Greentech Media

Aside from selling ethanol, BlueFire plans to bring it revenue by selling carbon credits. It expects even its smaller project to make money, Klann said.

The company plans to develop, own and operate its facilities – not a small goal in a market where financing can be hard to get – and plans to build about 50 plants in the next 10 years, he said. It also aims to grow its revenue to between $4 billion and $5 billion by then, he said.

And BlueFire later hopes to expand into other feedstocks, including forest thinnings and crop residues, such as rice straw, corn stover and sugarcane bagasse, he said.

Nobody can accuse the company of aiming low.

But James McMillan, a manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s National Bioenergy Center, said it does face some risks and potential challenges in reaching its lofty goals.

Because green waste is so diverse, BlueFire could find itself dealing with many different types of sugars, some of which might not get broken down as part of standard fermentation, he said. The risk is that other organisms that eat those sugars could enter and contaminate the process, he said.

“Not only will you decrease yield, but you may have another operational issue to deal with,” he said.

The process also requires the fuel to be reconcentrated, in which water is evaporated out of the mixture, and that can use up a lot of energy, he said. Wastewater treatment also could prove challenging, he said.

Finally, even though BlueFire expects the green waste to be separated out in advance, it could run into some logistical issues, McMillan said.

“There would be some issues with construction debris – how do they deal with nails, metals and things like that?” he said. “The same thing with yard waste – what about rocks and dirt that might come along with it? There’s a question about how much source separation is going on and how they screen, if they only can take a portion of [the waste they get].”

Still, he said, the news is good for BlueFire and for cellulosic ethanol.

“It is a very robust approach and it’s good to see it moving,” McMillan said. “Los Angeles certainly has a lot of waste and with [this approach], instead of just burying it all, you’re tapping into it.