Beet fuel: BP Biofuels is developing a process for converting some crops into butanol, an alcohol fuel that's superior to ethanol in several ways. The first batch will likely come from a crop of sugar beets like the one featured here.
Forget ethanol: it's hard to transport and gives bad mileage per gallon. Another alcohol, butanol, is a much better renewable fuel, says the president of BP Biofuels.
Alternative fuels such as ethanol could help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and decrease oil imports, but so far these biofuels only make up a small fraction of fuel use. One of the biggest challenges to ramping up ethanol use is distributing it. That's because ethanol can't be transported in the same pipelines used to distribute gasoline. What's more, ethanol delivers far less energy than gasoline does on a gallon-for-gallon basis.
Philip New, president of BP Biofuels, a recently created company within the giant British oil producer, thinks it has a solution: butanol. While butanol, like ethanol, can be made from corn starch or sugar beets, its properties are a lot more like gasoline than like ethanol. That means it can be shipped in existing gasoline pipelines. And it contains more energy than ethanol does, which will improve mileage per gallon.
Last month BP announced that it will be working with the University of California, Berkeley, on a $500 million, 10-year program, part of which will be devoted to research on improving biofuels such as butanol. And last year BP announced a partnership with DuPont to develop new technology for making butanol. DuPont will provide expertise in biotechnology. Technology Review spoke with New about the company's plans at a recent energy conference at MIT.
Technology Review: Why is BP interested in biofuels, which would seemingly be a direct competitor to your main business?
Philip New: It is possible--if the world now is really serious about climate change, and if people continue to be concerned about energy security--that given the breakthroughs in technology that now seem plausible, biofuels could represent a significant amount of the transport fuel mix in the future.
I think you have a choice. Either you can try to deny it and resist it and hold it back, or you can embrace it and welcome it and make it a part of your business. And clearly BP has chosen to do the latter.
TR: BP is focusing on a relatively obscure fuel: butanol. Why focus on butanol rather than on ethanol?
PN: Ethanol is a good start. But ethanol was not designed to be a fuel. No one sat down and said, "Let's create a biomolecule that will operate in engines." What happened was, people said ethanol can work in engines. As a lot of people are becoming aware, it's good, but it has some drawbacks. Butanol is, we think, an innovation that overcomes many of the drawbacks.
You shouldn't view butanol as being a competitor to ethanol. An ethanol plant can evolve into a butanol plant. And you can mix ethanol and butanol together, and it can actually help you use more ethanol.
TR: So how is butanol better?
PN: The key way is higher energy density. Whereas ethanol is around about two-thirds the energy density [of gasoline], with butanol we're in the high eighties [in terms of percent].
It's less volatile [than ethanol]. It isn't as corrosive, so we don't have issues with it at higher concentrations beginning to eat at aluminum or polymer components in fuel systems and dispensing systems. And it's not as hydroscopic--it doesn't pick up water, which is what ethanol can do if you put it in relatively low concentrations. So we can put it through pipelines.
BP's chief scientist, Steven Koonin, says cutting greenhouse emissions will take major changes.
I agree that ethanol is a good start, and that butanol could provide a more efficient option, but there is a third biofuel, biodeisel. This fuel takes advantage of deisel engine's improved fuel economy compared to gasoline, their turbocharging abilty, and can be used in today's deisel engines without modifications. I would be interested to see if anyone has any thoughts on this.
From what I've seen so far, biodiesel might be a better choice for long-term evolution, since it is even more energy-dense, and could turn out to be more energy-efficient in its use of an "ideal source", namely algae (algae could turn out to be an ideal source for both cellulosic material for fuel-alcohols, even better than "e-crop" grasses like miscanthus or switchgrass, as well as a better source for biodiesel than oilseeds or palm oil. This is based upon the productivity per acre; algae production per acre per year should be many times higher than any grass or tree.
The issue we face in the short term is what to do with the hundreds of millions of spark-ignition ("gas") vehicles already on the road. It will easily take a generation at minimum to retire all those, even under ideal circumstances. I suspect the current US vehicle mix of majority gas/ minority diesel could switch precisely due to a more flexible competition between fuel choices (crude oil imposes its own constraints on how much of it can be broken down into gas vs diesel, and all the other petrochemicals. Biofuels and biochems in general will probably evolve to a far more diverse setup, with each production/ processing plant devoted to far more specific products meant to produce exactly what the market demands, rather than producing what the raw materials permit.
