The combination of two advanced technologies is now undergoing testing.  In trials, a 200-watt solid-acid fuel cell ran on both pure hydrogen and on hydrogen produced from diesel by the unit’s reformer – with only an insignificant difference in performance.  The system is another handy way to solve the hydrogen production and storage issue as well as keep consumers access to abundant fuels used at very high efficiencies.

Diesel is a hydrocarbon thus CO2 is an issue.  The reformer section converts the hydrocarbons into hydrogen, CO2 and heat. Due to the unit’s high efficiency, CO2 emissions are substantially lower than in conventional combustion engines, and no other demonstrable exhaust is discharged – meaning that diesel particulates, black carbon soot, nitrous oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) are eliminated. An added plus is that the reformer emits no smoke or odor.  And, it’s dead silent.

The silent electric generator is being developed and produced by the Norwegian company Nordic Power Systems (NPS). The new type of fuel cell is being developed and delivered from the California firm SAFCell. The development of solid-based acid fuel cells (SAFC) was pioneered in the Haile Lab of the Material Science Department at Caltech.  Dr. Calum Chisholm, together with a team of experienced scientists, engineers, and business executives founded SAFCell to bring the technology to the market in November of 2009.  Things are moving very fast – it not been a year yet and the prototype field test units are being built.

The story runs back in time, beginning in Germany.  In 2006 the NPS founders came across an interesting conversion technology developed at RWTH Aachen University in the late 1990s. NPS acquired the licensing rights, envisioning a clear market potential for an electric power supply unit based on a fuel cell that is not dependent on hydrogen filling stations, and that can run on regular, easily available fuel without surrendering the environmental benefits of fuel cells.

Nordic Power Systems Process Technology Flow Graphic. Click image for the largest view.

Then in 2009 NPS secured usage rights to the new U.S. solid-acid fuel cell technology for use with various fuel types such as diesel and biofuels.

Tor-Geir Engebretsen, Managing Director and co-founder of NPS, is very pleased with the summer of 2010’s tests. “Now we have demonstrated that the solid-acid technology works. The next step is to test a larger unit of 1- 200 watts.”

Now it gets really interesting – Engebretsen points out that since the technology is scalable, it is well suited for future generators in electric vehicles. But NPS is taking the development in stages. The company’s first market is power supply for the defense industry.  NPS has secured a technology development agreement with the Royal Norwegian Armed Forces. In addition, NPS has a product development agreement with Marshall Land Systems, of the U.K., with the aim of supplying silent-running generators for the British Armed Forces.  While the U.S. Department of Defense isn’t involved, one can be certain they’re watching.

If all goes according to plan, the reformer unit being developed with Marshall Land Systems will be ready for market launch by mid-2011, while the solid-acid fuel cell will be phased in somewhat later. An assembly plant in Høyanger, Norway, is scheduled to open in early 2012 with Industrial Development Corporation of Norway (SIVA) as the contractor.

NPS currently has seven employees in Norway, and six in the USA through a contract with SAFCell in California.

Getting from the oily diesel to a fuel cell hydrogen intake is a challenge.  The evaporation of diesel is the most challenging step in a diesel reformer. The NPS cool flame reformer uses a new, unique concept for evaporating and mixing the diesel with air and steam. Avoiding inhomogeneous mixtures of air and steam, partial evaporation of the diesel, or a total ignition in the evaporation stage, are critical to the stability and functionality of the materials and catalysts applied.

In the first week of August, 2010, SAFCell delivered a 250 watt stack to NPS’ testing facility in Porsgrunn, Norway. The SAFC stack was integrated and tested with NPS’ proprietary cool flame diesel reformer system, converting the chemical energy of the diesel fuel directly into electrical power.

Solid-acid fuel cells utilize an anhydrous, nonpolymeric proton-conducting electrolyte that can operate at slightly elevated temperatures.  Supporting thin CsH2PO4 electrolyte membranes at about 25-36 µm on porous stainless steel gas-diffusion electrodes, SAFCs can attain peak power densities as high as 415 mW/cm2.

Solid Acid Based Fuel Cell Schematic Diagram. Click image for the largest view.

While the current state of the development is proprietary, earlier study claims were high at 0.91-1.01 V. Those results transformed SAFCs from laboratory curiosities into highly competitive energy conversion devices.  With six years of research and development now invested its no surprise that the SAFC is about ready for field tests.

