DIGITAL UTILITIES VENTURES AND EASY ENERGY SYSTEMS, INC

Boston, Massachusetts, Sept. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Digital Utilities Ventures, Inc. (OTC: DUTV), announces the signing of a Non-Binding Letter of Intent by and between Unaka Forest Products, Inc. (the ‘customer’), the Tennessee Department of Agriculture of the State of Tennessee (acting in an advisory capacity), Easy Energy Systems, Inc. (EES), Digital Utilities Ventures, Inc. (DUTV), and Easy Energy Finance, Inc. (EEF).

Background:

Easy Energy Systems (the ‘supplier’) and Unaka Forest Products, Inc. (the ‘customer’) have discussed a relationship in which the supplier will provide equipment to the customer. The parties of this LOI agree to work together to obtain funding (the ‘funding’) to demonstrate the successful operation and commercial benefit at a Unaka Forest Products, Inc. site. Funding will be sought in the form of grants, investor funding, or from the sale of the Easy Energy Climate Tokens by EEF.

The equipment is estimated to cost $82 million and will be manufactured by the wholly owned Easy Modular Manufacturing entity of DUTV. The equipment is estimated to have a final per day capacity to process up to 250 dry tons of wood residues into liquid sugar, clean bio-fuels, biochar, and a negative carbon coal additive, clean renewable aviation fuel and clean carbon negative low-cost electricity. In the process the equipment will sequester tens of thousands of tons of CO2 per installation, and this process will make available additionally valuable carbon credits.

In the event that the equipment is financed by the Easy Energy Climate Tokens, the system will be owned by Easy Energy Finance via its Easy Energy Climate Token Holders and leased to Unaka Forest Products, Inc., or a sub “operating entity” that Unaka Forest Products, Inc. as a part owner thereof. If it is leased, then the buyers of the Easy Energy Climate Token will be engaged in a revenue share agreement whereby net operating profits of the operating plant will be shared with the investors who put up the capital as per a yet to be executed revenue share agreement.

Equipment Description:

The system will start at a 50 ton per day capacity but the complete final system will process up to 250 dry tons of waste wood per day. The system will be comprised of various modular “sections” including:

An auto segmentation system that can be located in remote areas, pre-processing the wood waste into a liquid sugar and other valuable byproducts;
A fuel generation system that converts the liquid sugars and other by products into a clean burning fuel that can be used for aviation, logging trucks, ocean going ships, or electrical generators;
An electrical generation system that utilizes the clean fuel to create low carbon electricity;
A carbon sequestration unit that sequesters large amount of CO 2 and creates a valuable soil enhancing biochar; and
A soil microbe module that converts any waste leave or green bio-mass into a liquid microbe fertilizer that will replace 1/3 of the petroleum-based fertilizer used on Ag crops. Additionally, this soil microbe will reduce the amount of agricultural irrigation needed by 25%.

Equipment Operation:

The auto-segmentation preprocessing portion will dry and grind the wood chips while converting them into liquid sugar and many other valuable products. It is envisioned that there will be a few “sets” of these 6 modular sections deployed in different sawmills or even remote forest clearings.
These units will convert the waste wood into a valuable condensed liquid sugar that can then be trucked to a central site processing unit located at one of the Unaka Forest Products, Inc. installations. If in a remote mountain clearing, the condensed liquid sugar may even be transported via a large temporary flexible hose (see photo) to a nearby highway. From there, it can then be trucked to the chosen Unaka Forest Products, Inc. central site installation for further processing.

This central site will then have the required fermentation tanks and clean up modules needed to convert the incoming sugars and other products into electricity. It is estimated this one 250 ton per day final processing plant will provide up to 7.3 megawatts of clean renewable low-to- even carbon negative electricity. The goal of this partnership is to demonstrate that the waste tree produces carbon negative electricity due to the ability of the system to sequester thousands of tons of C02 each year in the form of the valuable soil enhancing biochar.

As part of the proposed project, the parties will work together so that the demonstration plant described above can be fully audited by a third party Licensed Auditor to validate both potential RINS credits and also its low to negative carbon electricity generation capabilities.