In short, I'm guessing biodiesel will be the long-term "winner" among both biofuels in particular, and post-petrol fuels in general... but ethanol/butanol will be a crucial "bridge-fuel" while we're recycling today's fleet into tomorrow's.
With butanol, you don't need to retire them, you just run butanol in them, and you need a diesel engine to run biodiesel. I don't want to go buy a diesel car to switch fuels.
My continuing problem with the biofuels is that our luxury transportation competes with world food supplies with devastating impact on those living on the edge.
We need a process that uses neither food nor cropland and is environmentally sustainable.
Guest (energygeek)
I too was very concerned that growing our fuel
would preclude growing our food. However, most
current research into biofuels use the waste
products, ie: Straw, corn trash, wood wastes and
used vegetable oils from the food industry as
feedstocks. Additionally, the "lignin" left over
from the fermentation process can be pelletized
and also used as a fuel in bio-pellet appliances.
My current concern is that the amount of fuel
that can be produced by these processes will
simply not be sufficient to completely replace
fossil fuels. However, I still think it's a
heluva good idea and we should be doing this
in a big way.
Best :-)
energygeek.
I bet the oil producing nations of the world don’t sit around and wonder how they are going to provide oil to the world at dirt cheap prices.
We feed the world and they still hate us.
We need to be more concerned about our nation’s needs than the world’s.
In that case, let's make them hate us for not buying their oil too.
how exactly does biofuel in the US compete with food supplies where they are not plentiful?? here we pay farmers not to plant, so we clearly have ENORMOUS excess capacity. in places where food is the larger issue, they will not need biofuel.
The price of tortillas is Mexico has doubled in 12 months, due to ethanol driving up corn prices. This is a major impact on Mexico’s poor, who have the tortilla as a staple. It is an issue
illegal immigration is driven by economics. Higher cost for tortillas in Latin America will yield more illegal immigrants in the states. A better solution is biofuels coming from non foodgrade materials. Use of subsidized farms to produce plant products that could be used for biofuels would better utilize the taxpayers money as well help to keep fuel and food prices down for the domestic and international markets.
I would like to remind you that the corn used for ethanol is NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION!!! However,the rise in corn prices has brought the price of other grains up, such as wheat and soybeans. The group most directly affected is livestock producers, since the corn used for ethanol is the same as for livestock feed.
sure, but as farmers switch from growing corn for food to corn for fuel, the food-corn supply goes down and the price goes up.
That's largely due to the fact that ethanol, particularly from corn, for all it may be the current darling politacally, takes a lot of enregy to produce and ethanol gives back much less energy per bushel of corn consumed. One often overlooked factor in the relative success of Brazil's ethanol economy is the fact that most of their ethanol comes from sugar cane, not corn, which yeilds much more ethanol than corn per bushel. This is the main why I became a butanol convert years ago. Ethanol loses you about 40% of the BTUs per gallomn compared to gassoline, meanning you need to buy 40% more fuel to go the same number of miles. Butanol only loses you about 10% compared to gas and can be produced more cheaply from any sugar source.
I went to a lecture on Biodiesel research at the Colorado School of Mines last month. The economical analysis clearly showed that if you took all the agriculture n the US, and converted it to Bio Diesel feed stock, you'd replace maybe half the gasoline we burn now. That's including waste products, weeds, grass clippings, etc.
Add in the fact that it takes more energy to make Biodeisel than you get out of it - it's not a self sustaining fuel source. At best it will require a energy support from fossil fuels or Electricty. Not an Economical soultion.
Unless they can find the right strain of algae. That would use about 1% of the land area, and be more effective feedstock.
And that technology is a deacde or more out.
So say the PHD's doing the research on it.
Considering we burn a few gallons of oil, and a few pounds of coal for every gallon of "alternative" fuel we create from biological feed stock. The creation of green fuels is really far worse for the environment that just burning the gallon of oil you were trying to replace. We should be researching sustainable energy technologies, not wasting money and wrecking the environment on a bunch of get rich quick technologies that at the bottom line do more harm than good.
