BlueFire Ethanol Fuels Rebrands as BlueFire Renewables, Inc.
(Blue Fire Renewables) Name Change Designed to Better Reflect Its Fuel and Energy Production Capabilities
BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, Inc., a company focused on changing the world’s transportation fuel paradigm through the production of renewable fuels from non-food cellulosic wastes, today announced that the company has changed its name to BlueFire Renewables, Inc. to more clearly illustrate the company’s vast capabilities in renewable energy. BlueFire Renewables will continue to trade as BFRE.OB.
Through its internally-designed and third-party-developed back-end technologies, BlueFire can produce a vast array of other Biofuels, including Biodiesel, BioJet Fuel, Drop-in Directs, and more. As such, the name change and rebranding as a renewable energy company more clearly represents the many applications for which BlueFire’s technology can be applied.
As an example, BlueFire has developed relationships with key industry partners, such as Solazyme, Inc., a renewable oil production company and leading algal synthetic biology company that has been testing sugars produced through BlueFire’s patented process for compatibility with its renewable oil process to produce the oil cost effectively and at scale.
“BlueFire is more than just an ethanol company. We’re happy to at last announce the expansion of our capabilities, and feel that this name captures our spirit for innovation and development of cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels,” says Arnold Klann, CEO of BlueFire Renewables, Inc. “Our goal with this name change is to demonstrate the company’s potential to vertically integrate our technology into other areas of renewable energy and help us avoid the confusion with traditional ethanol producers.”
BlueFire Renewables is also currently in the process of developing two cellulosic ethanol facilities in Lancaster, CA and Fulton, MS. The fully-permitted and shovel-ready Lancaster, CA, facility, BlueFire’s first U.S. commercial plant, will use post-sorted cellulosic wastes diverted from Southern California’s landfills to produce approximately 3.9 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol per year. BlueFire is in the detailed engineering phase for its second commercial plant in Fulton, MS, which will produce approximately 19 million gallons of ethanol per year from woody biomass, mill residue, and other cellulosic waste. These two planned facilities will create more than 1,000 construction jobs and, once in operation, more than 100 new operations and maintenance jobs. This is in addition to the hundreds of jobs created or maintained at equipment vendors and suppliers that will be involved in the company’s other projects.
BlueFire Renewables recently announced that the Department of Energy has determined that BlueFire has met the requirements necessary for Phase I completion of the application process for its Loan Guarantee and that the company has been invited to continue on to Phase II for the financing of their Fulton, MS Project.
BlueFire Renewables, Inc. was established to deploy a commercially ready, patented and proven Concentrated Acid Hydrolysis Technology Process for the profitable conversion of cellulosic waste materials (“Green Waste”) to renewable fuel sources, including Cellulosic Ethanol, Biodiesel, BioJet Fuel, and Drop-in Directs. BlueFire is the only cellulose-to-fuel company worldwide with demonstrated production of Biofuels from urban trash (post-sorted MSW), rice and wheat straws, wood waste and other agricultural residues.
BlueFire received an increase to its Grant totaling $88 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in December of 2009. BlueFire’s biorefineries will be located near markets with high demand for ethanol and will use locally available biomass. This should dramatically reduce delivery costs and increase biofuel supplies, while providing a unique waste processing technology to help America’s cities better manage the increasing problem of overflowing landfills. READ MORE and MORE