Iceland Innovates Fuel Breakthrough

March 1, 2013 - PRLog -- “This is the very first renewable fuel brought to market from non-biological sources as opposed to oil seeds, corn or sugar cane,” says K C Tran co-founder and CEO.   “We have proven that CO2 can provide alternative renewable fuel. It is no longer necessary to use scarce agricultural resources or destroy forests and wetlands to grow fuel crops.”

Made from water, recycled CO2 from any power plant or factory, plus electricity from renewable sources, methanol is blended with regular gasoline to meet EU fuel standards. At CRI’s plant, both CO2 and the electricity come free from Iceland’s geothermal volcanoes, which is why the renewable methanol is named Vulcanol.

“Our innovation now offsets more carbon than any biofuel such as ethanol and biodiesel from wheat, corn, sugarcane or oilseeds,” says Tran.

About 20 million tons (25 billion liters) of methanol are consumed as fuel annually, but only a fraction is from renewable sources. The market for renewable automobile fuels in Europe will more than double before 2020. The EU intends to cap the use of biofuels from food crops by 2014.

The Dutch oil company Argos was the first to receive Carbon Recycling’s fuel, signaling an entrance of transport fuel from geothermal sources to the European market. Argos is a leading oil company in Northern Europe. CRI is a venture backed company, with headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland, which has been developing innovative methods to produce renewable transport fuels since 2006.