But the world looks a whole lot different when you view it from a total energy supply food chain.
You want clean, low polution? We have one technology that can do it. Nuclear Power plants, and convert everything to electric. That's the only sustainable, clean, renewable technology that exists today.
And if you don't like nuclear power, call your power company and complain, because of third of us are already using it. DOE and EIA have the stats published.
ahhhh the lovely nuclear power bull alt. to things like water,wind and sun(for christs sake sesame street when i was a child had a clip about that in the early 80's lol) may i remind you of shenobil and the near melt-down of 3 mile island in pennsylvania? sure nuke power is good but the waste when the uranium is spent alone is placed into old SALT mines in drums get that salt whats the impact to the environment than? they even write in predicted languages for over 2,000 years(even "alienese" im dead serious haha DANGER NUCLEAR WASTE) not to mention god forbit a plant develops a slight crack the world is screwed for centuries. russia is STILL trying to clean up thier mess and that was i think somewhere around 1988 maybee before i forgot.plus many plants are closed forever bc of the immense danger they can pose in the blink of an eye
furthermore with the butanol and ethanol(more logical butanol) after inital start you convert the burners etc to the created biofuel using NO energy extra. also it can be used as a fuel for power itself its endless because its RENEWABLE and cheap. its a billion fold outcome of possibilities everything has initial tolls its the long term that were looking for. and who will care about food if the world ends up like it did in "end of days"-think about it spealberg may be hollywood but hes about the only guy that thinks with logic and fact when making a movie:) the most logical approach is to combine crops to produce edible and non edible crops. and like mentioned next to ANYTHING can be used to make ethanol or butanol. crude oil IS butanol just 68 mil. year old butanol lol i know this is a "book" but i need to get my opinion out haha
1 liter of butanol cannot make 1 liter of butanol. It just can't, no way no how, so it is not self sustaining. We have been making ethanol for thousands of years and are actually really good at it, so good in fact that there is very little that can be done to improve the efficiency of producing ethanol. Also butanol does not contain 90% of the energy of gasoline because the energy density/fuel economy ratio can not be calculated exactly, it has to be tested. Before ethanol's wide spread usage we were told that it was going to be more efficient than it actually is, butanol will likely have similar results because it IS an alcohol fuel.
Re: Food to Fuel? Algae at sea
This is a couple of technological steps down the road, but I think there is an answer to your question: the answer is to grow algae as a feedstock for biochem products, and do it somewhere that's currently a "biological desert." Keep in mind that most of the ocean is fairly inactive biologically; most biological action at sea is close to shore. The big middle of the high seas is about as biological productive as the middle of the Sahara.
If algae can be profitably grown by the means now being experimented with (MIT is one of the leaders in this), I'd expect to see an industrial evolution from high CO2 installations (coal-fired power plants), to more general land-based installations, to floating installations that could feed off of atmospheric CO2, H2O from the ocean it's floating in, and the sunlight that's shining on it... and may not need much power for transport either. Just go with the current mainly, perhaps sailing around in the inside of the circular ocean currents. Let the Gulf Stream carry you in a big circle around the North Atlantic, with most of your transport energy used to cross the current to get on the "inside track." Float as long and slow as possible in those areas with the best combination of low winds and waves, and least cloud cover.
This could open up an area for biological cultivation that's currently not used either by humans nor the biosphere, taking a lot of the pressure off current wilderness/ crop areas (at land and sea). I don't think we've seen that kind of radical expansion of "living space" since the conquest and settlement of the prairies and steppes worldwide back in the late 1800's. And this should be a far greater short-term production and settlement opportunity, at least for the 21st century, than any spot in outer space has to offer.
Guest (BRUCE M. GRAUER)
JUST A COMMENT ABOUT THE USES OF CROPLAND.I'M A COMMERCIAL TRUCK DRIVER AND THUS I SEE ALOT OF THE US.WE'VE GOT MEGA URBAN SPRAWL THAT IS USING UP VAST QUANTITIES OF FARMLAND.THIS MUST STOP OR WE'LL BE AT THE MERCY OF FOOD PRODUCERS,MUCH WORSE THAN ANY OF THE OIL PRODUCERS.