The impact of a fuel cell generator that could fill up at most any station using likely the full range of middle distillates from kerosene to jet to #2 diesel – plus a wide range of bio products is an intriguing idea that’s just loaded with potential.  A full study vehicle with a reformer-SAFC system, some storage and electric drive propulsion yielding some efficiency numbers would be fascinating.  Plus the reformer-SAFC system yields heat solving a major electric drive problem and technology developments are offering better heat energy recovery all the time.

The Norwegians and Californians deserve some applause. This is looking more like widely adoptable technology with each step.

Click here for the pdf.

I led off the questions asking why diesel isn’t following gasoline down in price. It is but only in part and much more slowly.

The answer offered by Lou Pugliaresi, President, Energy Policy Research Foundation, is based in an imbalance in the demand for diesel versus the configuration of the world refining structure capacity, by an increasing dieselization in Europe, and China began a kind of world-wide growth in demand for the “middle of a barrel” of oil from pulling a lot of coal out of industrial uses. These reasons are based in the market having a more distinct demand slowing in gasoline, an effort by Europeans to increase the efficiency of the transport fleet by switching to diesel and China for their own reasons including we’d hope, reducing the pollution from coal use.

Mr. Pugliaresi said, “What’s been happening over the last few years is that as the world refining centers move to hit the diesel targets, they are producing a lot of gasoline for which there is no local market. (Refiners) can swing this production 3 to 4 percent with existing capacity; but in Europe they’re already at the limit. We in the U.S. are importing roughly a million barrels a day of gasoline from the finished gasoline and blend stock, mostly blend stock. And in fact, we have been exporting distillate over the last few months.”

“Of course it’s been exacerbated even in the U.S. If you think about refineries, they’re sort of like producing steaks and leather. You can’t really produce more distillate without producing more gasoline. I mean, as I said, we can swing a little bit. What’s happening is that, in order to meet – until we get more hydro-cracking, hydro-treating, and more distillate capacity online, and the world refining configuration can rebalance itself a bit, we’re going to have this disparity.”

I said, “What’s your time frame? (To a solution.)

Here’s the not so good news:

Mr. Pugliaresi says, “Some of this is going to be related to the pace at which foreign refinery centers come online. The Indians have a million barrels a day of capacity coming online, and some of their – largely aimed at the world distillate market. The – I would say, in the first quarter next year, they’re going to be moving some of their lower-spec – let’s say the middle of the barrel that doesn’t quite meet the European specs – but over time they will be pulling more sulfur out of the middle of the barrel; to the extent that the U.S. refining industry can begin to make some capital investments, you know, maybe five – take as much as 10 years, it could happen as quick as three. It really depends upon whether we’re going to get any recovery in some of these margins, and people are willing to put some risk capital to make these projects go forward.

There’s that finance issue. One great thing about Big Oil is they can finance this kind of thing without months or years of credit work to get the capital in place. Being vertically integrated and heavily capitalized has some terrific advantages for the companies and then to consumers. But in the U.S. the regulatory and permitting issues can be measured in years, too.

For those of you relying on fuel oil for home heating it too is a middle distillate as are kerosene and jet fuel. What shift takes place isn’t known yet but some of the break in middle distillates pricing is due to a reduction in jet fuel demand as airlines have cut back on a few routes. Trucking is down only slightly and farm and construction use will diminish as winter sets in.

We also talked about propane and natural gas. There is good news in natural gas, even with a major hurricane season there are adequate supplies or maybe abundant by some views so home heating isn’t going to be an availability issue this winter by natural gas. Long-term natural gas production increases are seen coming for some years to come. The U.S. is enjoying a low price for natural gas compared to the rest of the world’s economy. Natural gas is a bright spot in fossil fuels that should last a while.

I know that everyone reading has a personal point of view. What helps in this post for those in middle distillate is that the break point for alternatives is going to be high for some time to come over and beyond the oil and gasoline prices. While this will surely change over time, the question will remain by how much and will the market get back to a kind of parity where diesel is 115% or so over gasoline.

One is certainly aware by now that home heating with fuel oil isn’t looking good for at least three or maybe as long as ten years out. The disparity with natural gas as estimated in the conference call at about 60% compared to oil tends to suggest that a move to natural gas or electric driven heat pumps for home heating to be very advisable in these economic conditions.

Much of the blogger’s conference call questioning was handled by Mr. Pugliaresi who comes from the Energy Policy Research Foundation, Inc. For more information the link is EPRF.

