Phase 1:  Ethanol, hog production & infrastructure:

Production activities in years 1 and 2 involve refining ethanol from industrial sweet potatoes and corn and using wet residues, leaves and vines to feed hogs. We will produce 72 mil. liters of ethanol and 140,000 hogs by year 2.  Key to reaching near-zero emissions is the anaerobic digester that will capture methane from hogs and use it for ethanol refining and provide digestate for potato fertilizer. The facility will be linked to rail through a rail loop and will install water and wastewater treatment, fire safety, loading rack & other infrastructure.  We will take advantage of the 90% renewable Brazilian grid to produce steam from industrial heat pumps to achieve low costs, low carbon & high reliability.

Phase 1:  Cosmetics production

A large share of total income and gross margins will result from the sale of skin care products starting in year 2.  The large size of the overall market will allow GCarbon to obtain an $11 billion market share by year 15, while utilizing only 1% of the market.  We will capture this market share by offering a better product line, innovative marketing, and better product differentiation at retail levels or online.  This will rely on the use of Amazon ingredients in products that are sourced as a result of the native tree reforestation effort on ranches & deforested indigenous and federal reserves.

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Phase 1: Anaerobic Digester

The key to achieving near-zero-emission ethanol is to capture methane from co-production of hogs.  This involves a combination of covered insulated lagoons to capture methane, storage systems for treatment and removal of Co2 & sulfur dioxide.  This results in natural gas for use in ethanol steam production. Credit from avoided methane combined with no drying of DDG's and super-high-yield crop production leads to near-zero-emission ethanol.  We will build our own lagoons that will consist of a heavy-duty liner and cover and insulating SBB blocks to maintain even temperatures.  We will also experiment with catalysts to convert Co2 to CO and add to methane output.  Use of digestate in potato and macauba seedling production will greatly improve agronomic results and lower fertilizer costs. 

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The most important element of phase 1 project implementation is to initiate pilot and then large-scale tree planting using native macauba, cupuacu, cacao and acai trees. The main objective is to document the sequestration achieved based on planting in both cattle ranches and on deforested indigenous or Federal reserves. We will work with VERRA to document the level of sequestration by duplicating the protocol used to obtain 18 tons of carbon sequestration as documented by Embrapa and U. of Vicosa.  We will plant 400 trees per ha in ranch land by leasing the land, setting up irrigation ponds, providing special soils for seedlings and growing seedlings near the biorefining complex. This should result in mature trees by year 4 and fruiting trees year 5. Cattle will return after 3 years after planting low light grass seed and enhancing soil with biochar and fertilizer.  This will provide a shaded and improved pasture for cattle to return.  We will also co-plant macauba and cacao or macauba and cupuacu in a 2 story configuration on indigenous or federal reserves that have been deforested.  This will duplicate the Amazon multi-story forest while providing both oil seeds and fruits for human harvests.  The tightly compated trees will also support wildlife corridors and augment biodiversity and habitat for birds and animals. We will start with two 100 hectare pilot projects to get data for VERRA and CORSIA compliant carbon credits and will then expand logarithmically by 13,000 ha per year once approval of carbon credits is confirmed.  The fruits will provide feedstock for biodiesel or SAF in year 5 and cosmetics starting in year 4. 

Brazil has a dry season that affects agricultural production about 4 months out of the year.  To optimize yields of industrial sweet potatoes, corn or soy, GCarbon Brazil will introduce the concept of "fertigation ponds".  This involves either stream diversion or wells to obtain water for aquaculture ponds that are then used 6 months of the year for growing fish and then drained over 4 months to provide fertilized water for crops.  This increases income from production of fish and reduces requirements for fertilizer while providing irrigation water during the dry season.  We will start by growing tilapia or tambaqui because of its ease of production but will also grow pirarucu (paiche) on a year round basis to provide premium aquaculture fish.  Over time, we will have large scale production of pirarucu and export fresh fish to the USA market. In the interim we will supply fresh fish to the local markets where there is a strong demand for fish.

Phase 2:  Expanded refining operations, animal production & cosmetics

All production activities in years 1 and 2 will be expanded in year 3 as more hectares of potatoes, corn & soy are planted and small farmers start to participate.  We will match expansion with careful attention to efficiency of steam production using industrial heat pumps, larger water & wastewater treatment capacity and well management movement of trucks & rail. Cosmetic bottling will expand to get ready for tree harvests in year 4 and gain market share.

Phase 2: Meat Processing to Meet USDA, Chinese & Global Standards

A state-of-the-art meat processing plant will be set up to process hogs into pork meat and by-products.  The primary market for pork is China, so all requirements for Chinese certification will be met.  The plant will follow all HCAAP standards and USDA requirements as well so meat can be exported to North America.  Europe also has specific requirements for sustainability and quality that need to be adhered to for exports to the European Union or UK. 

