Research institutions, businesses launch renewable fuels venture

A joint venture among businesses and Colorado research institutions to further develop renewable fuels was announced at the state capitol in Denver, Colo. The new Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels (C2B2) is a research venture between large and small businesses and the newly formed Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, the association of four of Colorado's premier research institutions, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). C2B2 will perform world class research to develop new biofuels and biorefining technologies and transfer these advances as rapidly as possible to the private sector.

NREL's participation in the Collaboratory and the Collaboratory's C2B2 project is through Midwest Research Institute (MRI), which manages NREL for the U.S. Department of Energy. MRI is committed to involvement in partnerships that draw on diverse talents and enhance the strengths of NREL, Colorado's research universities and the C2B2 industry partners. Projects such as C2B2 further NREL's mission to develop new renewable energy technologies and move those technologies along the path to commercialization.

C2B2 will work to create new technologies for the production of transportation fuels and other valuable products from plants. In addition to transportation fuels, biorefining promises to create new sources of agricultural fertilizers, synthetic fibers for clothing and other uses, plastics and commercial chemicals. Because these materials are now derived from petroleum and natural gas, biorefining will reduce our dependence on oil and gas, will provide alternative, domestic sources of energy and commercial products, and will reduce green house gas emissions, helping to reduce global warming.

Companies participate in C2B2 as a sponsor by paying a membership fee. These fees will fund shared research, and sponsors will have the opportunity to participate in the discoveries and patents generated by the shared research, with the goal of commercializing the new technologies as soon as possible. Sponsors may also enter into individual agreements to fund proprietary research through C2B2. The research projects of C2B2 will also create educational opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students, serving to train the next generation of chemical and biological engineers for our universities and private enterprise.

Purdue University chemical engineers have proposed a new environmentally friendly process for producing liquid fuels from plant matter - or biomass - potentially available from agricultural and forest waste, providing all of the fuel needed for "the entire U.S. transportation sector."

The new approach modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification. Adding hydrogen during this step suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the efficiency of the process, making it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass, said Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue's Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.

The researchers are calling their approach a "hybrid hydrogen-carbon process," or H2CAR.

"Further research is needed to make this a large-scale reality," Agrawal said. "We could use H2CAR to provide a sustainable fuel supply to meet the needs of the entire U.S. transportation sector - all cars, trucks, trains and airplanes."

The process, which would make possible the dawning of a "hydrogen-carbon economy," is detailed in a research paper appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper was written by Agrawal, chemical engineering doctoral student Navneet R. Singh, and chemical engineering professors Fabio H. Ribeiro and W. Nicholas Delgass.

A conventional method for turning biomass or coal into liquid fuels involves first breaking down the raw material with a chemical process that "gasifies" it into carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Then those constituents are turned into a liquid fuel with other processes.

In the H2CAR concept, hydrogen would be harvested by splitting water molecules, possibly with a well-known method called electrolysis. Then the hydrogen would be added during the gasification step, making the process more efficient by suppressing the formation of carbon dioxide and converting all of the carbon atoms to fuel.

When conventional methods are used to convert biomass or coal to liquid fuels, 60 percent to 70 percent of the carbon atoms in the starting materials are lost in the process as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, whereas no carbon atoms would be lost using H2CAR, Agrawal said.

"This waste is due to the fact that you are using energy contained in the biomass to drive the entire process," he said. "I'm saying, treat biomass predominantly as a supplier of carbon atoms, not as an energy source."

Power for the electrolysis would be provided by carbon-free energy sources, such as solar, wind or nuclear power. And, unlike conventional methods of producing liquid fuels from plant matter and coal, H2CAR would not emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

"The goal is to accomplish the complete transformation of every carbon atom in the feedstock to liquid fuel by supplementing the conversion process with hydrogen from a carbon-free energy source," Agrawal said.

Other researchers have estimated that the United States has a sustainable supply of about 1.4 billion tons of biomass each year that could be used specifically for the production of liquid fuels. With conventional methods, that quantity of biomass would provide 30 percent of the fuel required for the nation's annual transportation needs. But the same quantity of biomass would provide enough fuel to meet all transportation needs using the new H2CAR method, Agrawal said.

"This is possible without using any additional land," he said.

A federal study indicates that 1 billion tons of biomass is potentially available every year from agricultural sources such as crop wastes, animal manure, grains and other crops. The remaining biomass could come from sources including fuel wood from forests, wastes left over from wood processing mills and paper mills, and construction and demolition debris.

