Rentech Successfully Produces Ultra Clean Synthetic Fuels at Colorado Facility

rentechinc. ^ | 8/7/2008 | staff

[kellynla]

LOS ANGELES (August 7, 2008) – Rentech, Inc. (AMEX:RTK) today announced that the Company has successfully produced synthetic fuels at its Product Demonstration Unit (PDU) in Commerce City, Colorado.

Rentech’s PDU is the only synthetic fuels facility in the United States today producing transportation fuels. The facility is designed to produce approximately 420 gallons per day of synthetic jet and diesel fuels and demonstrates the successful design, construction and operation of a fully-integrated synthetic fuels facility utilizing the Rentech Process.

D. Hunt Ramsbottom, President and CEO of Rentech, said “The initial production run of ultra clean synthetic fuels at our Product Demonstration Unit has been very successful and demonstrates the strength of the Rentech Process.

Once product samples from the PDU are tested and approved by our potential customers, licensees and partners, we believe we will be well positioned to enter into contracts with them.”

Commenting on Rentech’s successful production of synthetic fuels, Jim May, President and CEO of Air Transport Association of America (ATA), said, “We congratulate Rentech in their achievement and applaud this step toward deployment of their alternative jet fuel technology using diverse and abundant sources.

With our economy and U.S. airlines both suffering greatly from high oil prices and reliance upon imports, the Air Transport Association and its member airlines are leading the way in promoting the development of cleaner, lower cost jet fuels to meet the industry’s operational needs and environmental goals.

[kellynla]

"The PDU is currently producing synthetic fuels from natural gas, and once gasification is added, it will also be capable of producing fuels from biomass and other fossil resources."

[tcostell]

Once product samples from the PDU are tested and approved by our potential customers, licensees and partners, we believe we will be well positioned to enter into contracts with them.”

When they say "well positioned" they mean as soon as their clients arrange that massive Taxpayer funded green-fuel subsidy for the federal government to make up the cost differential with avjet.

[teeman8r]

has this anything to do with the flux capacitor... and when can i get my hover craft hybrid...

t

[kellynla]

“When they say “well positioned” they mean as soon as their clients arrange that massive Taxpayer funded green-fuel subsidy for the federal government to make up the cost differential with avjet.”

I don’t think so...

I was just watching Glen Beck. He interviewed the President of Rentech.

The USAF is already using sythetic jet fuel(apparently the AF uses 85% of the jet fuel in the military) and
“ The United States Air Force has ordered that all of its aircraft be certified to use GTL fuels by 2010 and has recently announced plans to source at least 70% of its jet fuel from GTL by the year 2025.”
http://thomko.squarespace.com/journal/2008/2/5/synthetic-jet-fuel-gtl.html

[Ed Condon]

They all ready have a customer, since the Air Force has designs to certify their aircraft for syn-fuel by 2011, and
have 50% syn-fuel use by 2016.

[Ed Condon]

Where did you get your info— google “Malmstrom AFB, syn fuel.” They want to put a coal to liquid fuel facility on an unused portion of the base.

[kellynla]

“Where did you get your info?”

which info?

[Repeal The 17th]

“...producing synthetic fuels from natural gas...”
- - -
Fascinating!
- - -
RENTECH INC(AMEX: RTK)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RTK
Currently trading at $2.41.
Hey, if I buy now I can get in on the ground floor of “Big” Synthetic Oil!

[Ed Condon]

Sorry, should have read your source. Looks like a lot of this development goes on “under the radar”, while Congress grandstands.

[American in Israel]

...and once gasification is added...

Then they have beat the catalyst problem. That is BIG NEWS. The beginning of that effort had scientists saying that within ten years only third world nations would be buying oil.

We are about to see a sea of dirty politics surface.

[alloysteel]

Using natural gas (methane) as a feedstock to reformulate a grade of engine fuel potentially so much cleaner burning than that refined even from the light grades of crude oil, points to a vast revolution in the extraction of energy over the next century. A huge storehouse of energy lies at the base of our continental shelf, in the form of Methane Hydrate, a stable form of natural gas that could, with an application of known principles, be harvested from the ocean floor. This deposit of Methane Hydrate is constantly renewing, as the decomposition of organic materials on the ocean floor is going on continuously, and the conditions of temperature and pressure force the methane evolved into the Methane Hydrate configuration. Probably three times the energy in all the known and suspected reserves of coal, petroleum and natural gas on the entire planet, is just lying there in the Methane Hydrate deposits.

