Enerkem

Enerkem is a Montreal-based cleantech company. Founded in 2000, the Enerkem technology converts pretreated municipal solid waste into transportation fuels and chemicals.

Enerkem
TypePrivate
IndustryBiofuels
Founded2000
FoundersEsteban Chornet, Ph.D.
Vincent Chornet
HeadquartersMontreal
Area served
Canada
Key people
Dominique Boies
(CEO and CFO)
Websiteenerkem.com

Manufactured from waste biomass, instead of fossil sources like petroleum and natural gas, Enerkem's technology produces ethanol and renewable chemicals that are used in a broad range of industrial and consumer applications.

Enerkem owns an innovation centre in Westbury. The company's first commercial facility is in Edmonton, Alberta.[1] The company has two similar facilities under development in Varennes, Quebec and Rotterdam.

Enerkem is majority-owned by institutional, clean-technology and industrial investors, including BlackRock, Braemar Energy Ventures, Cycle Capital, Fonds de solidarite FTQ, Fondaction CSN, Investissement Québec, National Bank of Canada, Rho Ventures, Sinobioway, Suncor, The Westly Group, Valero and Waste Management.[2] In 2018, Enerkem raised the biggest cleantech deal in the history of Canada's venture market following a $280 million round in new financing.[3]

History

Dr. Esteban Chornet (Ph.D. from Lehigh University; Professor Emeritus from Sherbrooke University) conceived the idea for a waste-conversion technology after being inspired by his father, who used wood waste from his sawmill to make electricity in the late 1930s in Mallorca, Spain. In 2000, Dr. Chornet co-founded Enerkem with his son Vincent Chornet. Under Vincent Chornet's expert guidance, Enerkem has established itself as an entrepreneurial leader in the field of advanced biofuels and green chemicals and grown to over 200 employees.

Vincent Chornet, as President and CEO, was the guiding force behind Enerkem’s development from 2000 to 2019, obtaining over C$750 million in private financing and government support, and growing the company to 200 employees. Enerkem started operating its very first commercial facility in Edmonton, Canada, and additional biorefineries are currently being developed in North America and around the world.

As Chief Technology Officer, Esteban Chornet has been providing vision, mentoring and engineering expertise in catalytic reactions and process integration, while leading the team that developed the company’s proprietary technology.[4]

On July 12, 2019, Dominique Boies took over as CEO and CFO of Enerkem.[5]

Plants and projects

Current facilities
  • Edmonton, Canada: This commercial facility currently in commissioning[6] in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada is partially funded by the government of Alberta and the Government of Canada. Commissioning of front-end systems commenced December 2013, and Enerkem then expected initial methanol production during 2014.[7] It was officially inaugurated in June 2014.[8] As of 2015 according to Enerkem commercial operation were yet to begin, and methanol production delayed with expected initial production late 2016.[9] As of spring 2016 Enerkem did not expect full operation of this plant before 2018 at the earliest.[10] In November 2017 an additional grant of $3.5 million was rewarded by the Government of Canada as part of the Western Economic Diversification Program in order to finance the final phase of the facility.[11] The facility's planned throughput capacity is 350 metric tons of RDF a day with a production capacity of 38 million litres (10 million gallons) of ethanol per year. The company has been producing and selling biomethanol since 2016, prior to expanding production to include cellulosic ethanol with the installation of its methanol-to-ethanol conversion unit in 2017. During the same year, Enerkem became the first-ever company to initiate production of cellulosic ethanol made from non-recyclable, non-compostable mixed municipal solid waste.[12]

Planned facilities
  • Rotterdam, The Netherlands: In 2018 a consortium of companies comprising Air Liquide, AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals, Enerkem and the Port of Rotterdam signed a project development agreement covering initial investments in the development of an Enerkem facility in Rotterdam. The final decision for the investment is still pending.[13] In 2019, Shell also became an equal equity partner in the proposed commercial-scale waste-to-chemicals (W2C) project. [14]
  • China: In 2018 Enerkem signed an agreement with Sinobioway Group in the form of equity investment in Enerkem Inc., future licenses, equipment manufacturing and sales, as well as for the creation of a joint venture to support a global expansion of Enerkem's technology and create a joint venture that could potentially lead to many Enerkem facilities in China by 2035.[15]