The process also offers potential advantages over producing liquid fuels from coal using conventional methods, which emit carbon dioxide. Because H2CAR would not emit this additional carbon dioxide, the process would eliminate the need for proposed carbon dioxide "sequestering."

Sequestering would involve pumping carbon dioxide emissions into saltwater aquifers and hollow underground pockets that used to contain oil, natural gas and coal deposits. But the procedure poses several potential pitfalls.

"Clearly, massive quantities of carbon dioxide would be sequestered during a century-long production of liquid fuels from coal," Agrawal aid. "This would place extreme demands on the carbon dioxide capture, storage and monitoring systems."

The new process also would be more practical than all-electric or hydrogen-powered cars, in part because of the limited storage capacity of batteries and hydrogen storage tanks.

"The tremendous convenience provided by the existing infrastructure for delivering and storing today's fuels is a huge deterrent to introducing technologies that use only batteries or hydrogen alone," Agrawal said. "A major advantage of our process is that it would enable us to use the current infrastructure and internal combustion engine technology. It is quite attractive for hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles."

To grow enough biomass for the entire nation's transportation needs using the conventional method for producing biofuels would require a land area 25 percent to 55 percent the size of the United States, compared with about 6 percent to 10 percent for the H2CAR process.

"This large reduction of land area needed for H2CAR provides an opportunity for sustainable production of hydrocarbon fuel for the foreseeable future," Agrawal said.

A major reason less land would be needed is because of the overall higher efficiency of generating hydrogen by splitting water molecules using solar energy to drive the electrolysis. Usually, the hydrogen in liquid fuels made from biomass comes from the plant matter itself. But it typically takes more than 10 times the solar energy to grow crops than it does to produce the equivalent quantity of hydrogen possessing the same energy content by using the solar-power electrolysis method, he said.

"So providing hydrogen derived from water through solar electrolysis reduces the amount of biomass needed," Agrawal said. "The average energy efficiency of growing crops is typically less than 1 percent, whereas the energy efficiency of photovoltaic cells to split water into hydrogen and oxygen is about 8-10 percent. I am getting hydrogen at a higher efficiency than I get biomass, meaning I need less land."

Using coal exclusively to produce liquid fuels for the nation's transportation sector could deplete all coal deposits in the United States in about 90 years, whereas H2CAR would enable the known coal reserves to last 140 years.

The researchers suggest in the paper the chemical processing steps needed to make the new approach practical. But making the concept economically competitive with gasoline and diesel fuel would require research in two areas: finding ways to produce cheap hydrogen from carbon-free sources and developing a new type of gasifier needed for the process.

"Having said that, this is the first concept for creating a sustainable system that derives all of our transportation fuels from biomass," Agrawal said.

Purdue has filed a patent for the concept. The approach is in the conceptual stages, and a plan for experimental research is in progress.

Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc. (Canadian Hydro) has the acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding shares of GW Power Corporation (GWP). GWP owns 50 percent of the 70.5 MW Soderglen Wind Plant located in southern Alberta, as well as prospects for the development of up to 145 MW of wind power located in Alberta and Ontario.

The Acquisition price for GWP consisted of three common shares of Canadian Hydro, plus one common share purchase warrant of Canadian Hydro, for each issued and outstanding common share of GWP. Each CHD Warrant, which expires on March 8, 2009, is exercisable into one CHD Share upon payment of $7.00 per CHD share. Upon closing, there were 4,110,900 GWP shares outstanding, resulting in the issuance of 12,332,700 CHD shares and 4,110,900 CHD warrants. Using the volume weighted average price of CHD shares of $5.90 per CHD Share, the total purchase price of GWP was $87 million, including the assumption of estimated working capital deficit and acquisition costs.

Ormat Technologies Receives First Order for a Recovered Energy Generation Plant in a Liquefied Natural Gas Regasification Terminal

An Ormat Technologies, Inc. subsidiaries has entered into a contract valued at $11.5 million with ENAGAS, S.A. of Madrid, Spain, for the supply of one ORMAT Energy Converter (OEC) for a Recovered Energy Generation (REG) plant. The REG plant is being specially adapted to use the residual energy from the vaporization process of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) regasification terminal located in Huelva, Spain. The equipment is to be supplied and installed within 26 months from the receipt of a notice to proceed, which is expected in the next few months.

