NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Delaware, Ontario, Canada, 05/27/2008 - Stemergy Renewable Fibre Technologies, a leader in the renewable biofiber sector, has secured a $3.3 million financial commitment from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation to scale up the Companies BioFibeRefinery™ technology.

Stemergy Renewable Fibre Technologies, a leader in the production of renewable fibres and biobased products, is pleased to announce that it has received the support of the Ontario Government for the scale up of the Company’s BioFibeRefinery™ technology.

Stemergy has secured the support from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation in the form of a financial commitment for $3.3 million to scale up the Company’s BioFibeRefinery™ technology. The project will take place at the Company’s existing 15-acre property near Delaware, Ontario. The total project budget will be $10 million with the balance coming from financing partners interested in participating in the fast growing biobased products industry. The renewable and bioproducts industry is expected to exceed $125 billion in revenues, globally, by the year 2010.

“We are excited by the commitment the Ontario Government is showing in our project and the biomaterials industry. Ontario has the opportunity to be a leading jurisdiction for creating valuable biomaterials derived from plants” said Geofrey Kime, P.Eng., Stemergy’s President and COO.

The scale-up of the BioFibeRefinery™ technology will positively impact the economy in southern Ontario, with 20 new direct jobs and as many as 5 times that many jobs impacted through raw material and supplies to the operation. This will also lead to additional crop diversification, with 10,000 acres of bio-fibre crop production in the Southwestern Ontario region.

In the era of record oil and energy prices, using plants to efficiently and quickly convert solar energy and green house gases into valuable materials makes economic sense. “We are in a new environmental and economic paradigm and renewable materials will continue to replace old style energy intensive materials and processes in wide ranging applications. Our BioFibeRefinery™ technology is a complete system from the plant genetics through to wide spread distribution of the biofibre materials. We source locally grown plant stems, that are fractionated and refined using our processing technology, and the resulting biofibres are supplied to large global markets which include replacing plastics and fibre glass for making composites. Stemergy's future growth prospects look extremely positive.” commented Mr. Kime.

Stemergy was formed in 1994, and in that same year became the first company to grow industrial hemp for research purposes since the 1940’s. The Company has successfully developed and operated a large R&D facility at Delaware, Ontario since 1998 and the BioFibeRefinery™ technology is the culmination of years of work in developing the value chain for making biofibre and biomaterials materials from plants such as hemp and flax.

Agency / Source: Stemergy Renewable Fibre Technologies

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