Thanks to Jane Van Ryan at the API for setting up this informative conference call.

The refinery is the ConocoPhillips Billings Unit. It runs about 50+ thousand barrels a day, not real small nor is it a behemoth. The most striking thing coming up on it is – it doesn’t smell. If it does, its being overwhelmed by the livestock market not far away that offers much more powerful aromas. You might say that Billings smells of money. In truth though, the yards are full of cattle, so it’s not like hogs, fish or a poultry facility. What struck me, with my experience is more than the lack of aromas, was that the refinery was calm, clean, relaxed and running at full tilt. The staff knows what they’re doing here. It’s more than that though.

The management at ConocoPhillips is a little different than say Chevron or ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil, which while everyone likes to diss them, is the world’s leading engineering oil and gas, refining and petrochemical company. That sort of explains the psychology there. Chevron based in California is more adventurous, out going and involved, looking into everything, may have a little attention deficit – certainly has a little West Coast bend in its thinking and corporate culture. ConocoPhillips is a more Oil Patch company, which means they are more middle American, conscious of the neighbors and engaging in the community. Little differences like that have major effects outside of the companies themselves and our views of them.

Starting in 1990 ConocoPhillips went so far as to setup citizen advisory councils at its refinery complexes. These groups are the organized connection to the neighbors with the refinery complexes. With such a group, regular folks can participate, get access, and meet leaders that affect their lives and affect them back. With such a potential offered by refineries in a community from great paying jobs and investments, over to the reality of a huge volatile and inflammable concentration of fuel products, involvement is an important thing.

The night prior to the tour found we bloggers at a little dinner party with ConocoPhillips managers and members of the Citizens Advisory Council. Middle America with a western tint. These people, with divergent views are very relaxed and comfortable with each other. Its easy to see with such a sense of purposeful camaraderie, that keeping an important facility in top operating order that plays a major regional role running so well that it wins national awards isn’t so hard when the personal influences are so dignified and respectful of one another. Maybe it was the food, but that was a very nice dinner party, and offers that major plant operations can have extraordinary relations with the neighbors.

The tour was mostly in the “learning center” outside of the refinery itself. It was SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY from Reed Marton.

This is what goes on in a refinery from Tim Seidel and is linked right here in a PowerPoint presentation that Jane Van Ryan at the API pried away from ConocoPhillips for you to see, too.

The tour itself was from inside a van type limo as letting a bunch of people out to run about in such a place isn’t a good idea at all. Lots of stuff in a refinery is very hot, from below air ambient to over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit and the flammable products are from bituminous high sulfur crude oil (not especially ignitable) all the way up to pure hydrogen gas at over 1300 psi pressure (extremely ignitable). I was happy to be in the van, close enough, as I have a good idea what that product range means and the results if an ignition source meets oxygenated fuel.

The impression I took away was that the plant is in as close to perfect shape as one could want. As noted, the aromas were weak if noticeable at all. The ship shape condition would do a nasty Admiral proud, not but one spot where something gooey had escaped over the edge of a tank ever so slightly to make a stain in the paint. And clean, you couldn’t possibly think this facility is 49 years old. It’s so efficient that it won an EnergyStar award twice. The guy every headhunter wants, that takes care of this bewildering array of fracture units, catalytic cracker, coker, tubing, storage, hydrogen production, and even a steam driven electrical generator from excess steam energy is Gerald Knoyle.

Keeping the whole thing in order is Mike Wirkowski, the plant manager who is soon to be lost to a ConocoPhillips refinery in England. Mike has the ideal personality and character to handle the tensions of a refinery in the middle of town. He will be missed I’m sure, but the people staying will surely support and bring the next manager up to speed in what must be one of the best working environments for a manager imaginable.

The other bloggers are Bruce “McQ” McQuain, a favorite of mine both on the net and even more in person. Here is his take on the trip at www.qando.net/mcq.aspx. Next is Courtney Carlisle, young, smart, confident, and way cute, she writes at greenoptions.com which is a collection of writers that kindly put covers lots of turf.

There was also a team from Stanford’s smartenergyshow.com led by Clay Hamilton and with Luke Leaver, a bright impressionable young man from New Zealand. They were busy getting videos of everything, as Mr. Hamilton is an accomplished producer, until we got inside the refinery only to learn that an unidentified threat to the refinery was in investigation and everything photo and video was restricted until the threat had been closed. It would have been great to get more than the few shots they were allowed with the guide’s commentary. But I kind of think Clay is sharp enough to get something good, and the guide, Andy Holman is a sharp one too, and offered a great deal of information that would be highly educational when the Stanford site gets it up.

