Alliant Energy’s Big Cedar Industrial Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the new home to REGEN Fiber and Convergen Energy, two innovative recycling companies within the energy sector.
REGEN Fiber is launching a pioneering method to truly recycle decommissioned wind turbine blades and scrap materials from blade manufacturers. The company has created a patent-pending process to convert these wind blades into reusable materials for manufacturers in the concrete and mortar industries, so they don’t end up in landfills or burned in cement kilns.
The primary product is a top-performing reinforcement fiber that can increase the strength and overall durability of concrete and mortar applications such as pavement, slabs-on-grade and precast products. The company also produces microfibers and additives from wind blade components for use in a range of composite, concrete and soil stabilization applications.
Once the operation reaches full production levels, REGEN Fiber anticipates recycling more than 30,000 tons of shredded blade materials per year.
Convergen Energy produces a renewable fuel used in a multitude of solid fuel power and steam generation facilities. The company takes pre-consumer nonrecyclable industrial byproducts such as paper, plastic films, label matrix, nonwovens, and biomass feedstocks like oat hulls, miscanthus and corn stover into a cost-effective fuel pellet. The fuel is often used as a substitute for coal and provides crucial baseload power generation.
Convergen allows industrial suppliers to operate in a more environmentally sustainable manner. Keeping materials out of landfills significantly reduces greenhouse gases and helps manufacturers reach sustainability goals. Plus, the cost to have Convergen process materials can be less than what suppliers currently pay to dispose of them in landfills.
The manufacturing facility will have the capacity to produce 150,000 tons of clean-burning engineered fuel per year.
Both projects will reside within the Logistics Park Cedar Rapids campus in the northwest corner of Big Cedar Industrial Center and be built by Travero, our nonregulated logistics arm with holdings in rail, truck brokerage, terminal services and warehousing.
In total these projects have a capital investment of nearly $50 million and create over 30 new jobs.
Learn more about the benefits and ease of expanding or relocating in one of Alliant Energy’s Growth Sites in Iowa and Wisconsin.
Alliant Energy lands eco-friendly recycling companies
Published on February 22, 2023