Biofuels thread

[RegGuheert]

Via GCC:

First Qantas US-Australia biofuel flight; Carinata feedstock, Honeywell process

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/01 ... antas.html

...
Across its lifecycle, using Carinata-derived biofuel can reduce carbon emissions by eighty percent compared to traditional jet fuel. The ten percent biofuel blend used on the flight will therefore see a seven percent reduction in emissions on this route compared to normal operations.
...

Hopefully they can and do use their own fuel to run the farm equipment. But I have to imagine the biggest part of this reduction must be due to the fact that Australia is an oil importer. As a result, fuel grown in Australia will not have to be transported nearly as far as fuel pumped out of the Middle East.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

First Qantas US-Australia biofuel flight; Carinata feedstock, Honeywell process

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/01 ... antas.html

...
Across its lifecycle, using Carinata-derived biofuel can reduce carbon emissions by eighty percent compared to traditional jet fuel. The ten percent biofuel blend used on the flight will therefore see a seven percent reduction in emissions on this route compared to normal operations.
...

Hopefully they can and do use their own fuel to run the farm equipment. But I have to imagine the biggest part of this reduction must be due to the fact that Australia is an oil importer. As a result, fuel grown in Australia will not have to be transported nearly as far as fuel pumped out of the Middle East.

What this link says is that they get around half of their jet and other fuels from Japan andS. Korea http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017- ... rea-japan/ I'd think Indonesia/Malaysia would be the source of most of the oil whose refined products they get from Singapore, while the article says most of the Japan/S. Korean oil is sourced from the middle east.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Western Contra Costa Transit Authority switches entire fleet to Neste MY Renewable Diesel

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/02 ... stcat.html

Western Contra Costa Transit Authority (WestCAT), a public transportation service in California, has switched their entire fleet of 45 heavy duty buses from operating on petroleum diesel to using only Neste MY Renewable Diesel.

• Following the success of our three-month trial of Neste MY Renewable Diesel, we have now converted our entire diesel fleet to operate on renewable diesel. We originally transitioned to Neste MY in response to our Board’s interest in reducing our environmental footprint. Changing to renewable diesel allowed us to immediately reduce emissions from our entire fleet, rather than making a series of small improvements as we replace vehicles one at a time.
  
  —said Charles Anderson, General Manager, WestCAT.

WestCAT has also observed significantly cleaner operation of their bus engines and a significant reduction in the maintenance needed for the emissions equipment and internal engine components.

WestCAT serves the cities of Pinole and Hercules, and unincorporated communities along the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay, operating a network of 14 fixed routes. WestCAT operates 365 days a year, serving more than 65,000 residents within a 20 square mile service area, and carries more than 1.3 million passengers annually. . . .

[LCR]

Instead of leveling forests and repurposing food-crop farmland to grow yet another monocrop, I recommend that we install PV panels on rooftops and provide for an equivalent amount of miles to be driven with significantly less environmental damage. What was that ratio again? 1/100 the area needed with PV to drive the same number of miles. No plowing, harvesting, processing. It just sits there for many DECADES making clean BEV fuel from the sun.

In other words, simply put a few PV panels on your roof and drive 12,000 miles/year every year for the next 30 years. Unlike biofuels, this approach works everywhere in the continental US plus Hawaii. Some southern areas can get by with about 4 PV panels and in the Pacific Northwest you might need 8 or 10. If all US homeowners did this (or more) we could replace massive amounts of fossil-fuel consumption.

Where do you live that 4 panels would provide any sort of fuel? Not counting charging losses a 320w 4 panel system would give you 1700kwh here in the south, even at 4 m/kwh that would be 6800 miles. My Leaf averages 3.6 and my Tesla closer to 3 m/kwh. Lets assume the highly optimistic 4 miles/kwh because it makes numbers easy. you'd need 3,000 kwh to drive your 12K miles, that would be a 2.5kW system here in Texas and 8 panels, twice what you think.

[RegGuheert]

Where do you live that 4 panels would provide any sort of fuel? Not counting charging losses a 320w 4 panel system would give you 1700kwh here in the south, even at 4 m/kwh that would be 6800 miles. My Leaf averages 3.6 and my Tesla closer to 3 m/kwh. Lets assume the highly optimistic 4 miles/kwh because it makes numbers easy. you'd need 3,000 kwh to drive your 12K miles, that would be a 2.5kW system here in Texas and 8 panels, twice what you think.

I was an off-the-cuff estimate, but here's my math:

- The 235-Wp 60-cell panels on my roof each produce a third of a MWh of electricity each year. If I scale that by 6/5 which is the per-panel ratio of production I see with Tony Williams' system in San Diego versus mine and scale up to 325-Wp panels I come up with a per-panel annual production (AC) of about 550 kWh/year.