Innovation Centres
  • Westbury, Canada: In operation since 2009, the Westbury facility was originally the demonstration centre for Enerkem. According to the company's website, the facility is now considered an innovation centre, as it tests unconventional feedstocks and raw materials proposed by its clients, focuses on the development of new products and trains plant technicians and operators.[16] In 2018, the innovation center succeeded in producing a new high-performance biofuel that could improve the octane rating of fuels sold on the market and reduce their carbon footprint.[17] During the same year, the Research & Development team also successfully produced a clean, renewable bio-dimethyl ether (Bio-DME), a by-product of biomethanol, that could help address global climate change efficiently by replacing the use of diesel fuel in the transportation sector.[18]

Mothballed facilities
  • Varennes, Canada: Enerkem is developing a commercial facility in Varennes, Quebec. The facility will use urban waste from the industrial, commercial, and institutional sectors as well as construction and demolition debris as feedstocks. In December 2017, the Government of Quebec has announced that it will be providing $38 million in financial assistance to Enerkem to build the facility.[19] The Varennes project including financial assistance from the Government of Quebec was initially announced in 2012.[20] According to the company's website of 2019, construction should begin late 2019. [21] The project has since silently disappeared from Enerkem's website. [22]

Decommissioned facilities
  • Sherbrooke, Canada: Built in 2003, Enerkem's Sherbrooke facility was the company's pilot plant. The plant has produced syngas, methanol and cellulosic ethanol, in addition to more than 25 feedstock materials that have been tested there. The pilot plant was decommissioned in 2016.

References
  1. "Municipal trash-to-ethanol plant opens in Canada". CNET. 2010-08-10. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
  2. "Company history - Enerkem". Enerkem. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
  3. "Enerkem's $280 mln round is Canada's biggest cleantech VC deal ever - PE Hub". PE Hub. 2018-02-07. Retrieved 2018-02-16.
  4. https://enerkem.com/about-us/history/
  5. https://enerkem.com/news-release/appointment-of-dominique-boies-as-ceo-of-enerkem/
  6. "Facilities & Projects". Enerkem website. November 2, 2020.
  7. Enerkem press release December 2013 found at the PR Newswire webpage.
  8. "Enerkem to Squeeze Biofuel Out of Old Electricity Poles". gigaom.com. January 13, 2009.
  9. "Enerkem Website". Enerkem. February 17, 2016.
  10. "Garbage to gas: Edmonton biofuel plant to enter final stage". CBC News. 2016-08-24. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
  11. "Enerkem Alberta receives C$3.5 million federal grant for Edmonton plant : Biofuels Digest". www.biofuelsdigest.com. 2017-11-21. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
  12. https://enerkem.com/newsroom/?communique_id=122562
  13. "Enerkem to Lead Consortium to Develop Waste to Chemical Project in Rotterdam". 2018-02-16. Retrieved 2018-02-16.
  14. https://w2c-rotterdam.com/press-release-feb-19-eng
  15. "Canadian biofuel firm Enerkem strikes $125M scale-up deal with Chinese company - Canadian Manufacturing". Canadian Manufacturing. 2018-01-22. Retrieved 2018-02-16.
  16. "Innovation Centers - Enerkem". Enerkem. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
  17. https://enerkem.com/newsroom/releases/?communique_id=122567
  18. https://enerkem.com/newsroom/releases/?communique_id=122568
  19. "Enerkem à Varennes: une aide financière de 38 millions | Hélène Baril | Énergie et ressources". La Presse (in French). December 2017. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  20. "Enerkem and Greenfield ethanol announce Quebec's first waste-to-biofuels production facility". EE-Evaluation Engineering. NP Communications, LLC. March 2012. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  21. https://enerkem.com/facilities/projects-and-partnerships/
  22. "Facilities & Projects". Enerkem website. November 2, 2020.
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