Biomass Gasification

Sierra Energy’s FASTOX™ process is the world’s first utility-scale gasification system capable of converting biomass feedstocks into renewable energy without any emissions.

While competing technologies are limited to processing approximately 500 tons of feedstock per day, FASTOX™ can process more than 25,000 tons of feedstock per day with a single gasifier, converting that feedstock into clean energy and other marketable products without any  emissions and without producing any waste. This scalability allows Sierra Energy to produce energy on a cost-per-kilowatt basis that is competitive with current practices.

Most importantly, because FASTOX™ is based on existing blast furnace technology, Sierra Energy can create clean-energy facilities out of existing integrated steel mills – cleaning up and bringing new life to old iron towns where shuttered blast furnaces have meant the loss of thousands of jobs.

Imagine being able to Cleanly and Profitably Recycle 100% of the Worldʼs Waste

The United States produces 240 million tons of municipal solid waste each year. Despite efforts to reduce the amount of waste through recycling and other means, two-thirds of that waste still ends up in landfills. No one has found a way to cleanly and profitably recycle 100% of the this waste. Until now.

Sierra Energy’s patented FASTOX™ process converts an almost infinite variety of waste materials into usable products, with no process emissions and no leftover wastes. And it does it profitably, producing energy at a price that is competitive wth current practices.

Sierra Energy’s FASTOX™ process does this by turning the traditional iron-making blast furnace into an omnivorous gasifier that can convert a wide variety of problematic wastes—such as biomass, municipal solid waste, coal, oil-shale, petroleum coke, refinery residuals, municipal sewage sludge, hydrocarbon-contaminated soils, and chlorinated-hydrocarbon byproducts—into a clean, high-quality synthesis gas that can be used to produce energy and transportation fuels.

Unlike incinerators which operate at temperatures below the ash melting point and create hazardous ash and environmentally harmful emissions, Sierra Energy’s FASTOX™ process consists of a thermo-chemical process that operates above the ash melting point and produces no ash or harmful emissions. Sierra Energy’s FASTOX™ process naturally separates the inorganic and organic components of waste: inorganic components—such as metals, glass, and stone—melt and pool at the bottom of the gasifier for collection and reuse; organic components—such as paper, food waste, plant materials, and plastics—vaporize into a clean, high-quality syngas that can be used to produce electricity or very clean diesel or ethanol. And Sierra Energy’s FASTOX™ process does this without creating any harmful emissions or ash.

Sierra Energy’s FASTOX™ process allows the recovery of every part of the waste stream, not only creating clean energy but fully recycling metals, glass, and minerals that would otherwise have gone to landfills and been replaced with virgin materials.

100% recycling is best for our world

Independent life-cycle analyses reveal that gasification is the best solution for recycling municipal solid waste.

Why? Because gasification allows 100% recycling, allowing our world to offset processes that would otherwise consume fossil fuels. For example, creating energy from waste dramatically reduces the need for fossil fuels. And more efficient recycling not only reduces the need for virgin materials, but also reduces the fossil fuels and other energy used to mine and refine those virgin materials. Even standard gasification reduces the net carbon footprint of dealing with waste and is better for our environment than the best energy-recovering landfill. Sierra Energy’s FASTOX™ reduces that net carbon footprint even further.

Two Birds, One Stone

Sierra’s FASTOX™ process is a technology with multiple environmental benefits across diverse applications. The most compelling of these is the opportunity to reduce the emissing from landfills while displacing our world’s need for virgin materials and fossil fuels.

100% Recycling and the End of Landfills

Sierra’s FASTOX™ process promises will end the need for landfills by allowing for the recycling of 100% of all waste remaining after primary recycling.

FASTOX™ does not replace recycling—it compliments existing recycling efforts. Any metal and glass that is not sorted out of the waste stream is recovered in usable molten form, diverting those materials from landfills and reducing the need to replace those materials with virgin materials. All organic materials in the waste stream volatize and turn into a syngas that offsets our world’s need for new fossil fuels.

Ending the need for landfills also ends the emission of methane, CO₂ and other harmful gasses from landfills. Since methane is 22 times more harmful to the environment than CO₂, this is a significant benefit. The increased material recovery enabled by FASTOX™ also reduces the need for the production of virgin materials, allowing more efficient and more complete recycling.

Independent lifecycle analyses, conducted by cities that are considering using gasification as a waste alternative, have consistently shown that gasification is a net negative carbon activity.

Although these lifecycle analyses have not included FASTOX™ specifically, we expect to outperform the analyzed technologies in every category. This is mostly due to the fact that FASTOX™ combines the most energy efficient converter design with an operating temperature hot enough to melt metals and glass, thus enabling 100% material recovery.

Enough Energy to Power 6% to 20% of our Nation

The energy produced through gasifying the waste produced by the United States alone would provide over 6 quadrillion BTUs of energy—that’s 6% of the nation’s total demand for energy—offseting 50 billion gallons of fossil fuels annually, more oil than the United States imports from Venezuela each year.

If FASTOX™ was used to gasify biomass as well as municipal solid waste, it could produce more than 20% of the energy the United States needs each year, energy worth almost a quarter trillion dollars.