The king of all energy = trash (Part II)

A recent post extolling the virtues of trash as an energy source has stirred up a lot of comments.

Those include an e-mail and phone call from the folks at BlueFire Ethanol, who have a patented process that turns garbage into gas, or cellulosic ethanol, to be more precise.

The company is building a plant in Lancaster, California, where it plans to use a Concentrated Acid Hydrolysis Technology Process to convert “green waste” from an adjacent county landfill into as much as 3.7 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year, a company representative says.

As if it could get any better, the rep says the technology is reminiscent of “Back to the Future Part II,” in which Dr. Emmett Brown refueled the DeLorean with Marty’s garbage.

Is the Hover Board next? Can this be real?  The U.S. Department of Energy says so, and has awarded up to $40 million in funding for a second BlueFire production plant in southern California, with a capacity of up to 17 million gallons per year.

It will be built on an existing landfill. Who would have thought trash mounds would some day become renaissance zones?

The process delivers about 70 gallons of ethanol per ton of green waste like tree and bush trimmings, according to Greentech Media.