Guest (Peter Franklin)
Absolutely. The biofuels problem can be seen as having three parts: Source, or getting the raw materials; Process, finding the optimal process for converting the raw material to a usable product; and Product, or which final form you want for the fuel.
The BP president (and others working on the butanol idea, see www.butanol.com for a small competitor well along the process-development path) is right in that butanol is a better choice for a Product from the alcohols. As you already are noticing, cellulosic Sources would improve the situation... what's necessary is finding a set of chemical processes ("pretreatment") that breaks cellulose, and possibly hemicellulose and lignin, down into simpler sugars that the current sugar-to-alcohol processes can then digest (literally). Most, if not all, the work currently being done on cellulosic pretreatment for ethanol will work for butanol as well.
Possibly the next step past merely "cellulosic" sourcing of biofuels will be algae, which is already an MIT research subject. While algae for biofuels is usually only associated with high-oil algae for conversion ("trans-esterification") to diesel fuel, there many species of algae. No matter what other uses are found for algae, the body as cellulose would finally be available for fermentation to alcohol fuel, if that's desired. So cellulosic butanol from algae would be one further step available, which could vastly increase the volume of Source raw material available.
This is an evolutionary process, to find the most land, water, and light-efficient process to capture sunlight into the highest possible volume of raw material -- to convert by the most efficient processes or strings of processses -- into the ideal set of biochemicals for all possible uses: fuel, fertilizer, livestock feeds, direct human food, fiber, industrial chemicals, you name it.
We are faced with an opportunity here to not just take whatever "resources" the ground presents to us, but instead to think about what the ideal fuels would look like, and figure out how to synthesize (probably via biological means from sunlight -- it would the most easily managed process, from the most widespread original energy source). I haven't found enough material yet on heavier alcohols to guess if butanol is the ideal fuel among alcohols. It certainly looks as if it is "good enough" to start the transition past ethanol.
Oh yeah, check out www.butanol.com. I would venture to say it's probably our best option right now.
Is it not possible with current technology to produce butanal economically @ the individual level from the typical sorts of household food waste products(food from the back of the frig that is now unrecognizable, last nights leftovers, the fruitcake that keeps getting regifted)?
Why not produce municipal and home biorefineries and use the hydrogen byproduct in a home fuel cell, charging station, etc?
Use all the soybeans we grow to make bio diesel. Nobody wants to eat that crap anyway.
nobody wants to eat it? then nobody buys it and nobody grows it. is that what is actually happening?
Guest (gilwal)
Refer to Government 2005 Report
There are government studies on the known benefits of “Butanol” verse Ethanol. Today the production of Butanol is as cheap as Ethanol to produce, with 42% more BTUs. Refer to government 2005 report.
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=843183
This company already has a process for cost effectively producing butanol.
http://www.butanol.com/
We have the technology...
Why all this concern about energy density - it is only a way to keep track of relative costs. It has a very minor affect on how much fuel you need to haul around, maybe 50 pounds on a fill up of a full size puckup, but so what. The real issue is thermal efficency. Maximim thermal efficency of gasoline in an IC engine is abut 33% while ethanol can push 48% in an IC engine optomized for ethanol use. This is the equivelent of gasoline on an MPG basis. It is too bad that the fuel drives the engine design right now. We started out the other way around.
Energy density is critical and so is fuel compatability. I will not retire my vehicles or modify them to run on a "cleaner" fuel like E85 or run out and buy and ethanol only or flex fuel car. These fuels could decrease emission but the reality is that they are not. Ethanol blends are being used in engines that are not optimized to use them and the effiency suffers because of it. Modern engines are designed to use an energy dense fuel and that is the bottom line. Whatever replaces gasoline must be compatible with existing vehicles and not degrade performance.
Never mind how Butanol is produced, what really matters is that it is the only non-petro fuel than will run un-modified in existing vehicles AND electric-fuel cell cars.
If we can get Butanol to market, we have overcome the FINAL hurdle stopping electic cars and real pollution control (it burns quite clean).
Currently it can be made from coal cheaper than Biological sources.
Before you gag consider this, we can make it from coal for 88 cents a gallon with a new method pioneered by the DOE at the Kingsport TN methanol plant. Why coal you ask? because over half of ALL air pollution comes from Coal-fired power plants. If we divert coal to Butanol (big coal has the political power to make it happen too) then we can replace the powerplant with a green one.
