California waste to be turned into ethanol in Nevada
By Mark Glover, Sacramento Bee
What Northern Californians throw away might someday end up back in their fuel tanks, courtesy of a newly formed business partnership.
Folsom-based waste hauler Waste Connections has partnered with a Pleasanton company that is ramping up to convert municipal solid waste into ethanol.
Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc. said last week that Waste Connections-collected waste ultimately will be used by Fulcrum’s Sierra BioFuels Plant, a planned facility for converting waste into low-carbon ethanol, renewable electricity and other chemical products.
The $120 million facility will be built about 20 miles east of Reno in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Storey County. It’s expected to be up and running in late 2012.
Fulcrum said the plant will produce large volumes of low-cost transportation fuel and create more than 500 jobs in Northern Nevada while ultimately producing 10.5 million gallons of ethanol annually and 16 megawatts of renewable electricity. Financial terms were not disclosed.