No major oil outlets have fully embraced biofuels, although British Petroleum has just announced that it may begin commercial production of ethanol starting in 2010.

BP has partnered with Verenium to bring a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility online next year to start bringing alternative fuels to a gas pump near you.

BP has big plans for biofuels and seems to be marching towards an alternative fuel future faster than many of its competitors. Verenium already has a demonstration plant in Louisiana capable of producing over a million gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually, and BP hopes to ramp production up. The Verenium process uses proprietary enzymes to break down grass feedstock and convert it to ethanol more efficiently.

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On the heels of the opening of Coskata’s first flex ethanol facility capable of making ethanol from virtually any organic material, GM and Coskata have released a video (below) detailing the Coskata process. Unlike most promotional/informational videos that get dumped on the public, this one is actually rather informative.

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Pennsylvania is beautiful this time of year, but I missed most of it since I made the 400+ mile drive mostly in the dark. It took eight hours of dodging speeding semi-trucks and going through many miles of tunnels, but I finally made it to the Westinghouse Plasma Center in Madison, PA. In case you’re asking, yes, the same Westinghouse that makes flat screen televisions (among other nifty tech stuff).

The Coskata semi-commercial flexible ethanol plant, dubbed “Lighthouse”, is located here. This facility is essentially a working scale model of a full size ethanol plant, and the processes and technology here can one day soon be scaled up to produce as much as a 100 million gallons of flex ethanol annually. The important word here is flexible, because unlike other ethanol products, the Coskata process can use just about any carbon matter to produce ethanol. This means the very garbage filling our dumps may one day instead fill our cars.

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ZeaChem — a company launched in 1998 by “two guys in a pickup” and ranked by Biofuels Digest as the 11th hottest company in bioenergy last year — claims that their process for making advanced, next-generation ethanol from fast growing woody crops such as poplars will result in a yield of 2,000 gallons of ethanol per acre.

In case you’re wondering if that number is good, compare it to the current yield obtained by the best managed corn ethanol plants of about 450 gallons per acre. A 2,000 gallon per acre yield is on par with the amount of fuel algae outfits claim they can produce with technology that doesn’t really yet exist. ZeaChem’s process already functions using available technology.

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Earlier this year we caught up with Alan Novak, Director of Alternative Fuels for Emerson Process Management, to discuss last December’s BioEnergy Summit.

In that post we touched on how, depending on your perspective, biofuel and bioenergy production represent either unmitigated hype and controversy on the one hand, or the potential promise and hope for a sustainable clean energy future based, in part, on an abundant renewable fuel source on the other.

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Today at Noon, a Shell service station in Ottawa, Ontario will quietly begin selling cellulosic ethanol blended into regular gasoline. The biofuel is made locally from wheat straw, and as far as we know is the first time cellulosic ethanol has been made publicly available.

The new fuel will only be available for one month, starting on June 10th, but it’s a major step forward for the production of advanced biofuels. All gasoline purchased at the Ottawa station will be a blend of 10% cellulosic ethanol and 90% gasoline (CE10).

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Mascoma Corp. says it has found a way to remove several steps from the process of making cellulosic ethanol, cutting the cost and time it takes to make the fuel, while increasing yields.

The Lebanon, N.H.-based company says it has made advances in consolidated bioprocessing, a process that uses engineered microorganism to make ethanol from cellulosic biomass, such as grasses, stalks and wood waste. Mascoma’s CBP process eliminates the need to produce costly cellulase enzymes, by producing the cellulase and ethanol in a single step.

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Scientists know how to make fuel from prairie grasses growing on marginal land.

They know how to make fuel from fast growing trees with root systems that extend 25 feet into the ground, sequestering carbon emissions and enriching the soil. They even know how to make fuel from algae. They do all this in their labs every day. The problem is making cellulosic and algal fuel in large quantities at costs that compete with fuels from petroleum such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

This is my second article (previous article) from the 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals sponsored by NREL (also see the liveblogging from the event). 800 global bioscientists gathered in San Francisco to share their research and showcase their progress.

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Vehicles fueled by biomass-fired electricity would travel 81% farther on a given crop and produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than vehicles powered by ethanol, a new study finds.

