Waste-to-Fuel Firm That Raised $1 Billion Verges Of Collapse

Fulcrum BioEnergy, a clean-fuels pioneer that raised more than $1 billion to turn household waste into lower-emitting fuels for planes and trucks, is in danger of going under, Ben Elgin reported for Bloomberg News.

Fulcrum employees said they were laid off on May 17 and the company’s website stopped working last week. I Photo: Fulcrum BioEnergy

The company recently laid off nearly all of its staff of about 100 and halted most of its operations, according to more than a half-dozen former employees.

This signals the apparent demise of a company that garnered funding from industry giants—including BP, United Airlines, Cathay Pacific, and Japan Airlines—and a setback in the push for a clean-fuels breakthrough to lower emissions from the aviation industry.

Fulcrum employees said they were laid off on May 17 and the company’s website stopped working last week.

It’s unclear which Fulcrum executives are still employed, but several didn’t respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment. Nuveen, a primary financial backer of the company, declined to comment.

The dire turn of events raises questions about the future of Fulcrum’s flagship plant in Nevada, located 20 miles outside of Reno, which cost more than $200 million to build and has been plagued by costly technical problems since it began operations in 2022.

It also casts doubt on Fulcrum’s garbage-to-fuels plants planned for Indiana, Texas, and the UK.

Since the company launched in 2007, Pleasanton, California-based Fulcrum has been heralded as a key player in the broader quest to develop new sources of cleaner transportation fuels.

One of the key roadblocks is finding inexpensive feedstocks that can generate vast quantities of fuel with fewer heat-trapping emissions.