[place your bet]

USDA, Department of Energy award $944,000 for research into fast pyrolysis, gasification and nanotechnology process for biofuels

Growing popularity of biocrude
The popularity of biocrude, and fuels made using the fast pyrolysis process, has been increasing rapidly in recent months as policymakers and investors struggle to solve the increasing infrastructure and land-use issues of first-generation biofuels and feedstocks.

“By using waste, [it] overcomes the food versus fuel debate which surrounds biofuels generated from grains, corn and sugar,” says Dr. Stephen Loffler of CSIRO, Australia’s national science laboratory. CSIRO recently announced the development of a second-generation biocrude process, in conjunction with researchers at Monash University.

The announcement earlier this month by Sustainable Power and Borneo Oil to develop 20 bioreactors in Malaysia is the most significant international expansion announced to date in biocrude production. Startup companies such as LS9, UOP, Syntroleum and the LiveFuels consortium have firmly entrenched themselves as the second wave of biocrude development, behind Sustainable Power.

I filled the Quads tank with this!

[mikevel]

Air Force Prod Aids Coal-To-Fuel Plans




Saturday March 22, 5:04 AM EDT


MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. (AP) — On a wind-swept air base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to a new and unlikely source: coal.

The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central Montana the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning synthetic fuel.

Air Force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national security threat by tapping into the country's abundant coal reserves. And by offering itself as a partner in the Malmstrom plant, the Air Force hopes to prod Wall Street investors — nervous over coal's role in climate change — to sink money into similar plants nationwide.



"We're going to be burning fossil fuels for a long time, and there's three times as much coal in the ground as there are oil reserves," said Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson. "Guess what? We're going to burn coal."

Tempering that vision, analysts say, is the astronomical cost of coal-to-liquids plants. Their high price tag, up to $5 billion apiece, would be hard to justify if oil prices were to drop. In addition, coal has drawn wide opposition on Capitol Hill, where some leading lawmakers reject claims it can be transformed into a clean fuel. Without emissions controls, experts say coal-to-liquids plants could churn out double the greenhouse gases as oil.

"We don't want new sources of energy that are going to make the greenhouse gas problem even worse," House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said in a recent interview.

The Air Force would not finance, construct or operate the coal plant. Instead, it has offered private developers a 700-acre site on the base and a promise that it would be a ready customer as the government's largest fuel consumer.

Bids on the project are due in May. Construction is expected to take four years once the Air Force selects a developer.

Anderson said the Air Force plans to fuel half its North American fleet with a synthetic-fuel blend by 2016. To do so, it would need 400 million gallons of coal-based fuel annually.

With the Air Force paving the way, Anderson said the private sector would follow — from commercial air fleets to long-haul trucking companies.

"Because of our size, we can move the market along," he said. "Whether it's (coal-based) diesel that goes into Wal-Mart trucks or jet fuel that goes into our fighters, all that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which is the endgame."

Coal producers have been unsuccessful in prior efforts to cultivate such a market. Climate change worries prompted Congress last year to turn back an attempt to mandate the use of coal-based synthetic fuels.

The Air Force's involvement comes at a critical time for the industry. Coal's biggest customers, electric utilities, have scrapped at least four dozen proposed coal-fired power plants over rising costs and the uncertainties of climate change.

That would change quickly if coal-to-liquids plants gained political and economic traction under the Air Force's plan.

"This is a change agent for the entire industry," said John Baardson, CEO of Baard Energy in Vancouver, Wash., which is awaiting permits on a proposed $5 billion coal-based synthetic fuels plant in Ohio. "There would be a number of plants that would be needed just to support (the Air Force's) needs alone."

Only about 15 percent of the 25,000 barrels of synthetic fuel that would be produced daily at the Malmstrom plant would be suitable for jet fuel. The remainder would be lower-grade diesel for vehicles, trains or trucks and naphtha, a material used in the chemical industry.

That means the Air Force would need at least seven plants of the same size to meet its 2016 goal, said Col. Bobbie "Griff" Griffin, senior assistant to Anderson.

Coal producers have their sights set even higher.

A 2006 report from the National Coal Council said a fully mature coal-to-liquids industry serving the commercial sector could produce 2.6 million barrels of fuel a day by 2025. Such an industry would more than double the nation's coal production, according to the industry-backed Coal-to-Liquids Coalition.

