What if communities throughout the globe could be powered by trash? They absolutely can, says Paul Gruber, vice president of external partnerships at Sierra Energy. The company’s FastOx® gasification process eliminates the need for landfills by converting everything from household trash, hazardous waste, tires, medical waste, and construction and demolition materials into energy — with no toxic byproducts and net negative emissions.

The system uses heat, steam, and oxygen — not burning — to break down waste into its molecular components, converting it into high-value products including electricity and clean transport fuels, such as diesel, gasoline, and hydrogen with negative carbon intensities.

Gruber is leading partnership development activities for deployments of Sierra Energy’s gasification systems and the Zero Waste Innovation Park initiative, the nation's first research and development facility dedicated to pursuing zero waste and sustainable energy solutions. His passion for renewable energy was kindled during his days at the Erb Institute, where he studied sustainable systems and co-developed the business plan for an advanced battery management startup. With Erb colleagues, he also co-wrote and won a $35 million Department of Energy manufacturing grant for a cathode materials producer, which established operations on a brownfield site in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Gruber’s SEAS master’s project analyzed lithium availability and demand for electric vehicles through 2100; the resulting paper was published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology and covered in the New York Times. “I worked with an excellent, diverse team from SEAS, including fellow Erb classmate Pablo Medina, the Center for Sustainable Systems, U-M’s Geology Department, and Ford Motor Company. Our work continues to be referenced by others who have now built upon and greatly expanded this area of research,” Gruber said. “This project also helped lead to my jobs managing an alternative fuels research program at UC Davis and now Sierra Energy.”