MEDIA RELEASE

Big Island Carbon has been selected along with seven other Hawaii Island businesses as a finalist for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2011 Hawaii Business Innovation Showcase.

To promote local businesses during the APEC Leaders Week of meetings Nov. 7-13 in Honolulu, the Hawaii Host Committee launched a program to recognize those businesses that are at the forefront of Hawaii’s growing technology, renewable, and sustainable energy in line with the U.S. goal of promoting green growth at the APEC meetings.

Big Island Carbon, which has created 25 high-tech, high-paying jobs, is the first plant of its kind in the world utilizing macadamia nut shells as feedstock to produce premium specialty Activated Carbon.

The company is integrating biomass material (macadamia nut shell) from Hawaii’s Big Island macadamia processors together with cutting-edge new technology developed for activated carbon production. The output will be sold to specialty users throughout the Asia-Pacific Rim and the world in the upper end of this growing market.

“Big Island Carbon’s macadamia nut shell feedstock not only imparts desirable properties to the final activated carbon product, but also improves resource management by creating a new use for an essentially discarded agricultural product,” Big Island Carbon CEO Rick Vidgen said. “This mac nut shell feedstock provides an exceptionally pure and hard carbon product useful for many traditional and new applications with demanding specifications.”

Activated carbon is a critical component in cutting edge energy technologies where it promises to improve the performance of products from cell phones to green energy applications in hybrid cars and wind turbines. This is being achieved through improvements in electrode materials for ultracapacitors that have a rapidly increasing market, as well as a component in fuel storage devices. One of the many uses of ultracapacitors is for bridging energy storage in power grids.

Of the 35 Innovation Showcase state finalists, one winner from each county and one overall statewide winner will be selected Sept. 6. The winners will receive considerable exposure at key venues and events during APEC Leaders Week.

In addition to Big Island Carbon, other Big Isle companies on the finalist list include:

* Big Island Abalone Corp.
* Hawaii Oceanic Technology Inc.
* Hawaii Preparatory Academy
* Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii
* Pacific Regional Disaster Preparedness Center
* Hilo Disaster Preparedness Training Center
* Sopogy