By Clayton B. Cornell •
February 20, 2009
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.
By Clayton B. Cornell •
February 11, 2009
Sandia labs just released a report indicating that by 2030, the US could produce a total of 90 billion gallons of ethanol from plant waste and energy crops, including 75 billion gallons coming from switchgrass, corn stover, wheat straw and woody crops.
What’s the catch? For this fuel to be economically viable, oil will have to stay above $90 per barrel (oil is currently hovering around $42 / barrel).
Key points from the study include:
- Researchers picked middle range assumptions for their estimates. ”We didn’t pick the most optimistic assumptions or the most pessimistic.”
- The $90 per barrel figure is based on a few important assumptions: 91 gallons of ethanol can be produced from a dry ton of biomass, building a cellulosic ethanol plant would cost $3.60 per gallon of capacity, and plants would pay an average of $40 per dry ton of feedstock.
- 90 million gallons would surpass the federal mandate of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel be produced by 2022
By Nick Chambers •
January 9, 2009
After a $90 million shot in the arm from oil giant BP back in August, second generation cellulosic ethanol pioneer Verenium has started production of ethanol from non-food sources such as wood chips, grass straw, and trash at their Jennings Louisiana demonstration plant (PDF). This is the first such plant to begin operation in the US.
As most of the first generation corn ethanol world has started to exit stage left in a loud and raucous way, the pioneers of second generation cellulosic ethanol — what I like to call “celluline” — have been quietly conducting dress rehearsals for their grand entrance.
And now the world of cellulosic ethanol has an honest-to-goodness demonstration plant to prove that it works. The plant will produce 1.4 million gallons of ethanol a year. Although it’s not at the commercial scale yet (60+ MGY), this represents a huge leap forward for second generation ethanol, which to this point has been full of promises but lacking on deliverables.
By Keith Rockmael •
December 12, 2008
In a supposed progressive green city, it won’t be until today that San Francisco finally gets its own biodiesel station – Dogpatch Biofuels. It’s been a long time in the making with permits, and inspections and the like. Hasn’t San Francisco seen biodiesel before? You’d think that they were dispensing nitroglycerin the way the approval process worked like molasses.
We’re not counting the Olympic Station that sells B20 to mostly fleet vehicles and trucks or the op-op that used to operate in SoMa. Here, we have an honest to goodness B100 (or rather B99.99999) biodiesel station for autos. All the Mercedes and converted vehicle owners can rejoice at not having to drive to the East Bay or San Mateo to fill up their tanks. Even better, we can all rejoice at the fact that the station owners get their fuel not from GMO corn or switchgrass or any food but rather from San Francisco’s own waste grease program, so we can all be proud when consuming those greasy fries.
By Adam Shake •
October 21, 2008
The Desmoines Register reported the other day that Iowa’s ethanol plants contributed to 15 Percent, or 7.6 million metric tons to a total 52 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions.
By Clayton B. Cornell •
October 16, 2008
If you watched last night’s debate, you heard the question: What will you do in your first term to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?
Did either candidate actually answer the question? Not really. But here’s why McCain’s answer of offshore-drilling-nuclear-power-wind-solar-geothermal-natural-gas is completely bogus.
By Ariel Schwartz •
August 12, 2008
It seems like new reports are practically coming out daily about the next great gasoline alternative— furfural, algae, and switchgrass, just to name a few. Now 3 more contenders have entered the ring: leaves, twigs, and bark.
Australia’s Commonwealth Science and Research Organization (CSIRO) reports that lignocellulose, a component of plants and wood, could potentially be used as a cheap fuel—as inexpensive as $40-60 a barrel.
Even better, lignocellulose biofuels are compatible with current facilities. All they need for conversion is an extra unit in front of any existing sugar biofuel facility.
Dutch firm Green Fuel Systems, along with several other companies, has developed flex-fuel conversion kits for the Toyota Prius that cost less than $1,000. Converting our existing fleet to second-generation ethanol could be the best near-term play to directly replace fossil fuels.
Although the concept of a hybrid/biofuel combo has been around for a while, it has (at least in our minds) mostly been in the form of diesel hybrids running on biodiesel (which isn’t going to happen). But what if we could take America’s most fuel efficient car and convert it to run on another domestically-produced renewable fuel: cellulosic ethanol?
By Nick Chambers •
August 7, 2008
Sheesh. It seems that everybody and their brothers are ethanol experts these days. But what drives me nuts is that when people are talking about ethanol, they don’t seem to know what type of ethanol they’re talking about.
It’s sad because the widespread misinformation and misunderstanding is killing popular opinion for biofuels in general right now and, in particular, mercilessly destroying the good name of the second generation of ethanol — cellulosic ethanol.
The truth of the matter is that cellulosic ethanol will be made from non-food sources (miscanthus, switchgrass, wood waste, and even garbage) that can be grown on marginal land or is already a waste byproduct of society.
The production of cellulosic ethanol could have huge benefits beyond energy independence:
By Nick Chambers •
August 6, 2008
It seems that BP is trying to make up for lost time — the worldwide oil giant has invested $90 million in cellulosic ethanol company, Verenium. This is BP’s first foray into the world of cellulosic ethanol (ethanol derived from non-food crops), and man is it a gigantic one.
The money will be distributed to Verenium over the next 18 months, with a likelihood of further investment and cooperation beyond that point. Under the agreement, BP will have broad access to Verenium’s research, production facilities, and technology.
Although relatively late to the fray, BP thinks this investment gives them the “most advanced technology for transforming [cellulosic material] to biofuels,” as Sue Ellerbusch, president of BP Biofuels North America said.
Verenium claims to have the edge in cellulosic ethanol production through genetic engineering of the microbes required to turn the cellulosic material (switchgrass, wood chips, sugarcane bagasse, miscanthus) into ethanol.
By Nick Chambers •
August 5, 2008
Imagine a grass crop, grown on marginal, non-food bearing land without pesticides or much fertilizer, that, when harvested, produces an oil that needs almost no processing to be substituted for diesel fuel.
Much attention has been given to producing ethanol from non-food crops like grasses, but the ability to produce something indistinguishable to diesel from grass could be a game-changer. It would require almost no infrastructure change and could fuel all of the existing long-haul trucks on the road without modification.