In a new study published online yesterday in the journal Science, researchers led by Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced modeled entire fuel systems all the way from crop cultivation to vehicle propulsion, comparing cumulative greenhouse-gas emissions for both biofuels and bioelectricity. They found that the bioelectric pathway came out ahead of both corn ethanol and advanced cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass.

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Mascoma says they’ve achieved a 60% reduction in cost for their consolidated bioprocessing technology (CBP).

Mascoma Corp., a well-known firm pursuing the advanced production of cellulosic ethanol, announced today what they’re calling “major scientific advances” that will enable them to produce lower cost, lower carbon fuel from sustainable sources.

This is a true breakthrough that takes us much, much closer to billions of gallons of low cost cellulosic biofuels. Many had thought that CBP was years or even decades away, but the future just arrived. Mascoma has permanently changed the biofuels landscape from here on.

-Dr. Bruce Dale, Scientific Advistory Board of Mascoma

Mascoma’s value-proposition is to elminate as many steps as possible in the processing of non-food cellulosic feedstocks to produce ethanol. The consolidation of the process—which involves enzymatically breaking apart cellulose into sugars, and then fermenting the sugars into alcohol—dramatically reduces overall cost. CBP eliminates the need for added and costly enzymes to process pretreated lignocellulose into ethanol.

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The 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals

One of the world’s most prestigious and established biofuels meetings, the 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals, is currently underway May 3-6 in San Francisco, with more than 800 scientists expected to attend sessions on topics ranging from commercialization of biofuels and their long-term sustainability to emerging technologies and turning algae into fuel.

We’re liveblogging (on Twitter) from today’s press meeting for the event.

You can also follow the author here, or just search for hashtag #biofuelsymposium.
 
Speaking about a different project, Dr. Stuart Thomas with DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol outlined their plans to bring a 20 million gallon per year plant on line in 2012. They are evaluating non-food feedstocks with much higher yields per acre than corn, including switchgrass and sorghum. DuPont Danisco anticipates reaching parity with $60 to $100/barrel oil by 2015. The pilot plant will be in Tennessee which is providing $70 million of funding for ethanol from switchgrass.

The long-term potential for biofuels may not be in ethanol, but in renewable gasoline, biodiesel, bio-jet fuel, and biocrude. All contain more energy than ethanol, which only delivers 84,000 BTU/gallon. Gasoline delivers 114,000; biodiesel 120,000.

With better microbes and fewer process steps, Chief scientist Dr. Steve del Cardayre with LS9, presented plans to produce industry standard biodiesel from energy cane. The plant should be able to compete with oil at today’s prices by also producing other valuable outputs, such as chemicals which can be used to make detergents. Synthetic biology competitor, Amyris, is moving even faster in building process plants to convert energy cane into renewable hydrocarbons and bio-jet fuel.

Indeed, creating multiple products from a process plant is likely to be critical to having a profitable industry. Oil refining is profitable because fractional distillation creates many valuable products at one refiner:

·    Naphtha which can be processed into chemicals and plastics
·    Gasoline
·    Jet fuel
·    Diesel
·    Heavy oils which can be processed into lubricants and asphalt

Gevo will build plants with mass efficiency of over 40 percent that can produce multiple products including:
·    Bio-jet fuel
·    Bio-diesel
·    Isobutanol for other products

Gevo sees opportunities to buy existing moth-balled ethanol plants and retrofit for $30 million per plant, a fraction of building a cellulosic plant from scratch. Gevo’s yeast fermentation process produces heat and steam which would be valuable if co-located with industrial processes that benefit from combined heat and power.

 
By converting wood waste to next generation fuel, Mascoma has a significant potential to co-locate with existing paper mills and wood processing operations. The same is true for Range Fuels.

Enerkem is being paid to covert municipal solid waste into fuel as it targets 2011 to bring live a 9.6 million gallon per year plant in Edmonton, Canada, and a 20 million gallon per year plant in Pontotoc, Mississippi.

Beyond the cellulosic sources for fuel, covered in this article, is the potential for fuel from algae. A future article will examine the near-term challenges and long-term potential of algal fuel.

As this Symposium took place in California, in Copenhagen, Greenpeace protesters stopped all buses because they use biofuel from food sources. In the future, they may welcome biofuel from wood and waste sources as an alternative to gasoline from tar sands and jet fuel from coal.

