Kailua-based Simonpietri Enterprises has received $1.6 million to generate clean hydrogen fuel out of construction and demolition waste.

“Treated, painted, and glued lumber and other organic waste from construction and demolition debris can’t be burned in a biomass power plant, so today most of it goes straight into landfills all across the U.S. — and Hawaii is no exception,” company President Joelle Simonpietri said in a statement. “This idea, to make fuel out of construction and demolition debris rather than stick it in the ground, was born here in Hawaii to solve Hawaii problems: too many landfills that need to be expanded or relocated in these islands we call home, not enough local supply of renewable fuel to replace imported fossil fuels, and no local supply of renewable fuel that can be used in airplanes.”

Simonpietri Enterprises is the only Hawaii company among the 15 awarded in the $32 million allocated by the U.S. Department of Energy for research and development projects focused on hydrogen fuel development. More than $80 million has been allocated in the past two years, part of the Biden administration’s goal of achieving a net-zero carbon power sector by 2035.

Hydrogen is a clean fuel that, when combined with oxygen in a fuel cell or burned in a gas turbine, can be used to produce electricity with only water and heat as byproducts.

The $2 million research project, which Simonpietri Enterprises is co-developing with the University of North Dakota, will focus on using gasification technology to turn high- volume, highly contaminated organic waste into locally sourced hydrogen. The long-term goal is to design and build modular, 5- to 50-megawatt equivalent plants to close waste-to-fuel technical gaps and produce hydrogen for hydrogen hubs as well as for transportation fuel refining.