according to his Bloomberg profile , McAfee funded more than 20 companies , including four public companies . McAfee , who has a home in Lincoln , has served for 27 years on the board of directors of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association in Sacramento .
With Aemetis , McAfee is building a plant that he says will manufacture more than 25 million gallons of jet fuel annually by drawing hydrogen from waste wood derived from spent almond trees .
Almond trees produce nuts for 18 to 20 years and are then cut down , bulldozed into piles and burned , McAfee says . This results in a massive release of carbon pollution into the Central Valley airshed . McAfee says he decided those trees presented a unique opportunity to reduce the flow of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere .
“ I grew up as a farmer and I understand something about trees ,” he says . “ Trees are made of molecules . Trees pull CO2 — carbon dioxide — from the air , and they pull H2O — water — from the ground . And they put the hydrogen and carbon and oxygen together into various molecules , and that ’ s what makes a tree .” He says his company takes those molecules apart , uses the hydrogen to make energy , and puts the carbon underground in its carbon dioxide injection well .
The patented process Aemetis will employ to extract the hydrogen from the wood , which was funded by the California Energy Commission and the U . S . Department of Energy , is revolutionary .
Colin Murphy , a biofuels expert and deputy director of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy , Environment , and the Economy , says West Biofuels ’ and Aemetis ’ technology solves a difficult problem . The three main molecules that make up wood — cellulose , hemicellulose and lignin — do not want to give up their structural integrity and are excellent at defending it , to the point that the only things that can eat wood are termites .
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