ClearFuels Technology has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hughes Hardwood International for developing a commercial-scale biorefinery plant to manufacture renewable diesel or jet fuel.
The biorefinery facility will be located close to the existing wood component products producing facility owned by Hughes Hardwood at Collinwood, Tennessee. About 1,000 dry tons of wood products per day will supplied by Hughes Hardwood as per the MoU to the biorefinery facility. The facility will produce 4 million gallons naphtha and 16 million gallons of synthetic diesel or jet fuel per year. In addition, the plant will also generate about 8 MW of renewable power. The plant is expected to commence production by early 2014.
Through this announcement, ClearFuels has confirmed its plans to develop several commercial projects utilizing the integrated ClearFuels-Rentech thermo chemical technology for the production of renewable diesel or jet fuel from biomass. The final design for the biorefinery project at Collinwood and other projects will be based on the joint demonstration project that integrates biomass gasifier from ClearFuel with synthetic fuels technology developed by Rentech. This joint demonstration project is located at Rentech’s Energy Technology Center in Colorado. U.S. Department of Energy has provided a conditional grant of $22.6 million for the demonstration project, which is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2011.
The commercial biorefinery facility at Collinwood is targeted to begin construction in late 2011 after the completion of joint demonstration project at Colorado. Synthetic diesel fuel manufactured by using Rentech’s technology satisfies ASTM D-975 specifications. U.S. Air Force has also certified the synthetic jet fuel manufactured using the Rentech Process for commercial aviation use. Rentech owns 25% stake in ClearFuels.