Posted on 07/31/2013 7:09:33 PM PDT by neverdem
Facility Offers Promise of Producing Fuel Out of Everything From Grass to Garbage
A Florida plant started commercial-scale production of advanced ethanol, its owners said Wednesday, marking the first time a U.S. facility has made large quantities of the fuel from the inedible parts of plants.
The news was a milestone for the renewable fuels industry, which has been dogged by criticism that its current method of making fuel from corn or sugar diverts those crops from the food chain and raises food prices.
If INEOS Bio can sustain production at the Florida plant, it would offer the promise of a new industry producing fuel out of everything from grass to garbage.
"One of the frustrations of the policy debate has been the comment that, 'It's not here yet, no one is producing yet,' " said Peter Williams, chief executive of INEOS Bio, in an interview. Now, he said, "it's arriving. It's here."
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said INEOS Bio, a unit of Switzerland-based chemical manufacturer INEOS, was using a technology that the Department of Energy helped develop in the 1990s.
The INEOS plant in Vero Beach, Fla., heats organic material like yard waste or wood chips, producing a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Then it uses bacteria to ferment the gas and create ethanol, which is widely used in the U.S. as an additive to gasoline.
The company says it intends to sell ethanol into the U.S. fuel market and plans to release its first shipments in August. A spokesman wouldn't say how much ethanol the plant has produced so far but said it has achieved "commercial-scale production."
"We expect to spend the remainder of 2013 putting the plant through its paces, and demonstrating" that the plant can reach its official capacity of eight million gallons per...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The subsidy you are referring to ended 12/31/2011
If this actually worked and was economically viable, it would be fabulous. Too bad it doesn’t, and it isn’t - at least, not here. It MIGHT be viable in Brazil - for a while, anyway.
“This isn’t a beer, officer. This is Advanced Ethanol. With all due respect, sir, I wouldn’t expect you to know the difference, but in fact they are completely different.”
The problem there is in the harvesting. Pulling Kudzu out of trees is no fun at all..
Thus depriving agricultural soils of a needed source of organic matter.
We have plenty of oil and gas. We should stop mining topsoil pursuant to fantasy science, be it oil as a "fossil fuel" or anthropogenic global warming. Both are false.
Solyndra two.
Arose by another color.
“For many years, ethanol has also been used as a 10 percent mixture with gasoline in a blend called “gasohol” or. E10 to reduce carbon monoxide emissions.”
I Googled “reduce carbon monoxide” ethanol
I know I'm not going to like the answer, but what are they using to create that heat? And to vaporize plant material, we're not talking 100 F, were talking 300 - 500 F!
So a lot of "heat" for that CO & H2...
I worked on this ten years ago. The Russian’s had a process that worked well with wood chips and other cellulose.
Trouble is the byproducts. We made some at a pilot plant that had good yield, but left a sticky black goo that plugged up the cooker.
There’s a Canadian outfit which is now marketing the byproduct lignin. http://www.lignol.ca/
For many years, ethanol has also been used as a 10 percent mixture with gasoline in a blend called “gasohol” or. E10 to pay off ADM.
Oxygenation of fuels was a "solution" that arrived at about the same time electronic fuel injection made it unnecessary.
Thanks for the info. How does the requirement for oxygenated fuels remain on the books?
Lignin is otherwise converted to humus by actinomycetes.
It's really much better to mine oil than soil. Ooo! New tagline!
The early date of the Iowa caucuses.
Very interesting. Means they finally got the enzymes to work right and be cost feasible.
“We made some at a pilot plant that had good yield, but left a sticky black goo that plugged up the cooker.”
this process is gasification to extinction meaning only mineral rich ash will remain after the fluidized bed gasifier. They are able to use all 3 parts of a plant cellulose hemi-cellulose and lignin the technology break threw is the use of a genetically modified organism that can use CO and H2 gas as its energy/carbon source.
Any carbon containing material that can be gasified to CO+H2 would work be that from grass, wood scraps, garbage, natural gas, coal , petcoke, sewage sludge et al. The energy to heat the material to the gasification level of 500’c or so can come from the produced gas itself about 15% of the off gas would be needed in that case. Otherwise the heat can come from natural gas which is super cheap right now coal also cheap by the ton, off peak electricity which in some parts of the country is priced in the NEGATIVE range. Meaning power producers are paying people to take the surplus power at night (typically wind power in Texas we have 4000+ Gigawatts installed already that run full bore all night at times in west texas when demand is low). The point is the gasifier cares not where the endothermic heat comes from and with proper design use any or all of these heat sources at once or as the market dictates. off peak energy at night, coal or shale gas during the day or use the off gas from the feedstocks itself.
There is over 1 billion tons of agricultural waste produced every year as well as a comparable amount in forestry wastes and trimmings to prevent brush fires. The ash left over from this process if clean agriwaste or forestry is used is mineral rich fertilizer and should be returned to the lands to prevent mineral depletion. If coal, sewage or petcoke is used the ash will have heavy metals in it but as these would be fully oxidized and therefore non-mobile biologically they can be land filled or used to make concrete blocks or roads with. In any case ash levels would be ~5% of the total dry weight of any feedstocks so the ash volume would be small anyway.
As to the billion tons of biomass this biomass will be grown anyway it is the wastes from our food production all the sticks and stems of corn , rice , wheat et al. Peer reviewed research has shown that 50-75% could be removed from the fields and not affect the topsoil humus balance. For those wondering I am in fact a triple degreed Geoscientist and have done research in biomass, biofuels as well as the petrochemical fields. Shale gas and/or biomass carbon is a sure fire way to turn wastes into liquid fuels that work in our current infrastructure.
I would hate to see this work on the large scale it will stop the petroleum industry from paying me exuberantly to directionally drill more oil but this really is the way forward in the long term, as cars get more efficient and the move to plug in cars happens its only a matter of time before batteries progress to be economical. The oil will be used for chemicals and fertilizers and medicines not burnt which is fine by me petrochemicals are the backbone of modern high standards of living they are not going away any time soon or if ever.
I have a 100 standing bet if someone can find me a commercial item or product in an average room that was not transported by, has a component of, or was produced, refined, or manufactured with energy from a petrochemical or fossil source they can take my 100 bucks.
I have never ever had anyone find me a product that meets these 100% fossil free metrics EVER. I have had Phd. Environmental scientists try and try and try infront of hundreds of students too and I always find a fossil source of embedded energy or components.
One got close with food grown in the back yard. It was first off noncommercial so excluded but even then the fertilizer is fossil based...organic manure got to you by diesel truck btw as did the feed to those animals in the first place. Seeds from walmart or home depot...seriously logistical diesel nightmare.
Pasture grown cattle hand collecting manure carted by horse drawn pasture fed horses cart made all of wood not a single iron nail or wheel rim as iron is refined with coking coal seeds from the wild collected by hand and harvested by hand , transported by said horses... yup only on the 1700’s could one have meet my 100% bet and one would have to live at 1700’s standards of living to do it.
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