Roving Biofuel Refinery Solves Some Problems, Adds Others

July 9, 2010

One of the persistent problems facing biofuels is transportation.

Cellulosic ethanol might be made economically in South Dakota, where corn stover is harvested. But trucking the biomass to a central refinery (or the finished fuel to Seattle for consumption) partially defeats the carbon savings and adds to cost.

Purdue University researchers say their hydrogen-consuming, high-heat process out performs convention biofuels plants

How to solve this dilemma? Researchers at Purdue University believe they have an answer. They plan to test a roving bio-refinery and claim it does a miraculous thing; it processes a broad range of source materials, from corn stover to switch grass, wheat straw and wood chips in the same tank using high heat and the addition of hydrogen.

The process is called fast-hydropyrolysis-hydrodeoxygenation. It makes use of a high-pressure reactor, injects hydrogen and heats the mixture to as much as 900 degrees in less than a second. The resulting liquid is less costly to cart to a finishing plant than the bulky plant material.

But the process adds several production problems, even as it promises to solve the biomass transportation dilemma. First, it relies on hydrogen, which require significant energy to make. Second, it fails to eliminate the need to transport the finished fuel to metropolitan markets hundreds, or thousands, or miles away.

Finally, heating the chamber to 900 degrees Fahrenheit in less than a second requires a lot of energy.

The researchers described their work in a paper published in June in the Environmental Science & Technology journal. Purdue has applied for a patent.
The scientists claim their technique produces more fuel than conventional biofuel processing. When hydrogen is derived from natural gas, yields will be twice as great. When it comes from the biomass itself, yields will rise 1.5 times.

“The biomass will break down into smaller molecules in the presence of hot hydrogen and…catalysts,” says chemical engineering professor Rakesh Agrawal.  “The reaction products will then be subsequently condensed into liquid oil for eventual use as fuel. The uncondensed light gases such as methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, are separated and recycled back to the biomass reactor and the reformer.”

But power is an issue. Agrawal conceives of obtaining the hydrogen using solar power to split water instead of relying on natural gas or the biomass itself. In the meantime, he sees the process as economical during periods when oil prices spike.

On the other hand, mobile units are less capital intensive than permanent plants, he says.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

The Difficult Bullish Case For Cellulosic Biofuel

June 17, 2010

Biofuel producers have their fingers crossed on several key Washington policy decisions. They may be holding their fingers for some time.

The news from the halls of government wasn’t encouraging on Wednesday. A bill to extend the expired biodiesel tax credit failed in the Senate, a sign that renewing the ethanol credit later this year could also be politically sticky.

The EPA meanwhile balked on a measure to raise the blending cap for ethanol. A decision had been expected in June and now appears more likely by late summer, at the earliest.

About 50 cellulosic ethanol pilot plants operate in the U.S. Several hundred demonstration plants around the world await funding

The uncertainty from these delayed decisions is likely to keep the industry in financial limbo – just as it was hoping for something better. Since the depths of the recession early last year, financing for new plants has been hard to find. Money isn’t likely to flow freely any time soon.

Things could be so different. Cellulosic ethanol is finally coming of age. Technological kinks appear to be working themselves out, and pilot projects are ready to pass the baton to demonstration ones.

As many as several hundred second-generation cellulosic ethanol plants await funding and the certainty of government decisions could help them lock in money.

There is good reason to think they should move ahead, says Poul Ruben Andersen, global marketing director for Novozymes’ bioenergy business. Four cellulosic demonstration plants are in operation (two in the United States and two in Europe) and the results are favorable.

“It is still early days,” says Andersen. But “this makes us confident.” In the U.S., Iogen and Verenium operate facilities, while in Europe Inbicon and Abengoa are demonstrating production. The plants are similar size, each about 1.5 million gallons.

Just as important, the industry believes second-generation costs are coming down. Cellulosic ethanol is more expensive than corn ethanol, which sells at about $1.60 a gallon. Large-scale production should bring it to below $2, or under the comparable price of gasoline.

POET, the largest producer of corn ethanol, says its cellulosic pilot plant in South Dakota (one of about 50 industry-wide in the U.S.) is successful enough that production can move to the demonstration phase. It hopes to begin construction this summer in Iowa. The 25-million-gallon plant will use corncobs and discarded plant material from grain harvesting.