On Wall Street, however, skepticism lingers.

"Is it a viable technology? Certainly it is. The challenge seems to be getting the first couple (of plants) done," said industry analyst Gordon Howald with Calyon Securities. "For a company to commit to this and then five years later oil is back at $60 — this becomes the worst idea that ever happened."

Only two coal-to-liquids plants are now operating worldwide, all in South Africa. A third is scheduled to come online in China this year, said Corey Henry with the Coal-to-Liquids Coalition.

The Air Force is adamant it can advance the technology used in those plants to turn dirty coal into a "green fuel," by capturing the carbon dioxide and other, more toxic emissions produced during manufacturing.

However, that would not address emissions from burning the fuel, said Robert Williams, a senior research scientist at Princeton University. To do more than simply break even, the industry must reduce the amount of coal used in the synthetic-fuel blend and supplement it with a fuel derived from plants, Williams said.

Air force officials said they were investigating that possibility.

In a recent letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Rep. Waxman wrote that a promise to control greenhouse gas emissions from synthetic fuels was not enough. Waxman and the committee's ranking Republican, Virginia's Tom Davis, cited a provision in the energy bill approved by Congress last year that bars federal agencies from entering contracts for synthetic fuels unless they emit the same or fewer greenhouse gases as petroleum.

Anderson said the Air Force will meet the law's requirements.

"They'd like to have (coal-to-liquids) because of security concerns — a reliable source of power. They're not thinking beyond that one issue," Waxman said. "(Climate change) is also a national security concern."

[wechoose]

Wouldn't it be easier to provide a source that proves bio-gasoline can't be refined from vegetable oil? Frankly, after all of your posts pasted about the wonders derived from refining renewable sourced oil, I would have thought my post quoting support that gasoline could be refined from vegetable oil is a real positive.

You seem to think that quote on vegetable oil to gasoline, diesel and propane is mine. It isn't. Just a little Google pulls it up.

[greenpower]

Originally Posted by wechoose

Wouldn't it be easier to provide a source that proves bio-gasoline can't be refined from vegetable oil? Frankly, after all of your posts pasted about the wonders derived from refining renewable sourced oil, I would have thought my post quoting support that gasoline could be refined from vegetable oil is a real positive.

You seem to think that quote on vegetable oil to gasoline, diesel and propane is mine. It isn't. Just a little Google pulls it up.

Yes, you are correct. Our process is the key. It produces the quantity and quality of biocrude that makes it profitable.

The future is now.

"A laboratory process for studying the hydrocracking of vegetable oils in a high-pressure batch reactor is described. The main goals of this study concern the transformation of soybean oil (used as a model) into gasoline and diesel fuel fractions while limiting polymerization and coking. Gas analysis and high-resolution chromatography of two liquid fractions resulting from vacuum distillation were used to determine the main steps in the hydrocracking process.
For this initial study of the general process, the three types of hydrocracking used were thermal hydrocracking and hydrocracking in the presence of an oxide or of a dualfunction catalyst (hydrogenating/cracking). In the latter case, hydrogenation of the double bonds of the lateral chains of triglycerides was observed during the heating of the reactor to about 673 K, at which temperature actual hydrocracking begins. At this temperature, the decarbonylation/decarboxylation of fatty acids (coming from the cleavage of the ester bonds of the triglycerides) is observed together with a marked hydrogenolysis in the presence of a metal catalyst. The main result of this is the production of alkanes having the same linear structure as that of the initial fatty acids. The overall weight percent of conversion may reach 83% under the right temperature and pressure conditions, including the percent of gas fraction (CO, CO2, C1-C4)."

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[greenpower]

There is no need to try and put a negative spin on my post, why would you take it as negative? The Rivera process is the key to making the conversion profitable. Why would it matter that someone can convert vegetable oil to biogasoline if their process costs $20/gal ?

I am very long SSTP and USSE and you can be quite sure I have more shares that you do.

I have been a supporter and investor in renewable energy for over 30 years (starting in 1976) in several countries. I have mainly provided funds for research in biomass gasification and anerobic digestion for use in underdeveloped countries.

This is the first process I have supported that has potential to supplement an entirely new energy sector that has much greater potential to improve our national energy security here in the USA.

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.BTW - when I said "our process is the key" in the original post I was referring to the Rivera Process (the company that you and I are part owners of) - I think that's where you jumped the track

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