Infinium lines up partner for large renewable fuel plants in Texas

See Correction/Clarification at end of article

Sacramento clean fuel company Infinium has an alliance with energy company Denbury Inc. to develop low-carbon fuel projects in Texas.

The two companies will collaborate first on a project in Brazoria County, Texas, to convert industrial-sourced carbon dioxide into low-carbon diesel fuel using renewable electricity and Infinium’s technology.

“The transportation industry is responsible for a significant portion of global carbon emissions, and Infinium’s ultra-low carbon electrofuels solutions are a powerful tool to combating climate change,” said Infinium CEO Robert Schuetzle, in a news release.

Earlier this month, Infinium announced a partnership with Engie SA, a French multinational utility company, to develop its first commercial-scale plant in Dunkirk, France, to convert carbon dioxide emissions into renewable fuel.

The estimated $571 million plant will take carbon emissions from an ArcelorMittal SA steel production plant in Northern France, convert it into fuel, and sell it in the European Union, Schuetzle told the Business Journal.

“We take the CO2 and turn it from a liability into a revenue stream,” Schuetzle said.

Infinium spokeswoman Emily McMahon said the first Texas site will be roughly the size of the Dunkirk facility. She said the company cannot estimate the cost of the first Texas plant.

“Cost varies by the size of the facility, and we cannot comment publicly on the cost of the project at this time,” Schuetzle said, via email. “Brazoria County, and Texas as a whole, has great renewable energy assets and continues to grow its footprint in wind and solar. Infinium is evaluating various opportunities for renewable power generation in the region to support its ventures.”

Brazoria County is just south of Houston and west of Galveston.

“This location lends itself to scalability of Infinium facilities due to the access to substantial CO2 emissions. We expect to start with a facility size similar to Dunkirk, with the potential to expand or add additional locations,” Schuetzle said.

Based in Plano, Texas, Denbury (NYSE: DEN) is an independent energy company that for two decades has used carbon dioxide in projects that get natural gas and oil out of spent wells, and for over a decade it has been expanding efforts for carbon capture, use and storage.

Infinium is commercializing a process that uses renewable electricity to release hydrogen from water, and then mix the hydrogen with waste carbon dioxide to make synthetic diesel. The fuel made in the process is cleaner than petroleum-derived diesel and it is a drop-in replacement for diesel fuel in existing trucks, ships and jet planes.

Infinium said Denbury estimates that its pipeline infrastructure necessary to deliver CO2 to the Infinium facilities will be ready as early as 2025. The facilities are anticipated to utilize 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere.

The cost of building the Texas facilities will be covered by future investors in the operation, and it will operate under license from Infinium for the process.

In November, Infinium raised $69 million to commercialize its process, with lead investors including NextEra Energy Resources LLC, the world’s largest renewable energy company, and Amazon’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) Climate Pledge Fund.