PARTNERSHIP FOR WASTE TO BIOFUEL & PRODUCTS FIRM IN CALIFORNIA

San Jose, California based biofuel firm, Byogy Renewables, has executed a strategic partnership agreement with Gen 2 Energy, an alternative energy company from Ames, Iowa, to develop a more cost-effective waste to biofuel production process

According to Byogy, new yeast strains developed by Gen 2 Energy, Iowa State University and the USDA, improve the alcohol yield of conventional fermentation from a variety of feedstocks - including agave, a “monster” energy crop being deployed as part of the Byogy value chain.

"Rather than try and perfect novel cellulosic technologies, we have focused on improving yields from a known process," commented Lane Brunner, president of Gen 2 Energy. "Our new yeast strains, improve the efficiency of conventional fermentation."

Building on another recent strategic partnership with Australian firm, AusAgave, Byogy said that it has now successfully assembled a full supply chain by enhancing known processes.

The company explained that AusAgave CEO Don Chambers has spent the past 15 years developing intellectual property related to maximising the agave plant as the highest sugar and fibre producing crop in the world that can be grown on marginal land with low water demand.

GEN 2's wholly-owned subsidiary, AGRI-Fiberboard, is said to have recently performed successful tests with Dieffenbacher, an industrial engineering design firm, using agave fibres to produce a medium density fibreboard (MDF) that is more economical than conventional MDF.

AGRI-Fiberboard has executed exclusive global offtake rights with Byogy for its agave waste fibres.

According to Byology this valuable waste stream co-product adds significant value to its overall production revenue.

In similar fashion, Byogy said that it is also working with a team that has already demonstrated the ability to convert the thin stillage and vinasse waste streams from fermentation into high value human food protein and various other food and fuel oils.

From its initial conception, Byogy said that it has stayed its course of not reinventing the wheel.

"Utilising existing and mature feedstocks, tweaking conventional fermentation, using proven petrochemical processes, and producing pure full replacement fuels that do not require blending with the highest carbon emission reduction of any other fuel, has been our mantra from day one,” explained Kevin Weiss, CEO of Byogy.

Weiss sees this assemblage of strategic partners as a great advantage and noted that "the economic viability of the biofuel industry is driven primarily by the value-added processing of residual products and waste streams”.

“By completing and controlling the value chain as we have, we can now demonstrate the ability to compete with crude oil at today's price and lower, and produce pure fuels that do not need to be tracked throughout the infrastructure supply chain. Taking something that already works and making it better is all we are doing," he concluded.