Biofuels thread

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Ryze Renewables partners with Phillips 66 to build two renewable diesel plants in Nevada; 11,000 BPD combined

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/08 ... -ryze.html

. . . Once operational, these plants will manufacture high-cetane (80+) renewable diesel fuel from agricultural oils and animal fats, using a patented catalytic hydrogenation technology that the company says is more efficient than current conversion processes. . . .

The first plant in Reno is expected to come online in mid-2019, while the second facility in Las Vegas will become operational starting in early 2020.

The Reno plant will use an existing processing facility located on a developed 10-acre parcel complete with all permits, utilities, operation buildings, and tanks setup to process fuel products. The facility is being repurposed with the necessary additional infrastructures and hydro-processing equipment to take advantage of the existing facility to produce 3,500 barrels per day of drop-in Renewable Diesel.

The Las Vegas plant will be based on an existing biodiesel processing facility located on a developed 14-acre parcel complete with all permits, utilities, operation buildings, and tanks setup to process fuel products. Similar to Reno, the facility is being repurposed with the necessary additional infrastructures and hydro-processing equipment to take advantage of the existing facility to produce 7,500 barrels per day of drop-in Renewable Diesel.

[GRA]

Remember that biofuels can't realistically provide a large fraction of the energy we use.

And they compete with people food.

No one says that biofuels need to provide a large fraction of our energy (although it would obviously be great if they could), but they can replace liquid fossil fuels when nothing else can (long-range aviation being the most critical). If large-scale sustainable biofuels do come about, they won't compete with edible cropland but will use something like algae grown in ocean 'farms'.

Ocean farms that will compete with fish, which are people food. And the likely places to build "ocean farms" is in the bays and estuaries where much of the productivity is. I don't claim that all production of biofuels will displace people food, only that large scale production will.

Some biofuels don't directly compete: landfill and sewage methane comes to mind, as does byproducts of lumber mills and such. Yet all of these are tiny fractions of the energy used for long range aviation.

Solar farms take up land, as do hydro and wind (although both of the latter allow concurrent uses), and so on. We're transitioning from high power- and energy-dense fossil fuels to low power- and energy-dense renewables, so inevitably we'll be taking up more space, whether on land or at sea. One advantage of the shift is that once fossil fuel use actually starts to decrease, a lot of space formerly devoted to storage tanks at refineries will become surplus, and that land (and maybe the tanks themselves) can be repurposed for biofuel production. If we're going to get long-range aviation off fossil fuels, liquid biofuels are the only realistic option. Worldwide daily usage of jet fuel as of 2012 was about 5.4 million bpd (https://www.indexmundi.com/energy/?product=jet-fuel), and it's gone up slightly since then. More people are flying, but the a/c are getting more efficient too.

BTW, here's a 2017 report:

Alternative Aviation
Fuels: Overview
of Challenges,
Opportunities, and
Next Steps

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files ... report.pdf

[RegGuheert]

Solar farms take up land, as do hydro and wind (although both of the latter allow concurrent uses), and so on.

I find it interesting that you exclude solar from concurrent uses - a statement which is simply wrong.

Let's list some of the concurrent uses along with photovoltaics:

- Vegetable farming:

Japan requires about 2.5 million acres of land to supply the entire country’s electricity with PV [1]. Under the solar-share scheme, it will take about 7 million acres of farmland to supply the same amount of electricity. Japan currently has more than 11.3 million acres of available farmland.

- Mushroom farming
- On rooftops - I suspect most of our electricity needs can be met this way.
- Over parking lots - another huge source of concurrent-use property for siting photovoltaics.
- Along the sides and in the medians of roadways.

At the end of the day, I doubt that photovoltaics need to take up ANY additional land which could have been used for food instead. Trying to compare photovoltaics with biofuels in this regard is extremely disingenuous.

[GRA]

Solar farms take up land, as do hydro and wind (although both of the latter allow concurrent uses), and so on.

I find it interesting that you exclude solar from concurrent uses - a statement which is simply wrong.

Let's list some of the concurrent uses along with photovoltaics:

- Vegetable farming:

Japan requires about 2.5 million acres of land to supply the entire country’s electricity with PV [1]. Under the solar-share scheme, it will take about 7 million acres of farmland to supply the same amount of electricity. Japan currently has more than 11.3 million acres of available farmland.

- Mushroom farming
- On rooftops - I suspect most of our electricity needs can be met this way.
- Over parking lots - another huge source of concurrent-use property for siting photovoltaics.
- Along the sides and in the medians of roadways.

At the end of the day, I doubt that photovoltaics need to take up ANY additional land which could have been used for food instead. Trying to compare photovoltaics with biofuels in this regard is extremely disingenuous.

