Alternative Energy Utilizing Biomass/Energy

Guam's energy consumption costs are at an all-time high, with gas prices reaching six dollars a gallon and residential household electricity costs at 14.12 cents/kWh. To top it off, Guam was named by the Pacific Daily News as one of the top seven countries in the world for producing over 4.4 pounds of waste per person, per day, based on 311.95 million pounds of municipal solid waste versus 66.20 million pounds recycled. With Guam’s landfill slowly expanding, the government has recently spent $30 million for this expansion.

Our organization, GU’dFuel, is here to address those issues by offering alternative energy while making the most use of the island's waste generation. Through our services, the island will be able to recover from the ever-increasing cost of electricity while still remaining clean.

Communities that will be directly impacted will be the citizens of Guam. With the price of power and gas slowly increasing and the minimum wage being stagnant, there has to be an efficient method to obtain power. As everyone that is a part of this solution lives among this community, we understand the hardships we and our peers face with living on Guam.

All team members are citizens of Guam. Some are born and raised on the island and others have been living on the island for most of their lives. Team members are all college students of the University of Guam and understand the difficulties with living on an island with such costly power and gas prices. 

Current barriers include market, cultural, financial, and technical. With Guam being a small island that is mainly powered by petroleum, there are many barriers to overcome. Some of the barriers include shifting the paradigm of Guam citizens to look into renewable energy resources and reaching out to these potential stakeholders. Another barrier is of course the financial and technical aspect. Looking for the sufficient funding and space to create these anaerobic digesters.

Our solution creates many benefits for the community and opens the door to new possibilities. Discarded food scraps become renewable gas fuel for stoves. This reduces the amount of waste in the landfills on Guam and reduces the reliance on fossil fuels. Our solution has the potential to eventually grow and expand. From a fuel used for cooking stoves to biodiesel for engines and generators. A renewable fuel source that is powered by what is thrown into the trash.

In our first year, we plan to offer our 3 anaerobic digester products to households and farmers and in three years we plan to offer anaerobic digesters to restaurants and other commercial entities in our five-year projection, we plan to offer Biodiesel. In our 10 year plan, we are planning to successfully implement a gasification process to further reduce waste on Guam and create renewable energy.

We will measure our progress by the amount of households that have our product. Every household creates a certain amount of waste depending on the amount of residents. By tracking the amount of households that use our product, we can gauge how much waste we are eliminating from the island landfills.

As our company grows, we plan to extend our impact as well with new designs of biodiesel and install a gas production plant to further combat the trash issues. We will also extend our product to the surrounding islands in our region. 

We need to develop a website since it will be used to sell and display our products and services. The second stage is to acquire the raw materials for the product. We offer two products: product 1 is a 55 Gallon anaerobic digester installation that costs $452.93, and product 2 is an AD installation that costs $ 546.56, both of which include the insulation charge.  Product 3 is the 220 Gallon AD

Once our product has been ordered we will contact the homeowners to set up a date for the installment. Once the date is set, we will gather all the needed material and head there on that date. After we are at the house, we find a designated area request from the homeowner for the installation of the anaerobic digester. After that, we will install the AD product and get our revenue online or in cash.

 Based on our customer discovery our target market is about 20,000 of the 159,000 population. It is only 10% of the population however based on the report by PDN news network if we were to successfully market our product to 20,000 individuals, we help reduced 88,000 lbs. of with product 1 we can generate 59.1 kW energy per day, and product 2 we can generate 118.2 kW of energy per day, and for product three we can generate about 177.3kw of energy.

The technology of our product utilizes the internal digestion process that occurs in your stomach. Our product will simply be applying that process externally with discarded food scraps that would normally be thrown in the garbage. The scraps would be converted to biogas fuel that can be used as a cooking fuel for stove burners.

Guam is home to a myriad of people and cultures. Even with the largest groups consisting of CHamorros and Filipinos, the community consists of cultures around the world. Our product benefits the community of Guam regardless of race, culture, religion, etc. It will be the community benefiting from reducing/reusing waste and using a cleaner form of fuel.

Our product will serve a purpose for both the environment and the people of Guam. Our product is called an Anaerobic Digester. This product allows the user to create a renewable and clean source of biogas fuel. This fuel can be used in restaurants/kitchens for stovetop cooking and also at farms. A renewable and clean replacement to butane, liquid propane gas (LPG), and natural gas. The digester takes discarded food waste and converts it into renewable biogas. Our key customers are residential homeowners, restaurants, and landfills. We will have 3 variations of our product: Basic, Personal, and Premium. Each variation has different price levels and benefits to the customer. Our product will be subscription based over a 12 month period. Our Personal and Premium prices will be fixed for the 12 month period, while our Basic model will be subject to change over time. 

 By eliminating food waste alone from our landfills and converting it to fuel, we would be efficient and effective. Less waste being produced, less space being used to create landfills, renewable and clean fuel, saving money/resources, and being less dependent on fossil fuels. With time we will expand our efforts and focus on creating biodiesel. With biodiesel we can combat the rising gas prices and reduce Guam’s carbon footprint.

The value in our product is that every citizen on Guam can help make a real impact in the island’s current issues by using it. Even if there is a small amount of people making the effort, the entire population benefits from those who try. If the entire population cooperates, then the island’s major problems will eventually become minor.

GU’d Fuel will also partner with Guam Power Authority to contract out our anaerobic digesters to create fuel and power for the people of Guam. Guam Power Authority just signed a million dollar contract with a solar farm company which is exponentially more expensive than our product and service. Also, the Cabras Marine Power plant on Guam is expensive to maintain and keep operationally running. GU’d Fuel is a cost effective way for Guam Power Authority to invest in from a win win solution for both Guam Power Authority and the people of Guam.

Our business will generate income dependent on the number of households who purchase our anaerobic digester product. We will charge the house on an annual basis. Product 1 will cost $55 monthly, Product 2 will cost $110 monthly, and Product 3 will cost $220 monthly. For the whole month, our team will monitor, adjust, and adhere to any issues the homeowners are facing. 

We are also in the works of gathering alternative biomass grants provided by the department of energy with programs such as small business innovation research (SBIR) and small business technology transfer (STTR). The SBIR/STTR programs are U.S. Government programs, intended to help certain small businesses conduct Research and Development. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SBIR/STTR programs provide grant opportunities to small businesses performing research and development in support of the DOE mission.  Grants are competitively awarded for the development and commercialization of new ideas and innovative research. To date, DOE SBIR/STTR programs have provided funding to thousands of small U. S. businesses, including newly established small businesses across the country. 

Our financial input will include an input of $1000 from each founder. Multiplied by 7 founders, $7000 would be our capital investment. With each digester costing around $800, this will allow GU’d fuel to create 8 digesters as an initial product line up. 

$1000 - Ryne Santos

$1000 - Ushania Sivalingam

$1000 - Migson Kaborag

$1000 - Isaiah Macias

$1000 - Bryan Taijeron

$1000 - Racheal Nian

$1000 - Ellie Torres