It's the next big thing you've never heard of: environmentally friendly fuels so structurally similar to petroleum, they "drop in" to existing technology and infrastructure. Companies currently researching and developing this new generation of biofuels claim that their processes extract value from naturally occurring resources without wreaking environmental havoc. Their raw materials, or "feedstock," range from sugar cane processing waste to algae and bacteria. But what's even more exciting than drop-in biofuel's green potential?
Jobs, right now. In late 2011, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Sundrop Fuels announced the construction of a $450 million biofuels refinery to create "the world's first renewable green gasoline that's adaptable to existing pumps, pipelines, engines and transportation infrastructure." Construction on the initial phase of Sundrop's facility will take place this year, with a 50 million gallon per year refinery due for completion in 2014. Its Alexandria, La., site will benefit from 150 well-paid manufacturing and research and development jobs, with the potential for 1,300 indirect jobs for the Central Louisiana region.
To realize an operation of this scale, a number of pieces had to fall into place. In this case, it took a combination of resource availability, the right technology, investment, state aid and legislation. Geographically, Alexandria is well positioned to access to Sundrop's feedstock: natural gas coupled with wood byproducts from renewable forests are made into fuel using Sundrop's proprietary conversion technology and ThyssenKrupp Uhde's High Temperature Winkler gasification process. Venture capital and a significant investment from Chesapeake Energy, Louisiana's biggest natural gas company, provided funding, while Louisiana's Economic Development (LED) team actively pursued Sundrop with performance-based grants, tax credits, subsidies, and a robust workforce development program. Not every state incentivizes alternative fuel investment, and LED achieved its objective without using federal funds.
In 2005, former President George W. Bush signed the Renewable Fuel Standard into law, which stipulates that, by this year, 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels must be blended into gasoline. The EPA later upped the volume to 9 billion gallons in 2008, with a projected goal of 36 billion gallons in 2022. Nine billion of anything may seem like a lot, but in fact this figure represents only around 6.7 percent of America's current gasoline consumption. In 2009, the EU set its own targets: in EU member states, a 20 percent share of energy must come from renewable resources by 2020, 10 percent in the transportation sector, leading to an annual savings of 10 billion euros. While growth and profit drive corporations to find innovative solutions to problems such as diminishing energy supplies, legislation and government oversight can stimulate markets and dispel uncertainty.
Given the potential of drop-in biofuels, the U.S. and EU have every reason to raise renewable fuel thresholds even higher. Advantages include energy security, reduced dependence on foreign oil, fewer carbon dioxide emissions and domestic job creation. More than a dozen alternative fuels are currently in production, use, or under development, but the U.S. government forecasts that ethanol primarily will be used to meet the 36 billion gallon standard for 2022. When President Bush and the EU set targets, ethanol seemed the most promising area of alternative fuel development. Yet ethanol presents as many problems as it purports to solve, and it has proven difficult to champion.
While ethanol is renewable and corn is plentiful in the U.S., it's not as environmentally sound, or as user-friendly, as initially expected. Unlike drop-in fuels, ethanol requires blending with gasoline to ameliorate its corrosive effects on pipelines, car engines and fuel systems. Ethanol contains less combustible energy than petroleum, which means poor mileage, and while it emits fewer greenhouse gasses, it also creates smog. Critics of ethanol and biodiesel from soybeans point out that their production can have devastating environmental effects, including deforestation and polluting run-off from fields. They drive up food prices, compete for farmland, and contribute to global food shortages.
Big Oil has already invested $71 billion into renewable, low- and zero-emission technologies, including drop-in biofuels. Royal Dutch Shell and enzyme producer Codexis have been developing "cellulosic" ethanol from sugar cane waste and straw. However, earlier this year, Shell, using technology developed by Madison, Wis.-based Virent, constructed a pilot plant in Houston to make small lots of drop-in biofuels rather than ethanol. In 2010, ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics opened a La Jolla, Calif., industrial greenhouse to create fuels derived from algae. Occurring through photosynthesis, algae biofuel can be produced on unarable land like desert. However, the oil giant's research team has yet to find a natural strain of algae that yields fuel on a significant scale. While next-generation biofuels producers will undoubtedly face similarly unforeseen hurdles and challenges, it is possible that being green just may be getting easier.