Phase 2: Fish Processing to Export Fresh and Frozen Fish to USA & Globally

A state-of-the-art fish processing plant will be set up in parallel to meat processing to process fish for export.  This will expand from initial processing of tambaqui and tilapia for local markets using municipal slaughterhouses.   The primary market for fish is the USA.  As a result,  we will follow all HCAAP standards and USDA requirements so fish can be exported to North America.  We can also export to Europe. We will process fish the same day they are caught, use ozonated water for cleaning, put ozone in the ice for chilling, and blast-freeze to -20 deg. C to ensure premium-quality fresh and frozen fish.  Once the volume gets high enough, we will lease a cargo jet and fly fish fresh from the ponds to Miami & the Northeast for sale direct to fish markets, supermarkets and fine restaurants. 

Phase 2: Dead Animal Rendering into Oil for Biofuel and Meat for Kibbles/Fish Feed

A high-tech rendering plant will be built primarily to collect the 4% "deadfall" cattle that die before maturity in the 3-state region and are now contributing to disease.  It will also utilize floor droppings, blood, and unusable meat wastes from pork processing. Finally, an 8% premature death rate on hogs will contribute to rendering feedstock  Deadfall cattle will be picked up free from cattle ranchers in any locations where we are planting macauba trees. This will allow us to use the same truck on its return to the nurseries to carry deadfall. The one other rendering plant in the region charges a high fee for picking up deadfall, so ranchers will welcome our service. This will increase participation in macauba land leasing.  

The core equipment in a rendering plant is a large series of high-pressure steam boilers that achieve temperatures of 800 Deg. C to sterilize the meat and oil.  Oil is seperated for use in biodiesel or SAF and the remaining meat and bone meal is ground up and extruded.  There is only one other small rendering plant in a 3-state area near the plant with 44 million head of cattle, a 4% deadfall rate annually and a 50% market share this is 835,500 cattle (@ 128 Kg average), mostly left in the fields to rot. By following all HCAAP standards and USDA requirements, we will produce a high-value feedstock for biodiesel or SAF and a Mechanically Deboned Meat that we will use in the production of kibbles and fish feed.  We expect to reach processing volumes of 107 million Kg by the third operating year (year 5) based on installing 324 tons of processing capacity per day.  

Phase 2: Refining Biodiesel from Waste Oil and Native Macauba Tree Fruits

A refinery will be built next to the rendering plant to allow for direct piping of rendering oils for refining into biodiesel.  Initial capacity of biodiesel production will match the expected production of rendering oils by year 2 or 3.  This will provide a large feedstock base that will allow for production of 100 million liters of biodiesel in the first few years. All of this biodiesel production will be derived from waste, which will allow for export of the biodiesel to the UK to earn double carbon credits for biodiesel utilization. This is justified, since there are large methane releases from cattle left in the field to rot that will be avoided through the collection and rendering of dead cattle.  

The design of the plant will be unique as it will use an ethyl ester refining process instead of the normal methy ester process.  This is a well developed refining technology that is rarely used in Brazil because methanol is readily available where most biodiesel plants are located in Southern Brazil and is a little cheaper than ethanol.  We will have an ethanol plant in the same location and with the same owners as the biodiesel plant.  By using this design, we will avoid buying methanol derived from natural gas, shipping it to Maranhao, and paying a 17% VAT tax.  More importantly, using ethanol instead of methanol improves the carbon footprint of our biodiesel by 9.5-10%, since our ethanol will reach near-zero emissions.  The use of high-efficiency refining processes, the high renewable content of electricity, industrial heat pumps for steam, and avoided methane from using waste oil will lead to zero or negative carbon emissions. 

Biodiesel apacity will expand rapidly in year 6 to accommodate large quantities of oil extracted from the macauba reforestation and silvopasture efforts. We expect to increase the planting area of new trees on silvopasture ranch land by 13,000 ha per year starting in year 3.  By year 15, we expect to plant 1.2 million ha of trees on ranchland and another 600,000 ha of trees through illegally deforested tree planting on indigenous and federal reserves.  This will provide at least 7 million MT a year of oil for production of biodiesel, making GCarbon Brazil one of the largest biodiesel producers in the world.  We will also be the only vertically integrated producer that has a very low cost for feedstock (about $300 per ton) vs. all  other producers buying oil at 4 to 5 times this cost.  Since 85% of the cost of biodiesel is feedstock, this will give us a huge competitite advantage.