- Four of such panels will produce about 2.2 MWh/year.

- We get an efficiency of about 5 miles/kWh in our LEAF. (That's fairly high, but others here report higher numbers.) We know that L2 charging efficiency of the LEAF with the 3.6 kW charger was 91%. Since there is a fixed load of about 300 W for cooling pumps, I expect the efficiency of a 6.0 kW charger is closer to 95%. That gives about 4.75 miles/kWh.

- I'm going to assume the magic of net metering to allow me to use all of the AC energy that I produce on my roof.

2200 kWh * 4.75 miles/kWh = 10,450 miles.

I should have said five panels to cover 12,000 miles (or even 13,000 miles) with current technology.

But your point is taken: It is hot in places like Texas or Arizona, so PV production is likely lower. And of course driving styles and vehicle type do affect consumption. So YMMV.

[LCR]

I see people post about 5-6 miles/kwh and I don't even see how that possible unless you never get on the highway.

[RegGuheert]

2200 kWh * 4.75 miles/kWh = 10,450 miles.

I see that Solaria now has 350-W 60-cell PV modules that you can purchase for $323 each. That gets you to about 2400 kWh/year in San Diego with just four panels, or about 11,400 miles per year.

Put another way, you can achieve nearly 3000 miles per panel per year in San Diego now.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Neste delivers first batch of 100% renewable propane to European market

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/03 ... neste.html

Neste has started up the world’s first large-scale renewable propane production facility in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The first cargo of renewable propane has been delivered to SHV Energy, which will market and sell the product to its customers across Europe as BioLPG. Neste’s new facility has a production capacity of 40,000 tonnes per year; SHV Energy will be the exclusive distributor, supplying 160,000 tonnes over four years. (Earlier post.) . . .

Neste’s Rotterdam refinery primarily produces premium-quality Neste MY Renewable Diesel from various waste and residues as well as vegetable oils. The new unit will purify and separate renewable propane from the sidestream gases produced by the refinery.

Propane-rich off-gas is produced during the NExBTL renewable diesel process; the gas is usually recovered during the Stabilization and Recycle stages of the process.

Usually, the propane off-gas from the Recycle section is used in the steam methane reformer (SMR) plant for the production of hydrogen and the propane off-gas from the Stabilization section is used in a natural gas boiler to raise process steam. . . .

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Calor introduces Neste BioLPG to the UK market; targeting fully renewable by 2040

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/03 ... calor.html

. . . On 16 March, SHV Energy received the first delivery of BioLPG (biopropane) from the Neste Biofuels production facility in Rotterdam. (Earlier post.) This represented the start of the first large scale distribution of BioLPG in the world.

Propane-rich off-gas is produced during Neste’s NExBTL renewable diesel process; the gas is usually recovered during the Stabilization and Recycle stages of the process. Usually, the propane off-gas from the Recycle section is used in the steam methane reformer (SMR) plant for the production of hydrogen and the propane off-gas from the Stabilization section is used in a natural gas boiler to raise process steam. The bio-propane production process increases the added value of this sidestream significantly.

BioLPG is Calor’s first renewable product offering that sees the company commit to reducing its carbon footprint and to become fully renewable by 2040. . . .

BioLPG can reduce carbon emissions by up to 88% over conventional LPG depending on the feedstock used, according to the UK government. Modelling by Calor shows that more than 180,000 rural off-gas grid homes could be heated using BioLPG by 2030 if additional domestic sources of supply are developed, helping the government to achieve its carbon emission targets.

The UK government’s Clean Growth Strategy outlines ambitious new policies to phase out the use of high carbon fossil fuels such as heating oil and coal typically used off the gas grid for domestic heat during the 2020s. . . .

The SHV Energy companies Primagaz and Calor will be responsible for marketing and distributing Neste BioLPG within their respective markets. The countries where customers will initially be able to buy BioLPG are: Great Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and Belgium.

BioLPG is a drop-in replacement for conventional LPG, so consumers can use exactly the same LPG appliances and vehicles that are widely available throughout Europe. However, the biggest environmental gain from the use of this very low carbon, clean fuel is when it replaces solid and liquid fuels such as coal and heating oil. For example, in Europe there are around 40 million households in rural areas beyond the gas grid. Millions of them currently rely on aging heating oil and central heating systems. If 1 million of them switched to using BioLPG, it would save 5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions—that’s the equivalent of taking 2.5 million cars off the road.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

California Red and White Fleet switches to Neste MY Renewable Diesel

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/04 ... neste.html

Red and White Fleet, a sightseeing cruise company operating in the San Francisco Bay Area, has switched its entire fleet of vessels from operating on conventional diesel to using 100% Neste MY Renewable Diesel. . . .

If you've ever taken a sightseeing cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz, odds are it's been on one of their ships (or their competitors, the Blue and Gold Fleet).