It was a very quick trip. Fly, dinner, sleep, Stella’s (OMG! The bakery for morning diet destruction!) training, tour, fly. If it weren’t for the weather and airline operations I would have been gone about 30 hours total. The API again provided the travel, lodging and food without cost to me, so that’s disclosed, but the PowerPoint presentation linked above and when the Stanford team posts video, that money will be well spent getting America’s best example of an oil refinery out to anyone interested in learning what the current best standards are and where other refineries are inexorably headed.

There are three other people who need credited, Jane Van Ryan of the API, her aide from Edelman, Kate Shirley, and ConocoPhillips’ own John McLemore who showed the grace and courtesy of the very refined southern gentleman. To this trio I give a thank you both of my own and for all of you, too.

The background goes to what we have discussed here before, the competition of the biological processes vs. the chemical processes to bring biomass to saleable fuels. The news then from Germany is the chemical industry has the lead, and the leader is a German firm, Choren.

Choren is offering a multi step gasification to biofuel process. It starts with preparing the biomatter to small chip sized or smaller dry pieces that are heated to a comparatively low pyrolysis temperature of 400 to 500 degrees C that forms carbonization gas with a tar component and biocoke. Then the gas is forced to oxidize at 1,400 degrees C and the biocoke dust is blown back in too. The raw gas is cooled followed by a “dedusting” process that takes out the particulates of coke not reformed by the oxidation to gas. The next step is to clear any chlorides and sulfides. Then the gas stream flows to a Fischer-Tropsch reactor the forms the fuel. It works.

Backed by big multinationals like Royal Dutch Shell, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and private individuals totaling US$285 million the hardware is a sure thing now. By year’s end the first Choren facility, a small but industrial scale plant will be on line. Using only 70,000 tons of wood waste per year the “biomass refinery” will output about 14,000 tons of biofuel. The biofuel of choice will be biodiesel. Following quickly, the first scale up to 200,000 annual tons of biofuel is due to go into production in 2012, less than 4 years out from now. It’s worthwhile to note that the facilities are sized to meet the local supplies of biomatter.

The experimental biomass farming is also on pace. Three years ago, Choren started its experimental farming using fast growing tree species that have already been harvested once. The local Ministry of Agriculture in the state of Brandenburg offers to provide the funds up to 45% to invest in the tree saplings, preparations and soil improvements needed to change out the crop production or bring unused land into production. The first experimental crop is yielding up to 20 tons of the dry biomatter per hectare (about 2.5 acres) that works out to be 5,000 liters of biodiesel (440 gallons /acre).

At more than a third more energy by volume than ethanol, biodiesel looks much better for land use than the corn to ethanol system. This information has been available to government officials since at least the announcement by the US DOE including Choren back in October 2007. It seems that the Choren process and likely others invited by the DOE have enabled insiders to finally acknowledge the potential that biomatter to fuel has to displace crude oil. A clue is there in the new energy bill that holds an “ethanol” base of about 12 billion gallons annually with another 24 billion expected to come from other sources.

Then this Wednesday the Bush administration’s press conference with the President on CO2 emissions let the other shoe drop. The most useful thing to say is that the President and the administration has had the foresight not to jump off any technological cliffs and came to join the popular perceptions only when very high quality prospects are at hand before committing itself to an economic revision of the U.S. and by extension, the world’s energy and fuel economy.

It’s looking like a long drawn out watershed event. It’s not over yet. There is much more technology on the horizon. The biological side hasn’t answered at scales of 200,000 tons of fuel from a biomass plant, yet. There are competitive costs to compare. There is a billion dollars a day from the U.S. alone, per day, at stake. It going to get very exciting, very interesting and perhaps a little glorious relief is on the way. Its no wonder earlier in the week the Saudi’s tried to make a point about biofuels being no answer, in support of the incredibly weird analysis that make biofuels out to be worse than crude oil.

Welcome to America, Choren!

