The Energy Blog

Virent: Biomass to "Biogasoline"

Shell and Virent Energy Systems, Inc., (Virent™) have announced a joint research and development effort to convert plant sugars directly into gasoline and gasoline blend components, via the BioForming™ process, rather than producing ethanol. The process is a simple reactor system operating at relatively low temperatures and pressures and once it is functioning, no additional energy inputs are required. The resulting "biogasoline" could potentially eliminate the need for specialized infrastructure, new engine designs and blending equipment.

The production of gasoline via BioForming™ is a new pathway for the production of liquid fuels and chemicals from biiomass rather than from fossil fuels. Virent has received significant commercial interest and entered into key strategic industrial collaborations, including with Shell for the development of liquid fuels, which will speed the technology’s time to market and enable broad commercial penetration

Virents process is a technology that economically transforms the sugars from biomass into universally usable fuel. The sugars can be sourced from non-food sources like corn stover, switch grass, wheat straw and sugarcane pulp, in addition to conventional biofuel feedstock like wheat, corn and sugarcane. It produces gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels with with twice the net energy yield per acre as traditional ethanol processes and with a small CO2 footprint. Gasoline made via the BioForming™ process will enjoy a 20% to 30% per BTU cost advantage over ethanol.

The resultant biofuels have the same properties as their petroleum based counterparts.  They have the same energy content (for example, gasoline has 52 percent more energy per gallon than ethanol). The fuels produced through this process are fully compatible with existing engines, pipelines and fuel pumps. Virent’s products are universally usable, requiring no new infrastructure investment. They are compatible with existing engines, pipelines, and fuel pumps.

“Virent has proven that sugars can be converted into the same hydrocarbon mixtures of today’s gasoline blends. Our products match petroleum gasoline in functionality and performance. Virent’s unique catalytic process uses a variety of biomass-derived feedstocks to generate biogasoline at competitive costs. Our results to date fully justify accelerating commercialization of this technology.

-- Dr. Randy Cortright, Virent CTO, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President

FYI: New Path to Produce Butanol

A team of researchers headed by an environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new techniques to produce butanol, a biofuel superior to ethanol.

It can be derived from lignocellulosic materials, which are plant biomass parts that range from woody stems and straw to agricultural residues, corn fiber and husks, all containing in large part cellulose and some lignin.

Butanol is considered to be a better biofuel than ethanol because it's less corrosive and has a higher caloric value, giving it a higher energy value.

The lignocellulosic biomass is placed into digesters comprised of a selected mixed culture of thousands of different microbes to convert the biomass into butyrate.

From there, the material is sent back to Peoria where another collaborator converts the butyrate to butanol using fermenters.

Researchers Modify E. coli to Produce Biofuels

Biopact also reported that Researchers have modified E. coli to produce efficient higher-chain alcohol biofuels

Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new method for producing next-generation biofuels by genetically modifying Escherichia coli bacteria to be an efficient biofuel synthesizer. The method could lead to the mass production of higher-chain alcohol-based biofuels like butanol and isobutanol, which are more efficient than ethanol. The technology has been licenced to Gevo Inc., a next-generation biofuel company supported by Khosla Ventures and the Virgin Green Fund.

Biofuels Can Match Oil Production

Biopact has a post on a sure to be controversial article by a Harvard professor that claims that biofuels can match oil production.  Read the post and the Financial Times article and form your own opinion.

Even though some vested interests are trying to downplay the potential of biofuels, energy analysts and scientists know that their potential is truly vast - at least in theory. The director of Harvard University’s Center for International Development (John F. Kennedy School of Government), professor Ricardo Hausmann, joins those analysts and presents a well argued view on what would be needed for a sustainable bioenergy future to emerge. Writing in the Financial Times, he goes so far as to state that 'biofuels can match oil production'.  . . .  more

U.N. Rapporteur Calls for Moratorium on Building Biofuel Plants Using Food Feedstocks

Biopact reports that Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, presented his annual report to the General Assembly in New York, which calls for a 5-year moratorium on the production of first-generation liquid biofuels made from food crops such as corn, wheat, palm oil and rapeseed.  A UN special rapporteur is an independent expert, who does not receive any financial compensation for his or her work.

The Energy Blog supports this position except in locations where it can be shown that the production of first-generation biofuels are not causing a significant increase of food prices and are not causing an adverse effect on the environment. This policy should also encourage the building of second-generation plants, that use less water and energy and building of cellulosic biofuel plants that use non-food feedstocks. Additionally The Energy Blog believes that any subsidies on first-generation plants should be phased out over a five year period. This would encourage first generation plants to be converted to second-generation plants or where applicable to cellulosic plants that use the whole plant as feedstock.