“We will continue to tweak this process and improve it,” says CEO Jeff Broin. For instance, the company is installing a $2 million pretreatment system to better simulate conditions at the demonstration facility It also recently discovered that a second anaerobic digester is more effective at producing power for the plant than a separate boiler.

Yet this next generation of plants requires government certainty before it can take root. A decision on tax credits is one necessary component. Investment credits, loan guarantees and more aggressive production targets also are critical, according to a report released this week by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

At the top of the list is the decision over blending limits. Carmakers worry an increase in the present 10 percent ethanol-gasoline limit could harm engines and catalytic converters. Industry executives hope for 15 percent or more.

At 20 or 22 percent, investors will be upbeat enough to begin funneling money into new demonstration plants, says Andersen. “That would pave the way.”

It also may get production back on track. The EPA had hoped for 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol this year, but scaled back the goal to 6.5 million as the realities of the industry became clear. Now it appears the 1 billion gallon mark won’t be hit until 2017, well behind schedule.

Once again, it doesn’t have to be this way. The National Academy of Sciences estimates enough raw material is available to produce 32 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol, or double the government’s target for 2022. The academy says 400 million tons of biomass can be found each year in the United States from agricultural discards, fuel crops, forest residues and solid wastes.

Unfortunately, a bull-run in cellulosic ethanol doesn’t appear likely in the short term. Analysts continue to expect the technology to get to scale in 2012. At the present pace, this may not be the case.

That suggests industry fingers had better remain crossed.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Secretive Bio Architecture Lifts Veil On Bio Enzyme Progress

June 13, 2010

Converting algae to biofuel remains an intractable problem even when a company has the resources of a Sapphire Energy and Algenol.

Imagine the challenge facing Bio Architecture Lab. The secretive company confronts the same battle with high costs as it tunes its bioengineered microbe to convert seaweed to ethanol on a commercial scale. But money is nowhere near as plentiful.

Start-up Bio Architecture Lab says it is mid way to 90 percent fuel conversion target.

In a rare discussion of its business, the Berkeley company says it is about half way to its 90 percent fuel conversion target. Confidence is high, says Vineet Rajgarhia, senior vice president of research, who joined the firm in May when it appointed former Shell executive Daniel Trunfio as CEO.

Reaching the target “is doable,” Rajgarhia said at the Cleantech Institute conference at the University of California, Berkeley. “It just needs a little more time.”

That “little more time” is about a year.

The company, spun out of the University of Washington, intends to commercialize its seaweed enzyme for both fuels and chemicals. Up to now, it has been reluctant to offer details about its technology or business plan. But perhaps new management is more willing to communicate.

For example, Rajgarhia says the company’s business plan does not include raising the several hundred million dollars necessary to build its own biorefinery and compete against better-funded competitors. “We’ll be partnering up,” he says.

He also says the company has the breathing room it needs to complete its bioengineering. Rajgarhia estimates the company will require another year to prepare its technology for large-scale deployment. It is no easy task, but since the firm’s goal is to open its Chilean pilot project in 2012, it has the time.

The organization is one of an ambitious few trying to cultivate seaweed, or macro-algae, in shallow coastal waters and turn it into low-cost fuels. In contrast to micro-algae, which floats on the surface, most seaweed, or kelp, attaches itself to the ocean floor and presents a complex harvesting challenge. The effort is likely worth the trouble. Macro-algae can be grown for an estimated $40 a ton, or 4 cents a pound of sugar, far less than corn or sugar cane.  It also uses no agricultural land, fresh water or fertilizer and helps filter ocean waters

Because of the potential economics, its cultivation has drawn the interest of a disparate group of organizations, including Blue Sun Energy of Colorado, Seambiotic of Israel, the Scottish Association for Marine Science and South Korea’s Korea Institute of Industrial Technology.

Bio Architecture Lab drew notice earlier this year when it received a $9 million research grant from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E. With the award to develop biobutanol, it received matching funds from partner DuPont and last year raised an $8 million series A round with investors X/Seed Capital of Menlo Park, the venture arm of Norways’ Statoil oil company and Austral Capital of Chile. It also received $7 million in economic development money from Chile.

Rajgarhia said a second key challenge Bio Architecture Lab faces is logistical: getting the macro-algae ashore at a cost low enough to produce affordable fuel. The seaweed is fast growing – about 2 feet a day – so volumes add up. And current harvesting techniques are geared toward high-priced food production, so costs are not in line with low-price fuel.