Brian Krohn while a student at Augsburg College and studying chemistry started a summer research project seeking to come up with a new way to make biodiesel. His basic ideas applied to the summer research triggered his professor, Arlin Gyberg to encourage contact with an alumnus Dr. Clayton McNeff, a Vice President of StarTec Corporation. The gentlemen enrolled the StarTec chief scientist Dr. Ben Yan, who applied Brian’s ideas and research results and created a new chemical reaction, one not seen in the chemical science literature before. That propelled McNeff to found Ever Cat Fuels.

Things have been moving fast, really fast. The announcement was just last month, March 7^th, 2008, and the plant is already running. One realizes that the announcement was subject to thresholds in the patent process. At the same time, the plant was brought on line, inspected by other industry analysts, and set for new construction with plans for licenses or perhaps plant design sales.

The most gracious part of this is that the three men whose names were used to form the process name have seen to it that Brian Krohn is credited for his part. While no details are released about Brian’s economic status in this, it speaks volumes of high character about the three men that Brian is in the spotlight for the past month. The light was so bright that the information as it applies to the rest of us is almost shadowed out. I congratulate Brian and send my respects and admiration to the team for such a grand display of character and integrity. This builds a lot of credibility into the due diligence we do before writing a post.

The analysts who have been invited to look over the process are impressed by how well the design works in utilizing the chemical reaction innovation. The graphic shows the stream of alcohol and oil entering the reactor and exiting as biodiesel fuel and recyclable alcohol. The next stages of separation and cleaning yield a ready to use fuel product.

The process relies on feedstocks that can be as varied as alcohols from single carbon methanol, ethanol and up to three carbon propanol. The oil side can source from the full range of plant and animal based oils as well as waste products. While not exceedingly cheap, these products are in a growth phase and can be improved to the higher energy density of middle distillates like diesel, jet and home heating oils. Alcohols while good and achievable chemicals from current plant growth need the boost to higher energy density both to enter the fuel supply system and to keep value in consumer’s investments in fuel using machines.

Sharp readers know that plant based oils will need reforming and refining steps to get up to current fuel standards. The hard data to compare this process with current biofuel refining is still an issue to be explored. It’s likely that as the algae production industry grows which will generate a large volume of oil, competitive reforming and refining techniques will become more important.

Ever Cat offers these points for comparison:

• Flexible feedstock; animal or plant sources of lipids can be used. Current waste products can be turned into fuel.
• No use of strong acids or bases in the process.
• Fast reaction times (seconds).
• Cheap feedstocks such as waste grease and animal tallow as well as a variety of plant oils can be converted to biodiesel.
• The metal oxide based catalyst is contained in a fixed bed reactor thereby eliminating the current need to continuously add catalyst to the reaction mixture thereby reducing the amount of waste produced.
• Unwanted side reactions with free fatty acids producing soaps are eliminated, thereby reducing the amount of waste that must be disposed of properly.
• Insensitive to free fatty acid and water content of the feedstocks.
• The catalyst does not poison over time.
• The process flows super critical alcohol and oil feedstocks through a tube reactor packed with sulfated metal oxide microspheres. This produces biodiesel in seconds with virtually no waste stream. The un-reacted alcohol and any residual fatty acids are recycled through the reactor making the process entirely continuous and able to achieve 100% conversion.

The activity performs a catalytic conversion of triglycerides and free fatty acids into fatty acid methyl esters. At the end there is one other problem, the separation of the alcohol and the biodiesel. Whether distillation or another means are used is still out for improvement.

An assessment offers that the three lightest alcohols and most any plant or animal oil can be used. The running costs don’t seem worrysome and may be quite competitive. The issues about separation may be of a cost matter, distilling alcohol from biodiesel is a matter with no easy to find comparison to water separation. Lastly the algae industry is working feverishly to drive to algae species with the minimum need for reforming and refining as well as gross oil production.

Nevertheless, plant oils and alcohol production is already a worldwide effort. As more becomes known about how this process can be applied from jatropha to soybean across the planet a better idea of its value will become known.

For today its all champaign and caviar for Brian Krohn and the team who built out his research into a commercial way to produce biodiesel. Good work!

The collaboration seeks to use the research to go further on to a commercial synthetic gasoline. The partners believe it is worthwhile to use the catalyst path to convert plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules like those produced at a petroleum refinery. Historically man has relied on yeasts to ferment to the alcohol hydrocarbon family, but Shell and Virent realize that going on to the higher energy densities of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel offer both reduced costs at the consumer level for the investment in equipment and the producer’s storage and transport expenses to make products available.

