LEADING THE GREEN FUEL CHARGE

摘要

Despite decades of work, most next-generation biofuels -which are made from materials that do not compete with food production - are still at the reaserch and development stage. But a few Canadian operations are among the dozen or so that are either commercial or very near to it - and each could potentially change the way the world fuels up its vehicles. Since its emergence from a small research laboratory in Sherbrooke University in 1999, Quebec-based Enerkem has continued to pursue aggressive growth, and it is now completing a large commercial facility to turn Edmonton's municpal garbage into some 36 million litres of bioethanol a year. The plant, scheduled to begin operating from mid-2011 onwards, is set to become the world's first commercial operation to turn municipal solid waste (about 100,000 tonnes annually) into ethanol for fuelling vehicles.