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The ONLY biomass we should be using it WASTE.
Anything else is stravation.
More details at http://www.jatrophabiodiesel.org/jatropha_training.php
"Sundrop's feedstock: natural gas coupled with wood byproducts from renewable forests"
Calling natural gas a biofuel is a reach, certainly not green or renewable.
Calling agricultural byproducts waste isn't very accurate either. A more accurate description would be the products of agricultural strip-mining.
It causes swimming bans, changes the color of the sea water, and generally isn’t too fun for the tourists. There’s some speculation that it thrives on sewerage and also the fish wastes that end up in the waters because of the fishing industry.
I’ve picked up a link on wikipedia concerning the stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tide
if anyone can or has contact with these people, or others that are in the industry you might want to throw the idea their way. It just might be worth everyone’s while to check into.
Thanks
Raping forests then processing with natural gas is neither green nor carbon friendly. Nuke synfuel can be made clean and green for a fraction of the cost and a lot less money in bribes.
"It is anticipated that CTL and CBTL with modest biomass percentages (less than thirty percent by weight) would, as a part of the United States’ energy portfolio, provide a balanced solution to the nation’s transportation fuel dilemma, providing affordable fuels from domestic feedstocks, and enabling significant reductions in GHG emissions."
http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/CBTL%20Final%20Report.pdf
Cost: CTL with CCS is competitive at $94/barrel and CBTL is competitive at $104/barrel. Both have less carbon emissions than petroleum and both significantly improve air quality (e.g., less smog and asthma).
http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/CBTL052012.pdf
America is the Saudi Arabia of coal. We can do this. We can be the world leader or hand it to China.
http://globalchange.mit.edu/files/document/MITJPSPGC_Rpt197.pdf
If we have to import the fertilizers that we use for civilian biofuels, military biofuel and food production - how is that better than importing oil? How does it reduce our critical dependency on foreign resources - especially in times of war? http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FertilizerTrade/summary.htm
We do need to distinguish between feedstock sources for biofuels - NPK dependent or truly waste dependent. The scale needed by biofuel companies that start out using waste feedstocks, economically suggests will be forced to end up using NPK dependent feedstocks to have any chance of the economic scales necessary. Consider that the potential demand for NPK by biofuels has been estimated to be as much as four times our food crop demand and therein lies our reason for concern.
Also, that regarding renewability consider that every 1.1-1.3 KCal of biofuel produced typically requires at least 1 KCal of fossil fuel energy to produce. (Note Sundrops use of natural gas.) At the scales needed for to significantly impact our energy deficits biofuels are neither renewable (dependent on fossil fuels and fossil fuel reliant fertilizers) and are also far from carbon neutral - or technically useable for carbon credits.
In reality and at best petroleum dependent biofuel processes like Sundrop might be a transitional energy source to bridge our energy gap while truly renewable energy sources - solar, wind and tidal, and others reach economic feasibility. I'll be glad to provide the references that these comments are based upon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_refineries
"Jindal was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Amar and Raj Jindal, who came to the United States as immigrants from Punjab, India, six months before he was born.[3] Jindal attended Baton Rouge Magnet High School, graduating in 1988. He competed in tennis tournaments, started a computer newsletter, a retail candy business, and a mail-order software company. He spent his free time working at the concession stands during LSU football games.[4] Jindal was one of 50 students nationwide admitted to the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) at Brown University, guaranteeing him a place in medical school. He was interested in public policy. Jindal also completed a second major in biology. He graduated in 1991 at the age of 20, with honors in both majors.[4][5]"
China is also investing in "drop-in" coal-to-liquid fuel. I wish we would do the same.
Thus doubling the carbon footprint, even before worrying about the process energy consumption.
What an excellent idea.
With a little more discussion, I suspect you can figure out how to mitigate the footprint too.
Regardless, the money and jobs are derived from the BTUs. We could leave the money buried or pour it into our economy. I'm for the latter.