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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

BP's Bet on Butanol

Continued from page 1

By Kevin Bullis
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TR: Why is water a concern with pipelines?

PN: In any fuel system, water gets in pipes. With gasoline, it just settles out of the bottom. Ethanol mixes with water. So you basically introduce water into the fuel mix. If you put aviation fuel down a pipe that starts to have some ethanol in it, then you have the potential of water contamination of the aviation fuel, which could be very bad news.

TR: How is butanol made now, and how do you propose to make it?

PN: The conventional way of making biobutanol is a fermentation process. There is a lot of work going on in various places to improve the efficiency of the process. And our target is to find a way of making butanol at a price that can compete with gasoline. More than that we cannot say.

TR: What feedstocks can you use?

PN: You can make butanol with exactly the same stuff you use to make ethanol. We can make it from sugar, we can make it from corn, we can make it from sugar beets. Any sugar-starch that's going into the fermentation of ethanol you can [use to] make butanol.

TR: Ethanol today depends heavily on government subsidies. How economical is butanol?

PN: I'm not sure that it needs too much specific help. What I'd ask for more is a level playing field. For example, a transition away from subsidizing biofuels on the basis of volume towards subsidizing on the basis of energy content would represent a level playing field. By subsidizing volume, you're effectively supporting less-energy-efficient alternatives.

TR: When can we expect to go to a BP station and fill up with some butanol?

PN: This is absolutely in a testing phase, and we're looking to how we can move it into a pilot [plant] phase. We'll be dealing with some trial quantities soon.

Before we get to a mass-market environment, to be honest, you have to give it a little bit of time. I would like to think that butanol could be broadly available before ligno-cellulosic ethanol [such as from wood chips and corn stover] is widely available. It's almost just a function of the pace of engineering and permitting. To open a new ethanol plant today, it's not going to be open until 2009, 2010. So that should help you range your expectations about the introduction of new technology.

TR: To be clear: are you waiting on biological advances before you can move forward, or are you already at a point where you can go ahead and build plants and start small-scale production?

PN: I think we're in the world of optimizing biological processes. You don't want to build a plant if you're working with a suboptimal process.

TR: So there are no major breakthroughs needed?

PN: Both BP and DuPont are very positive, committed, and optimistic about the prospects of delivering butanol.

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Comments

  • Question
    rhapsodyinglue on 03/27/2007 at 1:32 AM
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    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?
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    • Re: Question
      mcharend on 03/27/2007 at 9:29 AM
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      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.
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      • Re: Blenders
        corporatedave on 03/27/2007 at 10:55 AM
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        The real question is:

        Will it Blend? bwahahaha
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        • Re: Blenders
          rdtradecraft on 04/30/2007 at 6:32 PM
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          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
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      • Re: Question
        woodydel on 05/08/2007 at 10:13 PM
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        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.
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    • Re: Question
      gilwal on 04/02/2007 at 8:55 PM
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      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/
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    • Re: Question
      rdtradecraft on 04/30/2007 at 6:31 PM
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      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.
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      • Re: Question
        Chancellor on 07/05/2007 at 2:35 AM
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          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!
            
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  • The Third Option
    Agengineer on 03/27/2007 at 8:51 PM
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    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.
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    • Re: The Third Option
      rickthurman on 04/14/2007 at 2:00 PM
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      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.
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      • Re: The Third Option
        rdtradecraft on 04/30/2007 at 6:35 PM
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        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.
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  • Food to Fuel
    JHuberman on 03/27/2007 at 11:13 PM
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    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.
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    • Re: Food to Fuel
      energygeek on 03/30/2007 at 9:51 AM
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      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.
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    • Re: Food to Fuel
      chrisrice78 on 03/30/2007 at 11:39 AM
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      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.
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      • Re: Food to Fuel
        rdtradecraft on 04/30/2007 at 7:41 PM
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        In that case, let's make them hate us for not buying their oil too.
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    • Re: Food to Fuel
      bmn on 03/30/2007 at 4:24 PM
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      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.
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      • Re: Food to Fuel
        nshotton on 03/31/2007 at 9:15 AM
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        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
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        • Re: Food to Fuel
          jmaximus9 on 04/03/2007 at 11:26 AM
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          An issue for illegal immigrant’s perhaps.
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          • Re: Food to Fuel
            bqndiver on 04/05/2007 at 8:58 PM
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            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.
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            • Re: Food to Fuel
              Agengineer on 04/09/2007 at 11:37 PM
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              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.
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              • Re: Food to Fuel
                mbloore on 04/30/2007 at 5:28 PM
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                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.
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        • Re: Food to Fuel
          rdtradecraft on 04/30/2007 at 6:47 PM
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          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.
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      • Re: Food to Fuel
        netlancer on 05/17/2007 at 5:19 PM
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        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.
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        • Re: Food to Fuel
          ihatevaleroenergyco1980 on 10/28/2007 at 6:34 AM
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          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
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    • Re: Food to Fuel? Algae at sea
      rickthurman on 04/14/2007 at 2:18 PM
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      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.
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    • Re: Food to Fuel
      BRUCE M. GRAUER on 04/24/2007 at 2:38 PM
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      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.
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  • Cellulosic butanol?
    Peter Franklin on 03/28/2007 at 6:09 AM
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    Is this an option?
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    • Re: Cellulosic butanol?
      rickthurman on 04/14/2007 at 1:45 PM
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      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.
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    • Re: Cellulosic butanol?
      rdtradecraft on 04/30/2007 at 6:52 PM
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      Oh yeah, check out www.butanol.com. I would venture to say it's probably our best option right now.
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      • Butanol from household waste?
        Chancellor on 07/05/2007 at 1:53 AM
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          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?
         
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