PV on buildings is about the only energy source that doesn't take up any additional land. Large ground mount PV arrays do, although parking lots etc. won't be a problem. Biofuels take up much more space, and have much lower power densities as a result (actually, the lowest of all). I've recently got my hands on Vaclav Smil's 2015 book "Power Density", which details that for all energy sources, looking at not just the generating area, but also extraction, refining, transportation (and the energy/land needed for all those): https://www.amazon.com/Power-Density-Un ... 0262529734 PV has the highest power density (currently 10-15We/m^2) of all the renewable sources (barring solar water heating, which is around 100W/m^2), although wind, which is typically an order of magnitude lower than PV when looking at all the land area a wind farm takes up, improves some when looking at concurrent uses, as only the pad areas and access roads/transmission towers etc. preclude grazing and the like, although they may affect migration corridors.

Here's an extended quote:

The power densities of all energy production range over five orders of magnitude, from 10^-1 W/m^2 for liquid biofuels to 10^4 W/m^2 for the world's richest hydrocarbon deposits, but the final energy use of modern high energy societies fall mostly between 10^1 and 10^2 W/m^2 for homes, commercial buildings, industrial enterprises, and densely populated urban areas. This means that modern civilization extracts fuels and generates thermal electricity with power densities that are commonly at least one, usually two, and sometimes three orders of magnitude higher than the power densities of final energy uses in urban areas (where most people now live) and in individual buildings and commercial and industrial establishments.

Fossil fuels to supply urban areas are extracted and delivered with power densities that are higher than the power densities of large cities (10-30 W/m^2). Thermal electricity is typically generated with power densities that are one and often two orders of magnitude higher (300-3,000 We/m^2) than the power densities of electricity use in family homes (10-50 We/m^2). Liquid fuels for transportation are produced with power densities that are one to two orders of magnitude higher than the power densities of urban traffic. And even the very high power densities (300-1,000 W/m^2 for supermarkets, high-rises, factories, and downtowns) either overlap or are slightly surpassed by the power densities with which electricity and fuels are actually produced and delivered.

The modern energy system produces concentrated energy flows and then diffuses them through pipelines, railways and high-voltage transmission lines to final users. As a result, the space claimed by the extraction and conversion of fossil fuels is a small fraction of the ROWs [Guy note: Right of Ways] needed to distribute fuels and electricity. American extraction, processing, and conversion of coals and hydrocarbons take up less than 20% of the land that is required for pipeline, railway, and transmission ROWs and occupy less than 0.1% of the country's territory. In contrast, future societies powered solely or largely by renewable energies would rely on an opposite approach by concentrating diffuse energy flows captured with low power densities ranging mostly between 0.2 W/m^2 for liquid biofuels to 20 W/m^2 for [Guy note: future] solar PV-based energy. Renewable energy systems would have to bridge gaps of several orders of magnitude between the power densities of energy production and use.

As a result, tomorrow's societies, which will inherit today's housing, commercial, industrial and transportation infrastructures, will need at least two or three orders of magnitude more space to secure the same flux of useful energy if they are to rely on a mixture of biofuels and water, wind, and solar electricity than they would need with existing arrangements. This is primarily due to the fact that conversions of renewable energies harness recurrent natural energy flows with low power densities, while the production of fossil fuels, which deplete finite resources whose genesis goes back 10^6 - 10^8 years, proceeds with relatively high power densities. This power density gap between fossil and renewable energies leaves nuclear electricity as the only commercially proven nonfossil high-power-density alternative. That is why further advances in photovoltaic electricity generation, the renewable conversion with the highest power density, would be particularly welcome.

Several bold proposals would sever the link between renewable electricity generation and extensive land requirements. They include a variety of ocean energy conversions - exploiting the kinematic energy of waves and currents and the difference in thermal energy between surface and deep waters (Charlier and Finkel 2009; Cruz 2008) -- and wind generation by turbines placed within the jet stream (Roberts et al. 2007) None of these proposed alternatives is likely to evolve fast enough to supply a significant share of global energy demand (10% - 15% of 2013 use would mean 1.7 - 2.6 TW). Nor are there any realistic prospects for early, large-scale commercialization of landless PV conversions using giant buoyant PV panels in the stratosphere (StratoSolar 2014) or the Moon-based PV beamed to Earth by microwaves (Girlish and Aranya 2012).

Bolding is in the original. 255 pages of all the details for solar water heating, PV and CSP; wind; hydro including PHES; geothermal; biofuels; coal; oil; NG; and nukes, as well as calculations of land requirements use for various mixes of an all-renewable world, and that's quite enough typing for now.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

United Airlines pledges to reduce own emissions by 50% by 2050; Trans-Atlantic biofuel flight

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/09 ... 4-ual.html

. . . The pledge represents the equivalent of removing 4.5 million vehicles from the road each year, or the total number of cars in Los Angeles and New York City combined.