This December, the leaders of the world will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to develop a framework for a more promising sustainable future. In Denmark they will be able to visit a new cellulosic ethanol plant developed by Inbicon. The feedstock will be an agricultural waste product - wheat straw. The plant will process 24 metric tons per day of wheat straw, ten times more than a demonstration plant that Inbicon only a few years ago. The plant will be more efficient and come closer to competing with refined oil because the operation will have three products creating three revenue streams:

1.    5.4 million liters ethanol year
2.    8,250 MT biofuel which will displace some coal used by a power plant
3.    11,250 MT of molasses which will be used to feed cattle

Can such operations displace all our need for petroleum? No, but in five years we will see commercial scale next generation biofuel operations. If oil is selling for $100 dollar per barrel, then cellulosic biofuels may lower our cost of fuel. In ten years, all such operations could displace 30 percent of our petroleum use and represent an important step towards energy independence.

Cellulosic ethanol is not the only sustainable solution that world leaders will see in Copenhagen. They will see at least 40 percent of the population commuting on bicycles, demonstrating an immediate and very cost-effective way to reduce our need for oil. Many delegates will ride on electric light-rail from the airport and notice the wind farms that deliver the electricity. Some will ride in electric cars that further demonstrate transportation that uses renewable energy.

Next generation biofuels promise to be part of a portfolio of solutions to our current climate and energy problems.

John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report. He is the author of a new book about the future of transportation – Save Gas, Save the Planet.

Image Credit: Clayton B. Cornell

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Speaking about a different project, Dr. Stuart Thomas with DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol outlined their plans to bring a 20 million gallon per year plant on line in 2012. They are evaluating non-food feedstocks with much higher yields per acre than corn, including switchgrass and sorghum. DuPont Danisco anticipates reaching parity with $60 to $100/barrel oil by 2015. The pilot plant will be in Tennessee which is providing $70 million of funding for ethanol from switchgrass.

The long-term potential for biofuels may not be in ethanol, but in renewable gasoline, biodiesel, bio-jet fuel, and biocrude. All contain more energy than ethanol, which only delivers 84,000 BTU/gallon. Gasoline delivers 114,000; biodiesel 120,000.

With better microbes and fewer process steps, Chief scientist Dr. Steve del Cardayre with LS9, presented plans to produce industry standard biodiesel from energy cane. The plant should be able to compete with oil at today’s prices by also producing other valuable outputs, such as chemicals which can be used to make detergents. Synthetic biology competitor, Amyris, is moving even faster in building process plants to convert energy cane into renewable hydrocarbons and bio-jet fuel.

Indeed, creating multiple products from a process plant is likely to be critical to having a profitable industry. Oil refining is profitable because fractional distillation creates many valuable products at one refiner:

·    Naphtha which can be processed into chemicals and plastics
·    Gasoline
·    Jet fuel
·    Diesel
·    Heavy oils which can be processed into lubricants and asphalt

Gevo will build plants with mass efficiency of over 40 percent that can produce multiple products including:
·    Bio-jet fuel
·    Bio-diesel
·    Isobutanol for other products

Gevo sees opportunities to buy existing moth-balled ethanol plants and retrofit for $30 million per plant, a fraction of building a cellulosic plant from scratch. Gevo’s yeast fermentation process produces heat and steam which would be valuable if co-located with industrial processes that benefit from combined heat and power.

 
By converting wood waste to next generation fuel, Mascoma has a significant potential to co-locate with existing paper mills and wood processing operations. The same is true for Range Fuels.

Enerkem is being paid to covert municipal solid waste into fuel as it targets 2011 to bring live a 9.6 million gallon per year plant in Edmonton, Canada, and a 20 million gallon per year plant in Pontotoc, Mississippi.

Beyond the cellulosic sources for fuel, covered in this article, is the potential for fuel from algae. A future article will examine the near-term challenges and long-term potential of algal fuel.

As this Symposium took place in California, in Copenhagen, Greenpeace protesters stopped all buses because they use biofuel from food sources. In the future, they may welcome biofuel from wood and waste sources as an alternative to gasoline from tar sands and jet fuel from coal.