The press release from the Shell site offers that the feedstocks would be from a broad base of possible non-food sources listing things like corn stover, switchgrass and straw as well as the corn kernels, wheat grains or sugarcane. How accurate that statement is will take time to determine, as the process that can be reviewed outside of the private proprietary details starts with plant sugars and leads to the hydrogen fuel gas products. The enzymes for corn and wheat to push the starch up to sugar are available, but corn stover, straws, and switchgrass are still in the nebulous stage of being cellulosic, not sugar compounds, for now.

With a year behind the partners already working together the news must have some viability. Shell or Virent, or as partners, have trademarked “BioForming” technology and state that the technology has advanced quickly and exceeded their milestones for yield, product composition and cost. The future effort will focus on improving the technology and scale up for large volume commercial production.

Not to stop there, Shell’s Executive Vice President Future Fuels and CO2 said in part “. . . new fuels on the horizon such as Virent’s, with characteristics similar or even superior to gasoline and diesel are very exciting.” Ah, an understatement, I think. Dr. Randy Cortright, Executive Vice President, Virent’s chief technology officer and co-founder said, “Virent has proven that sugars can be converted into the same hydrocarbon mixtures of today’s gasoline blends. Our products match petroleum gasoline in functionality and performance. Virent’s unique catalytic process uses a variety of biomass-derived feedstocks to generate biogasoline at competitive costs. Our results to date fully justify accelerating commercialization of this technology.”

But the cellulose to sugar matter isn’t resolved. Having another process from plant sugars on to full dose, energy dense, don’t have to replace/modify a billion engines worldwide is great. That cellulose thing that bedevils the ethanol folks is bedeviling here, too? Well, I have calls and emails off to find out.

Virent is the exclusive licensee of the aqueous phase reforming (APR) process – developed by Dr. Cortright and Dr. Jim Dumesic while at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, that converts biomass sugars into carbon neutral fuels or the hydrogen fuel gas path. APR is low cost in that the operating temperatures are in the 180 to 260 degree Centigrade range. The process is thought to be highly efficient in the use of the catalysts. Comparatively low operating pressures are involved. The process operates below the pyrolysis threshold, minimizing decomposition reactions. The feedstock choices come from a wide range of biomass as well as waste products such as glycerin that is building up as it’s removed from biodiesel fuel.

Virent calculates that the BTUs from a crop such as corn could be multiplied out more than 2.4 times from current BTU yield. The APR process itself is adjustable offering a broad range of products from hydrogen on to light liquid petroleum gas such as propane and still on to middle distillates such as diesel and jet fuel.

Is it all real? Very, very likely, as the effort by Shell to publicize and offer as much non-proprietary information as they can in such short order. Moreover, oil companies like Shell have state of the art know how and experience in catalytic reforming and some might have made its way to Virent.

This announcement offers another path from plant sugars, a biological formed source, for using this new chemical process to yield ready to use fuels. While we looked at these other processes here, another that offers lower costs would be welcome. Its also worth noting that the chemical bioconversion using pyrolysis taking biomass to a form of crude oil would bypass the sugar step while still requiring a refining process. The ways from biomass to fuel are getting numerous and soon we’ll be able to assess what paths will cost what investment and be how efficient on a fuel unit per land area unit.

One question is likely to be popular soon. The APR process may quickly displace the ethanol from the corn process as the plants already have facilities that prepare the corn to sugar and have the facilities to use the leftover protein and fiber. Should the APR process be economically adaptable, adoption could be very quick canceling a large share of the ethanol processes fossil fuel use in the distilling segment of production and providing a much easier to transport and use product that has a much higher energy density. Moreover, the APR process may well use the glycerin in the corn oil from the remaining distillers grain yielding even higher value.

This might be a turning point for biomass to fuel. On the other hand that cellulose to sugar issue is still out there. But it looks like each passing day brings technology closer to an economy based more and more on a recycled carbon fuel world, leaving fossil petroleum for the generations to come.

If we’re to do something about petroleum prices the light truck fleet can’t be ignored. 69% of the oil we use is going to transport with 81% of that on roads, 9% flying, 5% marine use and 2% rail, making the road portion is the obvious target. The close look at road fuels tells us 95% is trucks and high fuel consumption cars. In the truck portion, now down to 57%, the light trucks are 95% of the truck population. Only 1 in 32 trucks sold is a heavy truck or over the road semi tractor.

