Mumbai-based company, Concord Enviro Systems, has signed a deal with the New Zealand based syngas company, Lanzatech, for the technology to convert waste biomass or Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) to syngas for conversion into liquid transport fuels.
Concord Enviro Systems is owned by Concord Blue, a German-Indian company. The firm will convert waste biomass into ethanol for use as a transport fuel in India.
LanzaTech chief executive Dr Jennifer Holmgren welcomed the agreement as a step into emerging markets:
“For LanzaTech this agreement is significant as it represents our first technology sale in a key strategic market and a very critical waste segment. It is estimated that global generation of MSW has risen 37% since 2007. With developing countries spending a significant portion of their available budget on solid waste management, using this waste as an energy source and deploying distributed MSW systems means we could have a real material impact on energy democratization.”
India has an energy deficit of around 17% with a government turning to nuclear power to plug the gap. The population is increasing at an astronomic rate with estimates that it will overtake China as the world’s most populous country by 2025.