All these tasks, of course, takes money. For companies such as micro-algae developer Sapphire Energy, which has raised more than $100 million, including money from Bill Gates, and Algenol, which promises to fund an $850 million commercial project in Mexico, writing the big check may be possible.

Bio Architecture Lab doesn’t appear to have the same huge outlay in the cards. For the immediate future, at least, “we have a bit of a runway” with the money raised, says Rajgarhia. Long term, it will be interesting to see which business model prospers.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Poet’s Plans For Ethanol Domination

May 21, 2010

The nation can reach its goal of producing 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, and Poet would like to provide about 10 percent of it.

These projections were contained in Congressional testimony offered this week by Poet Vice President of Commercial Development Scott Weishaar.

Poet's target is 10 percent of the ethanol market by 2022. But good government policy is needed, the company says.

Weishaar said the 36 billion gallon national goal is achievable if the government sets the right policies to support the industry. He also said the South Dakota company is ready to capitalize.

Poet, the world’s largest ethanol producer, has 26 plants and expects to ferment 3.5 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. Its game plan is to get 1 billion from expanding production at its facilities, says Weishaar.

Another 1.4 billion will come from licensing technology to other grain ethanol companies and a final 1.1 billion will result from non-corn feedstock that Poet expects to process

But finding the financing is no sure thing. Lenders are hesitant to fund new technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol. What’s more, with the cellulosic ethanol tax credit set to expire in 2012, things could get worse.

Weishaar said a government commitment to the industry requires a prescription that includes:

*Loan guarantees for the construction of new plants;

*A long-term extension of the cellulosic ethanol tax credit;

*Continuation of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program in the Farm Bill to provide assistance, and matching funds, to farmers who grow biomass;

*An increasing of the ethanol limit for standard autos to 15 percent from 10 percent. The 10 percent limit means only about 12.5 billion gallons of ethanol can be sold when the industry produces 13.5 billion;

*A mandate that new vehicles are flexible fuel; and

*Requirements that service station pumps allow various blending options.

The U.S. uses 140 billion gallons of gas a year. By 2022, almost 10 percent might be ethanol. Poet wants to be king.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Biofuels Business A Roller Coaster, But Ford Signs Up

May 4, 2010

The United States now produces more ethanol than gasoline refined from Saudi Arabian and Iraqi oil.

This fact is a fitting reminder of the growing prominence of the nation’s biofuels industry. Last year, ethanol production hit a record in the U.S. and new refineries under construction will expand that capacity ten fold.

The Fusion is one of 11 flexible fuel vehicles Ford offers. The company will expand biofuels vehibles 50 percent in two years.

It is no surprise then that some carmakers are showing greater interest in alternative fuel internal combustion engines. On Tuesday, for instance, Ford announced it would to expand its production of flexible-fuel cars and trucks, with 50 percent of vehicles by 2012 able to burn ethanol and other biofuels.

Of course, the biofuels business has been an up and down ride. Biofuels companies plunged into the red during the first half of 2009 as the global recession cut demand for their products. But by the second half of the year, many of the nation’s 170 refineries recovered, with profits returning and production hitting a record.

However, this year will be a little more troublesome again. Expectations are for more modest growth, with production forecast to rise 12 percent to 11.9 million gallons, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group. The nation will have 189 refineries.

The roller coaster will continue. Refineries under construction will add 1.4 billion gallons of new capacity, with the first wave of cellulosic, or second-generation, producers coming up to commercial levels.

The nation’s biodiesel business has had an even more difficult fate. While the counry’s180 biodiesel plants produced 350 million gallons of biodiesel in 2009, production was down by 50 percent from a year earlier. Part of the explanation is the global recession, which squelched demand. But a European Community anti dumping tariff on U.S. imports added to the woes. Europe has been the largest importer of U.S. biodiesel..

Today U.S. plants are operating at only about 15 percent of capacity.

Still, companies such as Ford aren’t dismayed. The carmaker builds 11 flexible fuel vehicles and has doubled that number since 2006.

This will amount to 370,000 cars and trucks in 2010. “Flexible-fuel vehicles are a great alternative,” says Sue Cischke, a Ford group vice president. If only it could be a better business.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Biofuel 3.0: A Third Wave Of Biofuels Emerges

May 3, 2010

First came the companies eager to turn corn, soybeans, sugar cane and other edible feedstock into ethanol and other fuels.