The airline will continue to invest in the company's ongoing environmental initiatives to support this commitment, including expanding the use of more sustainable aviation biofuels, welcoming newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft into its fleet and implementing further operational changes to better conserve fuel.

To mark the pledge, United will operate flight 44 today from its hub in San Francisco to Zurich with the carrier’s most fuel-efficient aircraft—the Boeing 787—via a blend of sustainable aviation fuel supplied by World Energy’s California-based AltAir Fuels.

The biojet fuel was made from Carinata seeds from Canadian agri-tech company Agrisoma and refined by World Energy’s Paramount facility. Production of biofuel from Carinata seeds yields both biofuel and, as a byproduct, high-protein animal feed. Stems and leaves from the crop are returned to the field to enrich the soil for subsequent crops. Carinata is the first oilseed to be certified sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), the independent global standard and certification program for sustainable biofuels.

The airline will use 16,000 gallons of biofuel at a 30/70 blend with conventional jet fuel for the flight to Zurich, representing the longest transatlantic flight to date—and longest by a US airline—powered by a biofuel volume of this size. United has sourced more than 2 million gallons of sustainable aviation biofuel since 2016 and is responsible for more than 50% of the airline industry’s commitments to biofuel.

United’s most significant environmental achievements include:

• Becoming the first airline globally to use sustainable aviation biofuel on an ongoing daily basis, marking a significant milestone in the industry by moving beyond test programs and demonstrations to the everyday use of low-carbon biofuels in ongoing operations.
  
  Investing more than $30 million in California-based sustainable aviation fuels producer Fulcrum BioEnergy, which remains the single largest investment by any airline globally in alternative fuels. United’s agreement to purchase nearly 1 billion gallons from Fulcrum BioEnergy is the largest offtake agreement for biofuel in the airline industry.
  
  Becoming the first airline to fly with Boeing’s Scimitar winglets, which reduce fuel consumption by an additional 2 percent; United is the largest Scimitar winglet operator today, with nearly 400 aircraft equipped with these winglets. . . .
  
  Continuing to replace its eligible ground equipment with cleaner, electrically powered alternatives, with nearly 40% of the eligible fleet converted to date.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Groundbreaking for Clariant’s Sunliquid cellulosic ethanol plant in Romania

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/09 ... riant.html

Clariant has begun construction of the first large-scale commercial Sunliquid plant for the production of cellulosic ethanol made from agricultural residues in Podari near Craiova in southwestern Romania. At the flagship facility, the Sunliquid technology developed by the company is being used on an industrial scale for the first time.

At full capacity, the plant will process around 250,000 tons of wheat and other cereal straw sourced from local farmers to 50,000 tons (~16.7 million gallons US) of cellulosic ethanol annually. By-products from the process will be used for the generation of renewable energy with the goal of making the plant independent from fossil energy sources. The resulting cellulosic ethanol is therefore an advanced biofuel that is practically carbon-neutral. . . .

The decision in favor of Craiova was due partly to the existence of a secure regional supply of feedstock and partly to the region’s existing logistic and industrial infrastructure. Construction of the plant will provide a whole range of benefits for the surrounding region of Craiova.

It will allow local farmers to industrially market straw for the first time, which was previously practically unutilized agricultural residue. During the construction phase of the new plant, several hundred construction workers will be employed from locally based companies wherever possible. . . .

[GRA]

Via GCC:

SoCalGas to offer renewable natural gas at its fueling stations for the first time

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/09 ... algas.html

Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) will soon begin using renewable natural gas for the first time at the 25 utility-owned natural gas vehicle fueling stations across its service territory, as well as at six fueling stations in the San Diego area. . . .

Renewable natural gas (RNG) is produced from the methane generated in landfills, wastewater treatment plants, food processing and dairies and depending on its source, can be low-carbon or in some cases, even carbon-negative. It can be used to fuel trucks and buses, to generate electricity, to heat homes and businesses, and to cook. . . .

Because renewable natural gas can be stored and delivered through the existing natural gas infrastructure, SoCalGas can help California reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet the state’s renewable energy and air quality goals in a cost-effective way.

California provides incentive funding to help trucking fleets transition to renewable natural gas. Close to 70% of natural gas fleets in California are fueled with renewable natural gas. . . .

[GRA]

Via GCR:

Algae blooms could be a boon for eco-diesel under DOE-funded project

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/11 ... ed-project

A somewhat misleading headline, as most of the article is about something else.