In fairness, the heavy and semi trucks are pretty good on a gallons/pounds /mile. Even a loaded light truck with 12,000 lbs is good too. But how many people do any of us know who consistently go drive their light truck loaded or towing 10,000 or 14,000 lbs? Very very few, and that’s the problem. With 3 of the top 5 selling vehicles last year in the U.S. sold being full sized pickups, the light truck is the target.

This presents a paradox for manufacturers. With the big sales numbers going to status and leisure buyers and the need for towing and load carrying capacity going to the small part of the business the prospects for gains in fuel efficiency are diminished. A light truck should need only 20 horsepower at 40-mph unloaded, moving in a steady state and as much as 1000 peak horsepower for those moments pulling 20,000 lbs up a steep grade.

So here is the comparison that matters. A Prius making 50-mpg going 100 miles would use 2 gallons of gasoline. Double the mileage to 100-mpg and you would save 1 gallon. A light truck getting 12.5-mpg uses eight gallons to go 100 miles. Improve the truck to 7 gallons or 14.3-mpg and you save 1 gallon. But double the truck mpg and you save 4 gallons. Improving the U.S. fleet is an important job to get a grip on oil usage, prices, and environmental issues. The light trucks, large SUVs, heavy low efficiency cars are the low hanging fruit. They are the critical target for U.S. fleet fuel efficiency

People will catch on to the facts of using light trucks, SUVs and low efficiency cars for personal transportation. Their days as status symbols could be running out. On the other hand:

The technology for series hybrids would transfer to this vehicle class just as effectively as small cars. The electric motors, controllers, generator sets and small continuous duty diesels are available even now. But the issue remains for light trucks the same as cars, the prices of batteries and super capacitors. Just keep in mind that the people who really need this class of vehicle at $3.50 diesel loaded or towing large gross weights 25,000 miles a year at 10-mpg the fuel cost would be $8,750, or $70,000 over a 200,000 mile life. That makes for a lot of room in capital investment to save fuel.

Can it be done? The compromise in the added cost to purchase is saved back in fuel expenses. This too is low hanging fruit, saving half of $70K allows up to $35K for increased investment. It looks like the technology could be put in for $20K which leaves a $15K saving over the truck’s life. Somebody at Ford, GM or Chrysler will figure it out. Hybrid drive will save a huge amount of fuel. The transition will also build volume that will help get lower prices of ever smaller hybrid drive vehicles.

For more on this topic please look through Ian Wright’s site. Although working towards autos and racing he understands the issue and his thoughts have helped with facts in this post. I encourage you to pass this post on, when enough dealers hear from enough light truck and SUV buyers that a hybrid is what’s wanted the big step to decreasing dependence on (foreign) oil will happen.

For many of us the idea of the 125-mpg car would be a dream comes true. The opportunity is at the other end though, where big money is being spent on fuel and the capital costs can give a large, immediate and vehicle lifetime savings

Just last week the Chinese announced that they would harvest 13,500 hectares of jatropha that they expect will yield 15,000 tons of refined biodiesel.  This acreage is in Guizhou and tells of the acreage and the added acreage to be in mountainous area not suitable for food crops.  The leading electrical company Zhongshui has been at this project since 2004 has its new refinery scheduled to start up at the end of December 2007 for a 20,000-ton capacity.  The provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan plan to have 1.7 hectares in production in 10 years.

The napkin numbers are 1 hectare equals about 2.5 acres, the ton quotes are metric tones or about 2,205 pounds.  A gallon of diesel is about 7 pounds or a liter is 0.7 kilograms. Thus Zhongshui Energy Development Companies harvest next year on the 13,500 acres would be equivalent to 1.1 tons per hectare about 3500 liters per hectare.  That comes to (3500 liters* .22 = 770 gal. Then 770/2.5 = )308 gal/acre. Not so impressive until one remembers this is land unused for food crops and that U.S. corn at 150 bushels/acre yields about 375 gallons of ethanol from top farmland whose energy per gallon is 1/3 less.  With U.S. diesel today at over $2.50 a gallon and ethanol well under $2.00 one can assess this in economic terms.

American private money is in China.  America’s Becco Biofuel is coming with $2 billion spread over 200,000 hectares aimed at 400,000 tons of biodisel or double the yields at Zhongshui.