This December, the leaders of the world will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to develop a framework for a more promising sustainable future. In Denmark they will be able to visit a new cellulosic ethanol plant developed by Inbicon. The feedstock will be an agricultural waste product - wheat straw. The plant will process 24 metric tons per day of wheat straw, ten times more than a demonstration plant that Inbicon only a few years ago. The plant will be more efficient and come closer to competing with refined oil because the operation will have three products creating three revenue streams:

1.    5.4 million liters ethanol year
2.    8,250 MT biofuel which will displace some coal used by a power plant
3.    11,250 MT of molasses which will be used to feed cattle

Can such operations displace all our need for petroleum? No, but in five years we will see commercial scale next generation biofuel operations. If oil is selling for $100 dollar per barrel, then cellulosic biofuels may lower our cost of fuel. In ten years, all such operations could displace 30 percent of our petroleum use and represent an important step towards energy independence.

Cellulosic ethanol is not the only sustainable solution that world leaders will see in Copenhagen. They will see at least 40 percent of the population commuting on bicycles, demonstrating an immediate and very cost-effective way to reduce our need for oil. Many delegates will ride on electric light-rail from the airport and notice the wind farms that deliver the electricity. Some will ride in electric cars that further demonstrate transportation that uses renewable energy.

Next generation biofuels promise to be part of a portfolio of solutions to our current climate and energy problems.

John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report. He is the author of a new book about the future of transportation – Save Gas, Save the Planet.

Image Credit: Clayton B. Cornell

The Good

The 9 billion gallons of ethanol that Americans used last year helped drive down oil prices. For those of us who fuel our vehicles with gasoline, as much as 10 percent of that gasoline is ethanol. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires that more biofuel be used every year until we reach 36 billion gallons by 2022.

Reduced oil prices are good. We can go from good to great, if we move past fuel from food and haste to fuels from wood and waste. Although the economics do not yet favor major production, pilot plants are taking wood and paper waste and converting it to fuel. Other cellulosic material is even more promising. Some grasses , energy crops, and hybrid poplar trees promise zero-emission fuel sources. These plants absorb CO2 and sequester it in the soil with their deep root systems. These plants often grow in marginal lands needing little irrigation and no fertilizers and pesticides, standing in sharp contrast to the industrial agriculture that produces much of our fuel. (see Dedicated Energy Crops Could Replace 30% of Gasoline: Ceres, Inc. Wants to Make it Happen)

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The Environment Protection Agency ordered that about 9 billion gallons of ethanol be blended with fuels in 2008, a major portion of this came from corn and maize - both being edible crops. Farmers were given billions in subsidies to grow biofuel yielding crops, seeing great demand for biofuels on the back of record breaking oil prices farmers opted to sell these food crops to biofuel companies which in turn led to the food crisis witnessed last year. 

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Courtesy of Reuters, here is a list of cellulosic ethanol plants currently operating or under construction in the US. We’ve been following a number of these companies over the last year, and I’ve linked each company name to either something we’ve written about them or their company website.

For more background on cellulosic ethanol, see: Dedicated Energy Crops Could Replace 30% of Gasoline.

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The aggressive, worldwide production of cellulosic ethanol could both “contribute substantially to future global-scale energy needs” and have “significant unintended environmental consequences” says a study from MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

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On Wednesday, BP anounced a joint venture with Verenium to build the world’s largest cellulosic ethanol facility.  BP’s total investment—now $112.5 million—will be the largest by an oil company in advanced, non-food-based biofuels.

The Florida-based plant would be 25 times larger than Verenium’s existing (and operational) cellulosic ethanol facility in Louisiana, which began operation earlier this month and is expected to produce 60+ million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year when at full capacity. This new, larger facility is schedule to break ground in 2010 and commece operations in 2012.

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RFA, the national trade association for the ethanol industry, published its own analysis of the U of M report, refuting its findings and claiming that it was based on “baseless” assumptions.

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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have come up with a straightforward two-step process to convert cellulose — the ubiquitous energy-rich molecules found in all plant material — into a furfural biofuel.

To make this simple process reality, Ron Raines and his graduate student, Joseph Binder, developed a special mix of solvents and additives with an extraordinary capacity to dissolve cellulose.

“This solvent system can dissolve cotton balls, which are pure cellulose,” says Raines. “And it’s a simple system—not corrosive, dangerous, expensive or stinky.”

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