IMF Warns About Impact of Biofuels on Food Prices

(Thomson Financial) - The IMF warned that an increasing global reliance on grain as a source of fuel could drive up food prices in poor countries.

'The use of food as a source of fuel may have serious implications for the demand for food if the expansion of biofuels continues,' the International Monetary Fund said in its twice-yearly report on the world economy. . . . more

Maize for Biofuels: The Ultimate Energy Crop

According to research conducted by Fred Below at the University of Illinois (U of I), maize may prove to be the ultimate U.S. biofuels crop. This comes at somewhat of a surprise, because U of I has been studying and advocating Miscanthus for some time.

The chief advantage of maize, when grown in the Midwest, is that it requires much less nitrogen fertilizer input than corn because it does not produce any ears.  The sugar is in the stalks, not in the ears and is in the form of sucrose, fructose and glucose.

This differs from conventional corn and other crops being grown for biofuels in that the starch found in corn grain and the cellulose in switchgrass, corn stover and other biofuel crops must be treated with enzymes to convert them into sugars that can be then fermented into alcohols such as ethanol.

It also is easier for farmers to integrate into their current operations than some other dedicated energy crops because it can be easily rotated with corn or soybeans, and can be planted, cultivated and harvested with the same equipment U.S. farmers already have. Finally, tropical maize stalks are believed to require less processing than corn grain, corn stover, switchgrass, Miscanthus giganteus and the scores of other plants now being studied for biofuel production.

USDA: High Oil Prices Push Up Food Prices More Than Biofuels

Biopact reports:

First-generation biofuels like ethanol made from corn and biodiesel from rapeseed have effects on food prices. However, new evidence from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggests high oil prices play a much larger role in this trend. The situation is far more complex than some want to believe, because some biofuels even succeed in pushing inflation down. Researchers point at the situation in Brazil: there inflation indices have dropped because of record ethanol output and record low prices for the biofuel. Competitive biofuels bring down costs for all the economic sectors that would otherwise have to rely exclusively on very expensive oil products. More . . .

Are Biofuels Sustainable?

Robert Anex, left, an Iowa State associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, is leading several studies to determine whether a bioeconomy that produces fuel and chemicals from biorenewable resources will be sustainable. One study found an integrated process for producing ethanol from plant fiber could recycle plant nutrients back to the soil.

Innovative bioconversion processes configured to recover key plant nutrients from biomass will allow recycling nutrients to crop fields, thereby closing nutrient cycles and reducing the energetic and economic costs of fertilization. Such advanced bioconversion matched with complementary biomass production may promote the development of highly productive agricultural–industrial systems that protect environmental quality.

"It may well be that the development of biomass-based crops production systems can have as profound an impact on agriculture and its environmental footprint as it does on energy security and the global climate," Anex and co-authors Andrew Heggenstaller and Matt Liebman of Iowa State's agronomy department and Lee Lynd and Mark Laser of Dartmouth College wrote in a recent paper. "Whether this is a positive impact or a negative impact will depend largely on how biomass feedstocks are produced and converted, and the extent to which these two activities are integrated."

Growth in Biofuels Production Remains Strong

Growth in the biofuel industry remains strong for both ethanol and biodiesel, according to a presss release for the Soyatech's Biofuels Index, newly updated for Q2 2007. However, the data also shows signs that the corn-based ethanol build out may be leveling off.

Soyatech's Biofuels Index, which tracks planned and actual build-out of biofuels production capacity, reports dramatic growth in planned capacity for ethanol plants over the past year, from 6.761 billion gallons per year (BGY) as of July 1, 2006, to 13.03 BGY as of July 1, 2007 - an increase of 93%. During this same period, growth in ethanol capacity under construction increased 199%, from 2.417 BGY to 7.226 BGY.

During Q2 2007, total online capacity for ethanol increased by 564 million gallons per year (MGY), or 10.7%, from 5.289 BGY to 5.853 BGY. Capacity in planning rose by approximately 6% during the quarter.

However, the Index also points to a slight leveling off in construction of ethanol plants during Q2 2007 - the first time since the Index began tracking these numbers. According to the Index, capacity under construction decreased slightly by 1.7%.

"While the percent change is too small and the time frame too short to identify this as a definitive trend, we understand from industry sources that it is more difficult to secure debt financing for new refineries due largely to increased equity requirements on the part of banks providing this funding. We suspect that an additional cause may be constraints on the amount of corn available as a feedstock to produce ethanol," said Jacob Golbitz, director of research for Soyatech and its parent company, HighQuest Partners.