In India they expect nearly three tons of raw oil per hectare.  The Centre for Jatropha Promotion and Biodiesel has devised a program that they expect to get to 600 gallons of oil per acre. The Chinese say they have varieties planted that can yield up to 62% oil compared to generic species that generally yields 40% oil.  There is a lot going on.

So where is the U.S. news about jatropha?  There is a little jatropha started in Florida, where the University of Florida has planted seedlings expected to yield 600 to 1,000 gallons of raw oil per acre.  This is very different from what the Chinese and Indian folks are expecting.  In the effort to enroll university researchers the seedlings were donated and two other firms say they have species that can yield much more.

This all leaves us with the question, is America missing the jatropha opportunity?  It seems so, but the market is expanding at an incredible rate and the best plant scientists, genetic engineers and seed developers are in the U.S.  The worry becomes that the base stocks will become unavailable for research as more patents for genes are issued which could leave the world without the highest state of the art.  The U.S. agricultural land grant universities need a bit of a wakeup call, not only for potential production here, but to again make an enormous difference worldwide, this time in fuel production.  America’s contribution to this could add nearly a full order of magnitude to worldwide production and incomes to people.

 Here is a D1 Oils link, well worth a look.  And then Reuters has a page with more basic D1 information and photos of a processor.

Shell already enjoys a worldwide reputation as the largest distributor of biofuels. In the press release the writer mentions more than once that the attraction to Shell is that algae isn’t expected to be displacing production of food crops for biofuels. The investment, as Shell is disclosed to be the majority shareholder, is for production of test quantities of algae oil coming from indigenous strains so to remove any environmental risks. A primary goal is for the plant to discover what strains are best suited for the local conditions and that produce the highest yield and the most vegetable oil.

The Shell EVP, Graeme Sweeny is quoted saying “This demonstration will be an important test of the technology and critically of commercial viability.” Shell’s Chief Science Officer Mark Huntley said, “HR Biopetroleum’s proven technology provides a solid platform for commercial development and potential deployment worldwide.”

HR Biopetroleum has a few years of experience behind its pond cultivation technique. The techniques developed seem to overcome the contamination problems of open pond systems, most likely a hermetic seal to keep foreign material out of the growth medium. The development of the current art of HR Biopetroleum has been funded in part by the U.S. National Defense Center of Excellence in Ocean Sciences, The U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Hawaii.

To refresh, algae is a fast growing water borne organism of ancient origins. Algae are being grown in cultures for pharmaceutical production, the production of nutritional products and other uses. The culturing of algae by strains that have very high vegetable oil content is a target for the renewable fuels industry as the production per area unit is the highest of the bio based fuel field. In some examples algae can out produce common land based crops by as much as 15 fold per land area unit. Algae already out produces rape, palm, soybean and jatropha on an area basis. The challenge is the commercial scaling, strain selection for processes that can be run continuously. Algae are also being researched for genetic modification to increase the productivity, tolerate contaminates, and resist invasion by competitive species.

This announcement is a milestone for algae as a biofuel. Algae offer an oil product that is very easily made into fuels that can replace the more energy dense fuels such as diesel, jet and kerosene.

The unanswered questions are, will the facility use seawater or fresh water, what other inputs are required beyond the water, algae strain, CO2, and sunlight? How adaptable is the oil product, can it be made into other fuels, such as a gasoline replacement? Is this particular plant product expected to need the glycerin to be removed and will there be an alcohol component to the end product? While I’m not seeking a pure petroleum free result, a product that uses a unit of petroleum to yield a measure of algae sourced biofuel is an important metric.

I congratulate Shell for the innovative attitude and the deep future strategy that algae require. The free world’s oil companies are often the scapegoat for a host of problems real and imagined. These kinds of investments, which on the scale of oil discovery, extraction and processing are so small, offer proof that some of “Big Oil” is seeing a future as supplying energy and fuel as the business and whatever turns out to be the best products to serve mankind as the process. In the coming years its going to get tougher to invest in oil as biofuels get further along and technology, scaling up and innovation drive down investment costs and running expenses.

I wish to extend my highest accolades to HR Biopetroleum. The business model for the research, design and implementation have finally attracted serious money, widespread academic interest and a concept that holds the local environment so safely. You well deserve the leadership. Lets see if you can hold on to it.

For all of us watching this is an important point in biofuels. Algae may well be the source for high-density fuels in the near term. But other technologies will be racing to displace any form of combustion and the improvements likely to come into the consumption side will be affecting the total market even as it grows worldwide.