Additionally, we stop funding OPEC - people planning to kill us, and make American jobs. In the end, we kill three birds with one stone and quite literally restore American energy independence forever.
What is the situation now on Buthanol? Any news updated for?
Please try this http://FuelFarm.i8.com butanol, algae and the sun rising across America is this the way? too idealistic? Well this is, the way for "Fred in the shed" in backyard Britain. We love our lawns, with a barrow and a buck I could collect a ton of clippings within hours which could be butanol feedstock.The have a go heroes and backyard brewers could be at the forefront of climate change It will spread like wildfire through rural communities that someone knows how to make their own fuel, especially one that ticks as many boxes as butanol -Then show me how.- If this gets read by the right people to pass on, our needs. which web sites to teach us how to do it. where to buy our equipment.Were to source Clostridium acetobutylicum and C. tyrobutyricum health risks involved with it. From the sucess of micro butanol back yard brewing you are sowing the seeds of bigger business. The uk tax break on 2500 litres of bio fuel is more than adequate ie no fuel duty if for personal use. The funding should not go just to corporate giants but to bio support groups , co ops If you have the ability to teach, you should. Were upright and were listening
David Blume's book "Alcohol can be a Gas" describes the same system and teaches you how to.
What type of Butanol is the questions
We talk about Butanol like there is only one type. Think the fuels market will care if it is normal vs. iso?
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Guest (rhapsodyinglue)
Question
Does anyone know... if butanol doesn't have the same corrisive effects, can it be used in all current gas cars rather than just flex fuel ones like ethanol?
Reply
Guest (mcharend)
Re: Question
Butanol is a more "fatty" oxygenate than ethanol and one carbon short of MTBE
(on an atomic basis), both of which have been used in current flex engines. In short, the answer would be yes as gasoline is essentially a trash product anyway, and you can burn pretty much anything with carbon. A more specific question would be how much butanol can be utilized before you run into issues like engine knock or vapor pressure problems. That would have to be worked out by the blenders.
Reply
corporatedave
11 Comments
Re: Blenders
The real question is:
Will it Blend? bwahahaha
Reply
rdtradecraft
6 Comments
Re: Blenders
Yes. You can add butanol to your tank right now if your car was manufactured within the last fifteen or so years in any concentration
Reply
woodydel
1 Comment
Re: Question
Butanol works on any gasoline powered car at 100% levels.
Reading link: http://www.butanol.com
Ethanol is a rip off. Farmers love ethanol because it allows them to finally "get theirs". This comes right out of the farmers' mouths first hand. They're never satified even when they get paid to not grow crops. If these farmers had any real brains, they would be falling over themselves to produce butanol. They could set up the pumps on the front lawn. As it is now, they think the upper hand is theirs and they're willing to screw you just like the Opec devils.
Reply
Guest (gilwal)
Re: Question
There are government studies on the known benefits of “Butanol” verse Ethanol. Today the production of Butanol is as cheap as Ethanol to produce, with 42% more BTUs. Refer to government 2005 report. No corrosive effect, use just like gasoline
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=843183
This company already has a process for cost effectively producing butanol.
http://www.butanol.com/
Reply
rdtradecraft
6 Comments
Re: Question
Check out www.butanol.com
You can just put butanol in your tank, start the engine and drive away, no modifications required at all on most late model cars. It's got about 90% of the BTUs per gallon of gasoline, and would turn everything from prarie grass to whey permeate(byproduct of making cheese) into a potential biofuel feedstock.
The thing everybody is working on is getting it economical to produce in quantity.
Reply
Chancellor
3 Comments
Re: Question
Who is doing road test on these vehicles? Who is quantifing the benefits of butanol in an unmodified gasoline engine? I've only seen the efforts from Dr. Ramey, but even his work is being done on an older Buick. Who is putting butanol in todays high compression high revving engines? Butanol looks good on paper but I'd like to see it in my gas tank then run it across a dyno and road test the vehicle or in some controlled testing comparing gasoline and butanol in varying concentrations of gasoline before going from one bad additive after another(MTBE, ethanol).
We must also ensure that butanol can meet or exceed all of California's current fuel safety and emissions requirements in all types of gasoline engines, the devil really is in the details!
Reply