Algae-based biodiesel has been hyped in the past as a renewable fuel that can be produced here in the U.S., lowering greenhouse-gas emissions without displacing food crops or taxing water supplies. And yet it still hasn’t arrived in any significant way.

There’s no single factor to blame for that, rather a combination of hurdles that no project to our knowledge has entirely assessed in the U.S., end to end. This week, however, researchers at the University of Michigan announced that they're launching such an effort, working with those at Penn State University on a three-year, $2 million project—part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s "Co-Optimization of Fuels & Engines" initiative—that aims to look at every step of the process, from growing algae to assuring that the resulting fuel can be efficient and clean when used in diesel engines. . . .

The three-year project will point to best practices on how to grow algae, process it into diesel, and maximize performance. The goal is to scale things up to what the scientists describe as “very large-scale cultivation ponds,” with an extraction and processing operation that will get the fuel all the way to diesel distribution points.

A decade ago, algae-based biofuels were one of the next big things, and biotech companies, venture capital, and investors/financiers ranging from Bill Gates to Exxon Mobil. Solazyme, which Volkswagen backed, was one of the most advanced, with a 100-percent algae-derived renewable diesel that was the subject of a VW feasibility study. That company, after a name change to TerraVia, went bankrupt in 2017.

This project is taking a pragmatic, multi-species approach rather than putting all of its cards into one strain of algae. Strategies may depend on the local climate. Algae doesn’t require safe, potable water in the way that feed crops do; actually it can purify water in some ways—in addition to using high amounts of CO2—so it could end up being a win-win, especially if there ever were a way to harness the large-scale seasonal algae blooms that have become increasingly common. . . .

One even tougher hurdle in three years will of course be selling the idea to commercial truck fleets—the most likely prospects for further testing—which are increasingly likely to spring for the image boost of electric-vehicle or fuel-cell programs.

Scientists are aiming for a greenhouse-gas reduction of more than 60 percent versus existing diesel, plus improved thermal efficiency. Passenger vehicles could follow, but diesels may well be dwindling even more by then.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Norway introduces 0.5% biofuel mandate for aviation for 2020

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/10 ... orway.html

. . . Leading bio-hydrocarbon fuel producer Neste said that there will be enough capacity on the market to supply the anticipated volumes of renewable jet fuel to Norway. Neste alone has capability of producing the amount Norway will need by 2020, and there will be scaled-up volumes in the following years. . . .

The aviation industry has set ambitious targets to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from air transportation, including carbon-neutral growth from 2020 and beyond, and a 50 percent reduction of net aviation carbon emissions by 2050. Aviation needs multiple solutions for greenhouse gas emission reduction. Currently, sustainable aviation fuel offers the only viable alternative to fossil liquid fuels for powering commercial aircraft.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Phillips 66 and Renewable Energy Group plan large-scale renewable diesel facility on West Coast

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/1 ... 3-reg.html

. . . The plant would utilize REG’s proprietary Bio-Synfining technology for the production of renewable diesel fuel. Planned feedstocks include a mix of waste fats, oils and greases, including regionally-sourced vegetable oils, animal fats and used cooking oil. . . .

The new facility would be constructed adjacent to the Phillips 66 Ferndale Refinery in Washington state. The Ferndale Refinery offers existing infrastructure, including tank storage, a dock, and rail and truck rack access.

This announcement follows more than a year of collaboration between Phillips 66 and REG related to site selection and preliminary engineering. The companies expect to make a final investment decision in 2019. If approved, production at the new facility is currently premised to start in 2021.

REG owns and operates 13 biomass-based diesel refineries, with a combined effective production capacity of 565 million gallons per year. This includes REG Geismar, a 75-million-gallon nameplate capacity plant located in Louisiana that was the first renewable diesel plant built in North America.

REG’s 100-million gallon per year REG Grays Harbor biodiesel plant, the largest biorefinery in the REG fleet, is also located in Washington state. . . .

Also GCC:

Euglena completes demo-scale algae biorefinery for renewable jet and diesel

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/1 ... glena.html

Japan-based biotechnology company euglena (earlier post) has completed the construction of its demonstration-scale biorefinery in Yokohama for the production of renewable jet and diesel fuels from algae and waste oil.

The plant, which will use the Biofuels ISOCONVERSION process (earlier post) licensed by Chevron Lummus Global / ARA, will have a production capacity of 5 barrels per day, with planned initial planned production volume of 125 kiloliters per year (786 barrels).

euglena is partnering with ANA on the aviation side. Euglena expects its renewable jet fuel to qualify for ASTM certification by next spring. . . .

euglena invested ¥6 billion (US$53 million) in the development of the Yokohama demo refinery. euglena plans to build commercial-scale refineries to bring produce 1 million kiloliters of fuel (6.3 million barrels) in total by 2030.