Yuma County, PureVision Technology Team Up to Develop Rural Biorefinery
September 29, 2006Wray, Colorado: The Yuma County Colorado Economic Development Corporation announced that it is spearheading a cellulosic biomass recovery project in Yuma County. This rural eastern Colorado community is planning to team up with PureVision Technology, Inc., a Colorado-based technology development company. The Yuma County project proposes to convert agricultural residues, including corn stalks and wheat straw, into higher value bioproducts such as ethanol.
After meeting with PureVision, Andrea Anderson, the Executive Director of the Yuma County Economic Development Corporation organized a meeting on August 29, 2006 among county officials and PureVision to discuss the Yuma County project. “We had two of the three Yuma County Commissioners, the Wray Town Manager and local farmers meet at PureVision’s headquarters in Ft. Lupton to discuss the proposed project. After the meeting, the Yuma county contingency was very excited with the prospect of working with PureVision. Yuma County already has one corn-to-ethanol plant. We are now taking the next step to develop a cellulosic biorefinery in Yuma County,” she said.
PureVision Technology, Inc. is scaling up its biomass recovery technology proposed for the Yuma County project. The PureVision process is the core technology for rural industrial biorefineries of the future, which will be used to convert abundant and diverse biomass into bio-based products. Analogous to oil refineries, biorefineries will convert cellulosic biomass into sugars and other co-products for use in the production of ethanol, bio-plastics, pulp and paper products, lubricants, sealers and many other industrial products. The PureVision technology differs from all competing technologies in the world today by fractionating cellulosic biomass into three distinct streams of xylose, cellulose and lignin. These three fractions can all be used as feedstocks to produce many industrial and consumer products.
PureVision is scaling up its patented technology to convert corn stalks and other cellulosic biomass into sugars and ethanol. The proposed Yuma County project is planned to be one of the first commercial-scale developments in the U.S. using technology capable of processing cellulosic materials such as corn stalks into cellulosic ethanol. Today, nearly all ethanol produced in the U.S. is manufactured from corn kernels, a starchy material easily converted to sugars and ethanol using conventional technologies. The challenge for the U.S. energy industry is to employ new technologies capable of using abundant agricultural residues and woody wastes to make fuels, energy and industrial products from biomass as an alternative to fossil fuels like oil.
“We are excited that ranchers, farmers, county and town officials from Yuma are providing vision and leadership to develop a commercial biorefinery in rural Colorado”, said Ed Lehrburger, PureVision’s president and CEO. “Rural biorefineries will offer environmentally sound solutions to our nation’s fuel and energy challenges, while providing economic development opportunities for the American farmer and rural communities," he said.
Lehrburger went on to say that “PureVision has developed a four-phased program to develop rural biorefineries. We are working with the Yuma County Economic Development Corporation on initiating a Phase I Preliminary Feasibility Study. The results of this study will provide stakeholders answers to many of the questions we have. If all goes as planned, the Yuma County biorefinery project could begin construction in 2010 and be operational by 2011.”
Contact:
Andrea Anderson, Yuma County Economic Development Corp. (970) 848-3011.
Ed Lehrburger, President & CEO, PureVision Technology, Inc. (303) 857-4530