Whitefox Technologies Receives Major Boost for Ethanol Production
By Whitefox Technologies, PRNESunday, June 26, 2011
CALGARY, Canada, June 27, 2011 -
Whitefox Technologies Canada Ltd. (Whitefox Technologies) has
received a further C$1 million payment from Sustainable Development
Technology Canada (SDTC) towards the final milestone of its project
to develop and demonstrate its container-based membrane ethanol
dehydration system.
In May 2004, SDTC, an arm’s-length foundation created by the
Government of Canada, committed up to $6M to support the project
led by Whitefox. This commitment is based on the successful
completion of milestones as determined in the funding agreement
between Whitefox and SDTC. Whitefox Technologies’ achievements have
demonstrated the significance of its membrane technology and
production process. This payment will allow the company to optimise
the system further and demonstrate the application of membrane
dehydration to various production streams.
The new system will be used at the industrial ethanol production
facility of Pound-Maker Agventures Ltd in Lanigan, Saskatchewan
which received $8.4 million in 2009 from the Government of Canada’s
ecoENERGY for Biofuels program.
The funding validates Whitefox’ achievements to date and endorses
the benefits of membrane based ethanol dehydration technology over
conventional technologies with the aim of making it the technology
of choice for efficient ethanol production.
“Our Government is committed to supporting clean energy technology
in Canada as an effective measure to protect the environment and
create high-quality jobs for Canadians,” said the Honourable Joe
Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources. “Improving the efficiency of
biofuel production will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air
pollutants while sustaining economic growth and development.”
Dr. Vicky Sharpe, President and CEO of SDTC, said: “Finding ways to
make the production of ethanol more cost-effective is crucial for
the wide-spread adoption of alternative fuels. The technology being
developed by Whitefox could replace the unreliable and inefficient
conventional ethanol dehydration approaches, resulting not only in
lower operating costs, but also in reduced GHG emissions and
improved air quality.”
Dr. Stephan Blum, Chief Technology Officer at Whitefox
Technologies, said: “We are seeing an increased demand for
de-centralised small scale ethanol production so we believe this
project will be an exciting development for this growing part of
the ethanol market. Whitefox is grateful to SDTC for its continued
support over the years for the technology we have developed. We
also want to express our appreciation for Pound-Maker’s continued
support of our technology. In this final milestone we will be
installing the membrane system to dehydrate the water-rich
rectifier overheads, the various regenerate and recycle streams and
fusel oil side draws as a way to increase output capacity, reduce
energy and water consumption as well as other operating
costs.”
Brad Wildeman, CEO of Pound-Maker, says that “the recent
developments prove the concept we developed over 20 years ago to
make Pound-Maker the pioneer in making local production of ethanol
and cattle a model for agricultural areas in Canada.”
Whitefox Technologies’ product renders plant size irrelevant as the
modular technology can be scaled from small integrated systems of
around 1 million litres per year to large ethanol facilities with
100s of millions of litres of output per year. The container-based
approach provides the industry with efficient and standardized
systems for small to medium scale operations, for existing
producers as well as new build plants.
For further information please contact
Media House International on +44(0)207-710-0020. For more general
inquiries, please see the SDTC website -
Whitefox Technologies website -
.
Tags: Calgary, canada, June 27, Whitefox Technologies
