#834: Forge Hydrocarbons: Environmental Benefits
The search for alternatives to fossil based energy is proving very productive and surprising.
Dr. David Bressler is a professor at the University of Alberta and inventor of a new technology that is now being commercialized
by Forge Hydrocarbons.
This technology takes oils from the meat rendering industry as well as waste from the forest industry and converts it into gasoline and diesel fuel.
Dr. Bressler describes the environmental benefits as being significant.
DR DAVID BRESSLER: This type of fuel, especially if we can use the low value lipids that are byproduct streams of the agriculture-forestry space, gives you some big advantages. One is the technology itself does not have a large carbon footprint. We’re not using hydrogen, so we’re not using natural gas to make the hydrogen, so we’re not releasing CO2 through that mechanism. The CO2 that we would release from processing this facilities, that acid group at the end of each molecule. Again, normally that would have gone out to a car and burned and released all over the place. In our case it can be released at a single site source which can be trapped and sequestered if you wanted to take that approach to it. Or used for food grade applications depending on the oil.
Dr Bressler says currently, fats from the rendering industries may be collected for bio-gas, and forest waste co-generates heat and power.
Thanks today to ALBERTA INNOVATES
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
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Alberta Innovates
Alberta Innovates is a provincially funded Corporation with a mandate to deliver 21st century solutions for the most compelling challenges facing Albertans. We do this by building on our province’s research and technology development strengths in the core sectors of health, environment, energy, food and fibre and platforms such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and omics. We are working with our partners to diversify Alberta’s economy, improve our environmental performance and enhance our well-being through research and innovation.
In March, 2016 the consolidation of Alberta Innovates was announced and on November 1, a single, integrated innovation powerhouse, Alberta Innovates, was formed. Two applied research subsidiaries – Innotech Alberta and C-Fer Technologies – serve public and private sector interests.
The Alberta Innovates system was first created in January 2010, as part of an overall innovation framework developed within the Alberta Research and Innovation Act. At that time, four corporations were established:
- Bio Solutions
- Energy and Environment Solutions
- Health Solutions
- Technology Futures.
The Alberta Innovates system has a 90-year legacy. Our expertise is built on the successes of:
- Alberta Institute for Agriculture
- Forestry and the Environment
- Alberta Agricultural Research Institute
- Alberta Forestry Research Institute
- Alberta Life Sciences Institute
- Alberta Ingenuity
- Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research
- Alberta Research Council
- iCORE
- nanoAlberta
- Alberta Water Research Institute (AWRI)
- Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI)
- Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA).
Program Date: 2016-12-22