The world is going to be operating primarily on carbon-based fuel for well into the infinite future. This insistance on “carbon caps” is an attempt to foreclose our access to that source of energy. Carbon dioxide, the product of combustion of carbon-based fuel, is supposed to be “bad”, a “poisonous” by-product of industrialization.

Know this and know it for a certainty: Carbon dioxide is plant food. Without it, plants wither and die. It is our OBLIGATION to increase carbon dioxide to the degree we are able, to aid our plant life on this planet to grow and extend to its maximum limit.

There is no climate “cure”, because there is no climate “disease”. We rely on carbon-based fuel, and the excess carbon dioxide merely goes into accelerated and extended plant growth. So long as we encourage plant growth at every juncture, by cultivation and land management, the content of carbon dioxide shall never rise above about 0.05% concentration in the atmosphere.

Plants require carbon dioxide to conduct photosynthesis, and greenhouses may enrich their atmospheres with additional CO2 to boost plant growth, since its low present-day atmosphere concentration is just above the “suffocation” level for green plants. A photosynthesis-related drop in carbon dioxide concentration in a greenhouse compartment can kill green plants.

[kellynla]

How ‘bout them Angels....J/K

Thanks for your input.
For a guy who was lucky to pass HS Biology, I “think” I comprehended about 10% of what you just posted.LOL

But what about the synthetic fuel from Rentech? Any thoughts?

[Repeal The 17th]

“...excess carbon dioxide merely goes into accelerated and extended plant growth...”
- - -
That and being absorbed into the oceans. You are spot on.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Gasification?

From what source of the carbon/oxygen/hydrogen?

Sounds good - if the process comes from a coal sands/coal tar base - but we have better things to do with natural gas, if that's the feedstock.

[American in Israel]

There is no climate “cure”, because there is no climate “disease”. We rely on carbon-based fuel, and the excess carbon dioxide merely goes into accelerated and extended plant growth. So long as we encourage plant growth at every juncture, by cultivation and land management, the content of carbon dioxide shall never rise above about 0.05% concentration in the atmosphere

Now that is a very stunning conclusion. Am I getting this correctly, that if we raise the level of C02 to 0.06% we will not get a final result of 0.06% but 0.05% and more trees? If it is true that increasing CO2 stimulates plant growth means that plant life is a natural regulator of CO2.

[American in Israel]

Syngas can be generated from trash, any carbon based organic compound. The hitch has always been reforming the syngas into useable compounds.

Vehicle fuel being the holy grail of targets for syngas reformation!

[Robert A Cook PE]

CO2 “balance” levels are a tough call: particularly since they've NEVER been stable in the past.

We simply can't call ANY concentration of CO2 “stable” “ideal” nor permanent.

Right now, CO2 levels are increasing just over 1% per year, at fairly consistent rate = they ARE NOT accelerating their increase to any noticeable degree.

But WHERE the CO2 that is increasing is coming from is notoriously easy to claim, notoriously difficult (for either side!) to prove.

So, the enviro’s are busy making black-faced-bold-print statements that the change is due to the burning of fossil fuels, plus the destruction of the forests, but have NEVER shown the math establishing EITHER claim, nor what percent of the newly-burned CO2 (by humans) is re-absorbed by increased plant growth. Skeptics of AGW theories say that today's increase in CO2 is due to the ocean's warming up, and is the “natural” long-term 800 year delay between an increase in the temperature and the increase in CO2 levels that tracks back many million years.

But (equally) the skeptics have not shown the math behind the small change in ocean temperatures, the mass of cold water and warm ocean waters, and the observed CO2 changes. Skeptics have not, to date, calculated how much MORE CO2 is being used by the observed 17%-27% INCREASE in photosynthesis that increased CO2 brings about.

So, both sides must simply “Show me the math” to establish their point.

Or, more likely, the mixture of effects creating a single observed affect: some increased fossil fuel burning, some increased discharge of CO2 from the oceans, some CO2 “not absorbed” by (slightly smaller) jungle growth as jungles are burned - MATCHED/OFFSET (?) by increased timber and brush/grassland growth in the cleared areas, matched/offset (?) by increased CO2 and photosynthesis.

[xcamel]

Are there “syn taxes” on SynFuels?

[Repeal The 17th]

you betcha

[Right Wing Assault]

producing synthetic fuels from natural gas

So those who heat their homes with it in the winter will see even more competition for it (higher heating bills again). First it was the 'clean' power plants. Now it is jet fuel.