This is Ormat's second REG order from ENAGAS, with approximately 390,000 GWh (1.25 Bcf) per annum of gas transportation capacity . Over 800 MW of Ormat's OEC units ranging from 250 kW to 15 MW have been installed worldwide in modular plants of up to 125 MW, including three REG plants for natural gas industry to third parties and four plants that the Company owns and operates under long-term power purchase agreement.

Lucien Y. Bronicki, Chairman of the Board and CTO of Ormat Technologies, said "This new order is another example of the broad range of applications that can use Ormat's REG systems to generate electricity from residual energy." In addition, the Ormat Organic Rankine Cycle line of REG systems respond to two objectives high on the European energy policy agenda. Namely, energy efficiency and emission reduction, which makes Ormat's units the most effective and environmentally friendly way to use this otherwise unexploited energy source to generate benefits for the gas industry and LNG terminal owners," continued Mr. Bronicki.

The REG plant at the Huelva LNG Regasification terminal will consist of one OEC using Ormat's Organic Rankine Cycle Technology, operating on the temperature differential between the sea water and the LNG to produce electric power without the need for any additional fuel and without any emissions of CO2 or NOX. To this project Ormat also brings its twenty year experience in handling sea water and brines in power systems.

Last week, the DOE announced funding for 13 solar technology development projects, including one to be led by GE, that would help decrease the cost of manufacturing and distributing solar electricity. The Solar America Initiative is part of President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative. The funding is subject to award negotiation and appropriation from the U.S. Congress.

According to the DOE, the funding for the first year of GE’s project is expected to be roughly $8,100,000, with approximately $18,600,000 available over three years if the GE-led team meets its goals.

GE Energy will be heading an alliance of companies, universities and researchers that are collaborating to accelerate the large-scale commercialization of solar technology into products that are cost competitive with retail electricity rates without the need for government assistance. The GE-led team’s commercialization strategy focuses on residential and commercial buildings that currently consume more than 60 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. By 2010, GE and its team will be positioned to deliver more than 200 megawatts (MW) of easily installed, GE-branded solar electric products and Brilliance* systems into the U.S. residential and commercial markets.

The alliance’s goal is to drive down the cost of electricity to make solar energy competitive with other power generation technologies, leading to widespread application in the United States.

In addition, balance-of-system technologies will be developed to support low-cost installation and increased energy yield and future enhancements to building energy management and power quality. All will support the development, commercial scale-up and customer delivery of complete solar systems.

Research will take place at both GE Energy’s facility in Newark, Del. and at the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, N.Y.

“We believe that GE’s participation in the Solar America Initiative will play a significant role in helping the United States solar industry grow rapidly,” said Victor Abate, vice president - renewables for GE Energy. “We are honored that the DOE chose GE Energy to be a part of this innovative program.”

GE’s alliance includes Renewable Energy Corporation (REC ASA), Solaicx, Xantrex Technology Inc., the University of Delaware’s Institute of Energy Conversion, Georgia Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

GE Energy’s vision for its solar business is to focus on performance improvements and technology developments. According to a study by the Solar Energy Industries Association and the Prometheus Institute, U.S. solar installations were projected to grow by 20 percent in 2006 to 120 MW-dc.

Solar power is among the renewable energy technologies that play a key role in ecomagination, GE’s corporate-wide initiative to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water. Under ecomagination, which was launched in May of 2005, GE will invest $1.5 billion annually in research in cleaner technologies by 2010, up from $700 million in 2004.

American Biodiesel Fuels Corp. has entered into a letter of intent to acquire Houston-based Planet Resource Recovery, Inc. The transaction is through a share exchange agreement on a basis of one share of American Biodiesel Fuels Corp for one share of Planet Resource Recovery, Inc.

Planet Resource Recovery, Inc. is a petrochemical/oil services company that has developed a proprietary, environmentally friendly chemical that dislodges hydrocarbons in practically all natural and man-made environments. The company's flagship product, PetroLuxus, and its derivative product lines have a strong affinity and rapid disbursement qualities to break hydrocarbon chains on a molecular level for cost-effective remediation and recovery of petroleum products. The company's prospective markets for remediation and recovery include: oil tank farm cleaning, marine ship cleaning, oil sludge pits, contaminated soil/oil spills, biodiesel, waste oil segregation, heavy oil, tar sands, and Enhanced Oil Recovery, to name a few. Planet Resource Recovery's pilot manufacturing plant is fully operational with PetroLuxus ready for commercialization.