$200M refinery to convert wood products into fuel, electricity

$200M refinery to convert wood products into fuel, electricity
Nashville Business Journal
Another green energy company is coming to Tennessee, but this one doesn’t have anything to do with solar power, unless you count photosynthesis.
Hawaii-based ClearFuels Technology has agreed to partner with Hughes Hardwood to develop a biorefinery in Collinwood. ClearFuels will invest approximately $200 million to develop the facility, which will convert 1,000 tons a day of leftover wood products into diesel or jet fuel. It is expected to produce 16 million gallons of diesel and 4 million gallons naphtha, a hydrocarbon product that can be used in the production of gasoline. It is also expected to produce six to eight megawatts of electricity.

The biorefinery is expected to employ 50 people when it opens in late 2013 or early 2014.

Gov. Phil Bredesen and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber joined Warren Davis, ClearFuels’ vice president of commercial development, and Bill Hughes, president of Hughes Hardwood, in making the announcement today. ClearFuels is expected to break ground in late 2011.

“Tennessee’s nationally recognized business climate and our demonstrated commitment to the clean energy industry create fertile ground for partnerships like this one between ClearFuels and Hughes Hardwood,” Gov. Bredesen said in a news release. “Alternative fuels are a pillar of Tennessee’s green portfolio, and today’s investment in Collinwood is an affirmation of our state’s important role in the continued growth of this emerging sector.”

The project is one of several that ClearFuels is pursuing in the Southeast, Hawaii and internationally, targeting rural areas with wood mills, sugar mills and other biomass processing facilities. According to its Web site, the company plans to build five biorefineries in the U.S. by 2015. Together, they would produce 100 million gallons of fuel and 30 megawatts of power.

All commercial facilities will be located with existing sugar mills or wood products facilities, a strategy that will reduce capital and operating costs and increase operating efficiencies of the integrated biorefineries.

“The concept of biomass harvesting will revolutionize the logging industry in the South,” said Mike Yeager, land manager, Hughes Hardwood said in a news release. “Landowners who prefer biomass contractors over a conventional harvest will see both economic advantages and a more attractive post-harvest site. Every landowner Hughes Hardwood has assisted has had an issue with disposing of the remaining residual fiber. Now I can offer a profitable solution to that problem.”