Nearing the Summit: Fulcrum BioEnergy Starts Syngas production at Sierra BioFuels Plant

May 24, 2022 | Jim Lane

Welcome news from California arrived, Fulcrum BioEnergy has completed commissioning of its waste-to-syngas phase and initial operations have started at its Sierra BioFuels Plant. The Sierra Biorefinery is processing prepared waste feedstock and producing hydrocarbon synthetic gas, or syngas, ready for conventional Fischer-Tropsch fuel production that will take place on site.

Combined with Fulcrum’s operations of its Feedstock Processing Facility, which converts landfill waste into a clean, prepared feedstock, Fulcrum has successfully harvested the carbon embedded in the waste and completed its transformation into a hydrocarbon syngas, while achieving the quality and expected conversion of recycled carbon. Sierra plant operations will now move on to the final step in Fulcrum’s waste to fuels process, converting syngas into liquid fuel.

2021: Completion of Construction

We reported in July 2021 that Fulcrum completed construction on the world’s first commercial-scale plant converting household garbage into low-cost, zero-carbon transportation fuels. At the time, the company said that with construction complete, start-up and commissioning on the plant had commenced and fuel production was expected to begin during the fourth quarter of 2021.

About the Project

The Sierra BioFuels Plant, located outside of Reno, Nevada, includes both a Feedstock Processing Facility and a Biorefinery with the capacity to convert approximately 175,000 tons of prepared landfill waste into approximately 11 million gallons of renewable syncrude annually, which will then be upgraded to renewable transportation fuel.

What’s next?

The Company is advancing on its large commercial growth program of net-zero carbon waste-to-fuels plants across North America with a planned production capacity of approximately 400 million gallons per year. Next stop? A project under development near Gary, Indiana, serving the Chicago market.

The Fulcrum backstory

In December, we reported that Fulcrum completed interim financing to fund Fulcrum’s second waste-to-fuels project, culminating in the issuance by the Indiana Finance Authority of $375 million of Environmental Improvement Revenue Bonds through Fulcrum’s wholly owned subsidiary Fulcrum Centerpoint, LLC (Centerpoint). Proceeds from the offering will be held in escrow with the Bonds subject to a mandatory tender for purchase on November 15, 2022. Fulcrum expects to refinance the bonds on or before November 15, 2022. The transaction was led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC.

Also in December, we reported that SK Group was part of a $50 million investment in Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc., a U.S.-based waste-to-fuels company. SK Inc. was joined in the investment with a Korean private equity fund. SK Inc. has been expanding investments in green businesses and technologies to achieve its goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in response to global climate change. Leveraging Fulcrum’s proprietary process which utilizes proven technologies and capabilities on a commercial scale, SK Inc. aims to make an inroad into the Korean bioenergy market with SK Ecoplant, another SK Group company, as a potential partner. SK Ecoplant is a global engineering and construction firm that has placed a priority on environmentally friendly energy and infrastructure projects.

We reported in February 2021 that Essar Oil joined forces with Fulcrum to create a new facility which will convert non-recyclable household waste into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for use by airlines operating at UK airports. This innovative bio-refinery will convert several hundred thousand tonnes of pre-processed waste, which would have otherwise been destined for incineration or landfill, into approximately 100 million liters of low carbon SAF annually. The project, which will see an investment of approximately £600m, will use Fulcrum’s proven waste-to-fuel process, which is already being deployed at its pioneering facility outside of Reno, Nevada in the United States, where operations are due to begin later this year. This will be the first Fulcrum plant outside the United States. Essar will assist with the blending and supply the new SAF to airlines, with Stanlow Terminals Limited providing product storage and logistics solutions for the project under a long-term agreement.

Reaction from Planet Fulcrum

“This operations achievement at our Sierra plant is a real breakthrough step in making waste to fuels a reality. This is a tremendous moment for our company and a major milestone for our construction management, operations and engineering teams who have worked tirelessly to integrate more than 30 different plant systems in Fulcrum’s unique and patented process,” said Eric Pryor, Fulcrum’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Fulcrum is launching an entirely new source of low-cost, domestically produced, net-zero carbon transportation fuel, which will contribute to the aviation industry’s carbon reduction goals, U.S. energy security and address climate stability.”

“Fulcrum’s process will produce a fuel that is a cost-competitive sustainable aviation fuel and an alternative to petroleum-based fuel. With a net-zero carbon score and the ability to be produced in large volumes, our sustainable aviation fuel will have an impact on addressing climate change. We are eager to get this fuel into the market and into the hands of our airline partners,” added Pryor.

The Bottom Line

One section of the industry cheers “Here is the syngas!” and another section grumbles “Where are the fuels?” If there are more pessimists than there ought to be, they probably draw their skeptical momentum from Fulcrum’s projection last summer, at the time of completion of construction at Sierra Biofuels, that fuels would be produced by the end of 2021. Here it is May: an announcement after ten months that syngas production has commenced is a vivid reminder that fuel was not produced after five. The hairs raise along the back of the neck, it becomes difficult to swallow. We can understand the nerves.

Looking at the progress from a longer perspective, we’re reminded that there have been, more or less, three great questions which the Fulcrum venture had to answer. Questions to which the answers, so far, are Yes, Most Probably, and Not Yet Sure. They are:

Would the stakeholders provide the resources for Fulcrum to have a chance — the tools, team, training and time, Above all, the patience and the will?
Would the process yield, when the venture was running at scale, a product that society is willing to afford, as measured in energy and carbon prices?
Would the impurities in the syngas stream, products of the variabilities in municipal solid waste, clog, poison or otherwise ruin the Fischer-Tropsch catalysts, that power the conversion from syngas to fuel, so fast that the process either failed altogether or did not produce an affordable fuel.

If there is one risk in the biofuels industry that could never get enough attention, it is the catalyst risk. The problem of catalysts was a primary reason for the technology problems that doomed KiOR. Problems with the syngas stream were reported as a major reason that the INEOS Bio project (also waste-to-fuels) never seemed to hit its time or yield milestones.

So, the announce this week of syngas production is a milestone, but one reminding us that the answer to the Third Question is nigh upon us. We have not yet heard that our heroes have reached the summit of Everest, the hour is late, the winds are fierce, oxygen bottles may be in short supply. Fears begin to grow, unvoiced, that our mountaineers are lost. Then, a voice comes crackling over the radio, over the whistle of the winds, they have arrived and are safe, at Camp Four. Jubilation erupts. Then a hush falls over the support teams at Base Camp, followed by a muttering of “Camp Four?”, followed by the gloom.

These are the natural stages of fright, and the bioeconomy offers more trepidation than ventures of almost any kind, because all of the great bioeconomy ventures are attempting great summits; if you don’t fear the odds, something is wrong with you. Fear is normal, but it is not the harbinger of failure. “All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage,” William Bradford wrote of the adventures of the Mayflower Pilgrims.

So, the Fulcrum team has reached Camp Four, a single day’s leap from the summit, and we will not have long to wait. Let us remember all the skeptics who wrote that Fulcrum would never assemble the equipment, reach Base Camp, negotiate the Khumbu icefalls, or survive the low oxygen of the high Himalayas. They are in the Death Zone now, fingers are crossed, knuckles may be rapping against some nearby wood. But there they are, still climbing, despite the naysayers, against the odds, the summit in sight.