North Carolina State University wins $2.7 million federal grant to engineer superbug to create biofuel directly from microorganism

Then a second generation of start-ups began replacing the foodstuffs with cellulosic materials such as wood and grasses. Many are just now building large-scale plants to prove they can turn laboratory experiments into massive commercial production, including Amyris Biotechnologies, Codexis and ZeaChem.

Now a third-generation of biofuel makers is showing progress with novel laboratory work. This new wave is a sharp departure from the ways of the past and has interesting potential. It hopes to simplify manufacturing by avoiding the fermentation step of first and second generation companies and convert organisms directly into fuel using just carbon dioxide and sometimes sunlight.

It is an exciting prospect. Not only could these new ventures remake an industry, they could open the door to new ways to store solar energy (in a fuel!) and help remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

On the leading edge is Joule of Cambridge, MA. That company hopes a genetically engineered microorganism will directly produce fuel on large scale and hopes to demonstrate it with a Texas pilot project this summer. The process requires CO2 and sunlight.

Also pushing the dial is North Carolina State University, which received a Department of Energy ARPA-E grant of $2.7 million. The university’s experimental work makes use of microbial organisms called extremophiles that use CO2 and hydrogen (and no sunlight) to produce complex molecules that are building blocks for biofuels.

The primitive organisms live in hot fresh or salt water (167 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit) and evolved before photosynthesis developed. The lack of sunlight should make their growth cycle easier to manage.

The university plans to genetically engineer a “superbug” that will efficiently produce butanol. The work may take three years or more. But it is a promising side step around the large fermentation plants that define the industry today.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Cellulosic Ethanol Gains Environmentalist Support But Researchers Find First Parasites

April 2, 2010

Ethanol-based biofuel still faces plenty of hurdles.

Most of the fuel continues to be derived from corn in the United States and sugar cane in Brazil. This concentration is sparking concerns that U.S. agricultural land is shifting from food to fuel production at a time when developing countries still struggle to feed themselves. The problem will only worsen as ethanol plants expand to generate the vast volumes needed to make a dent in gasoline demand.

University of Illinois researchers found contamination in 85 samples of switchgrass and Miscanthus taken in six states

Adding to the travails are fears that developing countries will clear cut forests to replace the corp-bearing land lost in the U.S. and Europe to biofuel agriculture.

This is motivating groups such as the National Wildlife Federation to oppose corn-based biofuels. This week the federation urged Congress to favor second-generation cellulosic ethanol and asked for the elimination of tax incentives supporting corn farmers.

Not so fast! Cellulosic ethanol development is proceeding at a fast pace. Numerous companies are building pilot plants to ferment fuel from popular trees, switchgrass and other non-edible plants. But what they haven’t counted on is an explosion of plant parasite and other tiny organisms interested in feeding on these potentially lucrative fuel sources.

Late last month, the University of Illinois researchers reported they discovered the first parasite to appear in biofuel crops – in this case switchgrass and Miscanthus.

“Diseases and pests have the potential to cause significant constraints on biomass production, putting the crops at risk for reductions in biomass yield and quality,” said lead researcher and post-doctoral associate Tesfamariam Mekete.

The researchers looked at 37 samples of Miscanthus and 48 samples of switchgrass from Illinois, Iowa, Georgia, Kentucky, South Dakota and Tennessee. All the samples were contaminated.

“The high levels of nematodes found in our survey and the damage symptoms observed in infected roots suggest parasitism may contribute to the decline of biomass production,” Mekete said in a university publication.

Corn farmers, After decades of modern agriculture, know what to expect from pests and parasite. Cellulosic cultivation is still new. Time will tell whether farmers are prepared for the unexpected.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Shell Pioneers New Approach To Biofuels: Bio Gasoline Instead Of Ethanol

March 23, 2010

Royal Dutch Shell said Tuesday it has begun operations at a novel plant designed to convert biomass from plants to bio-gasoline, instead of ethanol.

Bio-gasoline made at Shell's and Virent's Wisconsin plant will have a greater energy intensity than ethanol.

Most of the world’s biofuel production is focused on making ethanol from plant stocks such as corn and sugar cane. A second generation of companies hopes to avoid eatable crops in favor of forest waste, wood and grasses. But their end product also is ethanol, in addition to some specialty chemicals.

(Biodiesel meanwhile is being produced from vegetable oils, greases and animal fats.)