The end goal of the system is to demonstrate to the world the ability to convert forest waste bio-mass into distributed carbon negative electricity for providing local or main grid electrical needs to help provide additional distributed electricity such as charging electrical cars - even if the waste wood is located in a remote mountain forest location. The additional goal of the project is to also utilize the plant to demonstrate the ability to make low carbon aviation fuel.

Project Steps:

Depending on the amount of funding obtained, the project may or may not be completed in steps with the results of each step to then further validate the need to proceed to the next step.

1. Validation

Validation of ESI Modular technology in converting various forms of waste materials located at Unaka Forest Products, Inc. into a liquid sugar. This initial module (of approximately 6 modules) will be placed at one of the Unaka Forest Product, Inc.’s locations and operated to create and demonstrate the ability of approximately 50 tons per day of waste wood to be converted into a fully fermentable liquid sugar. If economics permit, this liquid sugar may either be trucked or rail car backed to the Easy Energy Systems, Inc. own module demonstration plant, sold to a closer bio-fuel conversion plant or a combination thereof.

Estimated stage 1 cost: $10 million

1. Installation

The complete Modular Liquid Sugar to bio-fuel plant will be located at one of the Unaka Forest Products, Inc.’s central locations to then duplicate the converting of the condensed liquid sugar into clean biofuels. It will first be built as a 1 million gallon per year plant (size needed for 50 ton per day) but will have the ability to be expanded in future to an approximately 5 million gallons per year (size needed for 250 ton per day).

Estimated Cost: $12 million

1. Electrical Generator Addition

The Modular Electrical Generator section of the plant will be added. This section will demonstrate the successful conversion of the bio-fuels into clean electricity. The first step of this section will be to install about 1 megawatt of electrical generation capacity. This unit will then have many economic and carbon level tests performed. Economics of the final system will be determined and modeled.

Estimated Cost: $2 million

1. Second Location

A Second complete 50-ton Modular Waste wood to Liquid Sugar Module (similar to Modules in Step 1) will be located in a remote Mountain Clearing to demonstrate the successful conversion of waste wood from a remote forest fire or waste dead wood that could cause a forest fire to be removed and converted into a condensed liquid sugar and piped via large rubber hose to a nearby road. It is envisioned that this stage could have occurred at any stage and likely funded via a forest fire prevention grant. Nonetheless, it will process an additional 50 ton per day, with this stage demonstrating it is possible to perform such activity in a remote forest clearing and transport out the valuable liquid sugar via a large flexible hose.

Estimated Cost: $6 million

1. Green Biomass Module Addition

A green leaf and biomass module will be added to convert the piles of leaves and green bio- mass (otherwise left to rot and creating greenhouse gas emissions) into valuable liquid microbial fertilizer. It is estimated that each one of these modules will generate additionally over $15 million dollars in revenue. Each unit will provide 1/3 of the fertilizer needed for 500,000 acres. These units will help solve the USA and Global fertilizer problems. It is envisioned a fertilizer production grant be used to finance much of this module.

Estimated Cost: $1 million

1. Additional Carbon Sequestration Modules

Additional Carbon Sequestration modules will be installed to the combined Biofuel / electrical generation facility. The goal of these will be to demonstrate the ability to remove virtually all existing carbon emissions from both the fermentation section and the electrical generation section. This will only be done if government or other payments reward removing all carbon generated and thus it increased profitability of entire project.

Estimated Cost: $5 million

1. Biofuel Modules

Modules will be added to further demonstrate the ability to take the bio-fuels created from the bio-fuels section and further refine it into an approved low carbon aviation fuel certified for use in aircraft. It is envisioned that such a module will be inviting a partnership with a major airline.
Estimate Cost: $5 million

8. Central Biofuel Expansion

The size of the Central bio-fuels plant will be expanded to handle the full bio fuels output from up to 250 tons of wood per day which would be about 5 million gallons per year. This would be an expansion of the 1 million gallon per day pant described in step 8.

