marketable attributes being a drop-in product, meaning existing machinery and pipelines can use the new fuel without adjustments, bypassing the blending restrictions of ethanol fuels. In addition, just about any type of vegetative feedstock can be used ...
[T]his allows factories to use the most abundant and economically viable stock dependent on their region, decreasing transportation and taking advantage of existing suppliers, while also helping to balance the energy life cycle of the final product by using many types of agricultural waste.
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But this wasn't enough for Virent. Other byproducts of its patented process mirror almost the full spectrum of petroleum-based chemicals, roughly 90 percent, offering the bare bones for dozens if not hundreds of other products.
"What we yield in our process is just as wide-ranging as what comes out of a barrel of oil."
Read original article at Company Makes Jet Fuel and Plastic Soda Bottles out of Farm Wastes
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