Shell and partner Virent Energy Systems hope to avoid the difficulties of working with ethanol, such as converting car engines for its use and developing separate distribution systems of pipelines and tanks. Their gasoline equivalent can be blended with petroleum-based gas in higher concentrations than ethanol and burned in standard engines, they said.

“The new product has the potential to eliminate the need for specialized infrastructure, engine modifications, and blending equipment necessary for the use of gasoline containing more than 10% ethanol,” according to a press release. It also has higher energy content than ethanol and should deliver better fuel economy.

The demonstration plant is located in Wisconsin and can generate up to 10,000 gallons a year, which will be tested in commercial fleets. It presently uses beet sugar, but can digest corn, sugar cane and wheat.

Shell described the test plant a key step in moving the technology from the lab to the market, but said there is still “some way to go on the route to commercialization.”

It did not offer a timetable for market delivery

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Posted by Mark Boslet

The Case Against Corn Based Ethanol Keeps Building

March 12, 2010

The case for corn-based ethanol keeps getting murkier.

The Obama Administration tried to stake out a middle ground last month when the EPA softened its threshold for acceptable biofuel. Instead of looking at the indirect impact of growing corn ethanol – i.e. the destruction of forests elsewhere in the world to prepare land for agriculture – the EPA approved the use of ethanol from modern, gas-fired refineries.

However, the evidence against this deliberate caving to the farm lobby keeps building.

This week, an analysis from Purdue University reinforced the EPA’s original stance: that corn-based ethanol is unlikely to reduce global greenhouse gases.

The university looked at ecological evidence and commodity trading data to reach its conclusion. It found that substituting ethanol for gasoline would double greenhouse gas emissions by changing land use in 18 regions of the world.

Chloregy released a second comprehensive analysis that points to ethanol’s failings. It noted that the price for corn rose 105 percent in the past five years aided by a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on ethanol imported from Brazil, the other big biofuel making country. The tariff shields ethanol from competition, since Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol can be made for half the price of corn.

The high prices give added incentive to farmers around the world to clear land and plant corn. Adding to the ecological is that corn requires large amounts of nitrogen-base fertilizer. The consequence is an increase in the release of nitrous oxide, a more damaging greenhouse gas than CO2.

Presently, more than a third of the nation’s corn harvest goes to making ethanol. This should rise to 50 percent in five years, says the study, released on Thursday.

In a perfect world, this unsustainable trend should be enough to lead the Obama Administration to rethink its policy, the study argues. Unfortunately, the farm lobby won’t permit it. Instead of turning the focus to more ecologically sound second-generation cellulosic ethanol, the corn-based lobby will fight. Let’s hope market forces help turn the tables in the next few years as cellulosic refineries get up and running.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Make Your Own Biodiesel At Home

March 8, 2010

Even as the Europeans argue over the environmental impact of biofuels, it seems clear that alternative fuels not derived from petroleum are here to stay.

Independence Energy has begun marketing a micro refinery for biodiesel. Think hyper-local.

So why not make the fuel you need at home? Or perhaps participate in a community refinery, supplying it with home waste, such as cooking oils and food scraps?

Ok, so it seems a bit far-fetched at present. But for biofuels to make a dent in gasoline use, production has to be massive, widespread and conducted local to keep transportation costs low.

This hyper-local nature of the industry means that small-scale plants will have to be built in communities across the country and around the world. And source material will need to be found nearby, including grasses, forest waste, lumberyard scrap, even vegetable and food garbage from homes.

Independence Energy Company is making an early play for this market. The firm has begun marketing a $100,000 “micro” refinery that is designed to make 1,000 gallons of biodiesel a day. With government incentives, that plant’s actual cost could be lower.

The plant is designed to produce fuel in 500 gallon batches with two daily work shifts.

The company’s plan to create joint ventures with local producers in U.S., Asia, Africa and South America and then consult with owners to find local feedstock.  It suggests this sourcing can be creative, such as fish oil from a fish processing plant, palm, castor beans, sunflowers, canola, camelina or jatropha.

In Europe, policy makers are trying to gauge the impact of large-scale biofuels farming on wetlands and tropical forests across the globe. The fear is that as agricultural land in developed countries is turned to biofuels, developing countries will clear cut more virgin land for farming.

With a move to hyper-local production, perhaps some of this conversion can be headed off before it begins.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

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