Wildfire Energy is pleased to announce it has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources as part of the Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII).
The latest round of the BRII is supporting the early-stage development of solutions to tackle five specific government policy and service delivery challenges.
How Wildfire’s MIHG technology can be used to produce hydrogen from farm crop residues in a sustainable manner using circular economy principles.
Wildfire is receiving the funding for its proposal to the challenge of “turning farm crops into a renewable hydrogen source” as sought by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC). Wildfire will use the funding to complete a feasibility study into producing renewable hydrogen from sorghum and wheat crop residues using Wildfire’s proprietary MIHG (moving injection horizontal gasification) technology. Wildfire has partnered on the study with Professor Bernadette McCabe from the Centre for Agricultural Engineering at the University of Southern Queensland.
The study will form part of a wider effort by the GDRC to find environmentally-friendly ways to produce fertilisers that are critical to the success of Australia’s grains industry. In the future, the prod uction of such fertilisers will rely less on fossil fuels and the world’s most energy-intensive processes. Wildfire will work closely with the GRDC to complete the study which will involve establishing the crop residue and biochar value chains, processing grain crop residues in the MIHG pilot plant and developing a comprehensive techno-economic model which will be used to evaluate the impact of key parameters on the levelized cost of hydrogen production, such as processing scale at the farm and regional levels and the co-processing of other waste feedstocks. The results will be used to define a proof of concept project for converting grain crop residues into renewable hydrogen with the potential for Wildfire to receive a further grant of up to $1M.
“Wildfire is excited to have been awarded funding for this project and looks forward to working with the BRII and GDRC teams. This grant funding recognises the potential of our MIHG technology to address the pressing issue of decarbonising our agricultural sector and producing hydrogen and fertilisers in a more sustainable manner by using farm crop residues.”, said Greg Perkins, Co-founder and CEO of Wildfire Energy.
“This initiative is giving Australian businesses with clever ideas the opportunity to develop them further, with the potential of creating products that will benefit the community and the Australian economy,” said Hon Karen Andrews MP, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology.
About Wildfire Energy:
Wildfire Energy’s vision is to eliminate landfill by turning waste into renewable energy and hydrogen. Global solid waste generation is over 2 billion tonnes annually and landfills are responsible for over 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Wildfire Energy’s solution is called MIHG, a simple process which converts waste into electricity and hydrogen, with negative carbon emissions. Wildfire Energy has developed modular plants which can be rapidly deployed and used to convert biomass and waste into renewable energy products at very low cost. This makes Wildfire Energy’s solutions ideally suited for improving waste management in outer urban, regional and remote communities, where landfill is currently the only option.
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