Estimated Cost: $15 million

1. Electrical Generation Expansion Addition

After seeing the financial and carbon level results from the above, the aviation/ electrical generation, or both will be expanded to allow it to produce the full output from the 250 tons per day of bio-mass into the best financial results model – electrical or aviation fuel. This may mean producing additional electricity for the Unaka Forest Products, Inc.’s plants and their neighbors, or it may even mean generating low to negative electricity for the power grid. Alternatively, it may mean producing additional aviation or other bio-fuels. Current Projected Financial Models indicate a projected possible cost per kwh of fewer than 4 cents per kwh.

Estimated Cost: $11 million

1. Plant Expansion Location

A decision will be made to expand the waste wood processing of 100 tons completed above by adding a single 150 ton per day waste wood to liquid sugar processing plant or three separate 50 ton per day modular plants. The end goal being to add the additional waste wood preprocessing needed so the full 250 ton per day of waste wood is being processed into valuable products with maximum carbon sequestration occurring.

Estimated Cost: $15 million

Total Estimated Cost of All Steps: $82 million

Estimated costs for a second duplicate all at one time complete system: $70 million

Financial Objectives:

The financial objective of this system is to demonstrate that the capital cost of the second duplicate system would pay for itself in 8 years or less while simultaneously reducing the spread of forest fires, creating low to negative carbon electricity, and low to negative carbon aviation fuel while at the same time creating bio char, valuable liquid microbial fertilizer for the region and even a bio coal additive that could be added to traditional coal fired power plants to reduce their emissions and meet the Paris accords.

Because the patented modular technology maximizes the value creation from the waste wood, the objective of this demonstration plant is to prove and validate that future duplications would able to be achieved with no government supports or carbon capture payments and thus fully sustainable despite the changing political arena.

If such related carbon capture, RINS or other government support payments were paid, the goal is for the system to pay for the capital cost in 6 years or less which would then be a very profitable enterprise for the financial community to then fund to further duplicate and multiply all across the world.

This non-binding letter of intent is being done to signify the intent of the parties to work together to obtain OUTSIDE THIRD-PARTY Grant or investor Financing for the defined project. NOTHING in this document obligates any of the signors to provide further financial support to the project. This may change as the project further materializes but shall be agreed to separately in the future. Any party may terminate this letter of intent at anytime by simply giving the other parties written notice. All parties understand that Separate Mutual NDA’s may be needed to exchange appropriate additional confidential information.

The parties agree that the contents of this letter of intent may be utilized by one or more of the various parties to generate public, grant and investor support for this exciting demonstration project.

Tennessee Department of Agriculture

The Tennessee Department of Agriculture is a signor of this agreement to demonstrate that the department supports the concept of the goals of this demonstration project but has not yet agreed to provide ANY monetary support. Nonetheless, it will make time available (as it sees appropriate) to help facilitate the success of this project so as to make it able to be duplicated to support the goals of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture throughout Tennessee and to possible set an example for the world.

About Digital Utilities Ventures Inc.:

Digital Utilities Ventures, Inc. is working to become a formidable presence in the green solutions marketplace. We have identified strategic opportunities for acquisitions and joint ventures that will allow us to capitalize on existing and emerging opportunities in this industry. Consumers understand the significance of progressing from conventional assets to inexhaustible sources that produce no ozone harming greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum by-products and lessen air contaminants. Enhancing green solutions such as in energy supply and lessening reliance on imported fuels will assist with economic development by increasing occupations in manufacturing, assembling, and more.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes statements that may constitute ''forward-looking'' statements, usually containing the words ''believe,'' ''estimate,'' ''project,'' ''expect'' or similar expressions. These statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that would cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, acceptance of the Company's current and future products and services in the marketplace, the ability of the Company to develop effective new products and receive regulatory approvals of such products, competitive factors, dependence upon third-party vendors, and other risks detailed in the Company's periodic report filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By making these forward-looking statements, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release.

For more information, please contact:
Mark K. Gaalswyk, CEO
https://www.duventures.com
Phone : 617-588-0068
Email : info@duventures.com

SOURCE : Digital Utilities Ventures, Inc.

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