Phase 2: Producing Kibble and Fish Feed from Meat Processing Waste & Potato Starch

A production opportunity will be created by the co-location of sweet potato ethanol refining, meat & fish processing, and rendering.   Waste materials from these processes provide feedstock for kibble (dried pet food) and fish feed.  Refining of sweet potato ethanol results in a large amount of potato starch, which is an essential ingredient for pet food kibble and fish pellets.  Sweet potatoes will be grown without genetically modified organisms (non-GMO), increasing the value of kibble and fish feed products.   Meat processing involves both high value meat, and organs for export and low value organs, blood, cut wastes and other material that are ideal for fish feed or kibble.  We will combine this material with potato starch to produce a premium line of fresh meat kibble.  We will also produce an economy line of kibble using the Mechanically Deboned Meat (MDM) from the rendering operations.  

We will have ingredients not normally available to kibble producers, to differentiate our pet food product line in the market.  This includes sweet potato starch that is non-GMO with a high protein content (23-28%), pork meat by-products that are fed sweet potatoes (with a low-carbon footprint from methane management and feed characteristics), fish meat by-products from fertigation ponds with sustainable feed, and micro-ingredients such as sweet potato leaf fragments for vitamins & protein (dry leaves have 17% protein).  We will also use various parts of macauba, acai & cupuacu fruits, including by-products (pulp residual, nut flour), and macauba or acai oil.

This will be very useful when marketing kibble in both the retail market and online forums. We will have a unique kibble product with high nutritional characteristics and superior sustainability.  Our marketing materials will emphasize the source of our high-quality ingredients and how they were created from the production of sustainable biofuels, waste re-utilization, and planting of native trees in the Amazon.  We will reinforce this marketing effort by offering to plant a tree for every bag of dog or cat food purchased.  This will provide zero-carbon-footprint dog or cat food and create a wildlife corridor for jaguars. We will use images of parrots and jaguars on the kibble bag so customers can bond with the brand through their love of their own animals and a special connection with Amazon wildlife.

Phase 2: Diatamaceous Earth Cat Litter and Flea & Tick Powder for Pets

GCarbon Brazil has formed a joint venture with Sustainable Building Blocks to develop manufacturing capacity for cat litter and flea & tick powder from diatomaceous earth.  Sustainable Building Blocks is a partner in a diatomaceous earth mine in Northern Mexico. Diatomaceous earth is an ideal material for cat litter because it is super-absorbent due to its many microscopic pores.  This means odors can be eliminated for 2-4 weeks instead of only a few days with bentonite cat litter.  This will establish us as a premium quality cat litter supplier.

 We will use the JV to develop pet food products and create a market niche in the pet market in the USA in year 1 and 2.  This will then make it easier to introduce our line of kibble products in year 3.  The same market strategy of Amazon reforestation will be used to market cat litter and flea and tick powder, with a tree planted for each bag of cat litter or flea powder sold. We will also use the same animals (jaguars, parrots, etc.) to promote the consumer's connection to the Amazon and the entire line of pet products. 

Phase 2: Native Tree Reforestation = Raw Materials for Tropical Juices

We will be reforesting deforested areas of the Amazon with a combination of macauba and fruit trees that need shade (cacao & cupuacu) and acai in swamp land and stream or river edges, This offers an opportunity to manufacture native Amazonian fruit juices and concentrates in parallel with processing of cupuacu butter for cosmetics and chocolate..  While there are many competitors, we will be the only producer involved in a large-scale reforestation effort.  This will help generate strong interest in the consumer products, since we will link juice production to the story of how this reforestation is occurring.  

The other major advantage is the capacity for processing and certification of products to USDA and other quality standards.  We will already be processing oils, biofuels, meat and kibble, so adding tropical fruits will be an extension of the same food processing infrastructure.  The same water & wastewater systems, freezer infrastructure, steam capacity and renewable electricity will be useful in the production of fruit juices or concentrates. The volume of production wll also ramp up quickly as we increase reforestation efforts and trees mature. 

Phase 2: Honey for Pollination and to Add to the Amazon Food Product Line

We will also be producing honey in conjunction with running beehives.  Bees are very important to the pollination of crops, particularly sweet potatoes, macauba trees, fruit trees, and other crops.  We will be planting calliandra trees to differentiate pasture and intact jungle and for the production of biochar and leaves for cattle to reduce methane.  Calliandra has a large flower that produces a lot of pollen every year.  This will help support a strong bee population to ensure high yields on crops. It can support the production of 1 ton of honey per ha of calliandra trees.  This is very high relative to other crops. 

We have already developed the packaging and labelling details and the market strategy.  We will sell honey via online shops and our own website.  We will use the same market strategy of revitalizing the Amazon ecosystem through silvopasture and multi-story jungle restoration.  This will be highlighted in packaging, web links and other materials.  Our production costs will be much lower than competitors because of parallel activities that allow us to visit beehives in conjunction with tree planting or crop production.  We will also have the processing infrastructure to support honey refining and bottling.  As a result, we expect to have strong demand for our honey products in global markets.