Fossil free: Biofuels startup Kior says that its new thermochemical process can produce “biocrude,” a hydrocarbon mixture that closely resembles crude oil, from almost any agricultural by-product, including the stems and stalks of corn plants (shown here).
Bob Allan, NREL
Startup Kior has developed a process for creating "biocrude" directly from biomass.
Dutch biofuels startup Bioecon and Khosla Ventures have launched a joint venture called Kior, which will commercialize Bioecon's process for converting agricultural waste directly into "biocrude," a mixture of small hydrocarbon molecules that can be processed into fuels such as gasoline or diesel in existing oil refineries. The process, Kior claims, boasts numerous advantages over other methods of producing biofuels: it could prove relatively cheap, relies on a nontoxic catalyst, taps into the present fuel-refining and transportation infrastructure, and produces clean-burning fuels that can be used in existing engines.
Biofuels are widely seen as a key stepping-stone on the path from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, particularly for transportation. Their use could also reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But ethanol, the most widely produced biofuel, contains little energy compared with gasoline or diesel. And a great deal of energy goes into its production: growing the grain from which it is fermented, distilling it, and transporting it. Many biofuels boosters have pinned their hopes on finding ways to produce ethanol from cellulose, the tough polymer that makes up much of plant stems and wood. In practice, though, cellulose must be broken down into simple sugars before it can be fermented into ethanol or converted into synthetic gas and turned into fuels. Despite three decades of research, these remain difficult, expensive, and energy-intensive processes that are not yet commercially viable. Additionally, recent research shows that ethanol, which is highly volatile, may actually exacerbate smog problems when it evaporates directly into the air instead of burning in vehicle engines.
The way to make cellulosic biofuels viable, says Bioecon's founder, Paul O'Connor, is to use catalysts to convert biomass into a hydrocarbon biocrude that can be processed into gasoline and diesel in existing petroleum refineries. After decades developing catalysts for the petroleum industry, O'Connor started Bioecon in early 2006 to develop methods for converting biomass directly into biofuels. His first success is a catalytic process that can convert cellulosic biomass into short-chain hydrocarbons about six to thirteen carbon atoms long. Khosla Ventures agreed to provide an undisclosed amount of series A funding to spinoff Kior in order to commercialize the process. Vinod Khosla, founder of the venture fund, believes that converting biomass into liquid transportation fuels is key to decreasing greenhouse-gas emissions and compensating for dwindling petroleum reserves. Khosla is funding a number of biofuels startups with competing technologies and says that Kior's approach is unique. "They have some very clever proprietary catalytic approaches that are pretty compelling," he says. "They can produce relatively cheap crude oil--that's attractive."
The most effective method of converting biomass into fuel is to subject it to high temperatures and high pressure to produce synthetic gas, or syngas. In the presence of a catalyst, the syngas reacts to produce fuels such as ethanol or methanol (used as an additive in biodiesel). But this is a costly process, and catalysts able to withstand the high temperature of the syngas are expensive and frequently toxic.
Attempts to produce fuel by directly exposing agricultural cellulose to a catalyst have had little success because most of the cellulose is trapped inside plant stems and stalks. O'Connor says that while the Bioecon researchers are developing new catalysts, their "biomass cracking" process is the real breakthrough. Using proprietary methods, they have been able to insert a catalyst inside the structure of the biomass, improving the contact between the materials and increasing the efficiency of the process. While O'Connor won't go into details, he says that the most basic version of the technique might involve impregnating the biomass with a solution containing the catalyst; the catalyst would then be recrystallized. "What we're doing now is improving the method to make it easier and cheaper," O'Connor says.
A solar-driven process could yield far more fuel than conventional biomass production.
Making ethanol from corn is expensive. Better biofuels are years away from the gas tank. Farmers are reluctant to change their practices. But do we really have any alternative to biofuels?
consider other forms of biomass
Wood is fine, although if the Romans are any indication they denuded most of western Europe to feed their hypocausts during the first century AD, sending "wood" ships as far as Britain to scavenge for fuel.
Why not use sewage treatment plants as biomass converters? The infrastructure for delivering the biomass is there, we know how to handle it safely, there's plenty of supply and we get a beneficial product out of it in the end (besides Milorganite). I'm sure the energy content of waste has to be something greater than zero and pipelines could be put in place to carry the fuel to distribution networks.
Re: consider other forms of biomass
Great idea!
- I think there is also potential for bringing into play a cost efficient domestic waste disposal strategy. I know that all my lawn and tree clippings go into the bin, but wouldn't it be great to tap into all that unused energy from my house, and my neighbor's house, etc. etc. Ad nauseum...!
We all know thatthe fastes growing wood is bamboo
and there are literal forests in a couple of continents.Not withstanding our own ability to grow it.It could be a never ending resource.
Thank you all for the valuable suggestions. One of the key features of our technology is that it takes all types of cellulosic material. Current experiments have been done with wood and sugarcane.Future experiments will include other (fast growing) feedstocks. Key is that we use materials that are currently considered 'waste' or hardly utilized and make our technology part of a sustainable fuel/energy production chain.
Rob van der Meij, KiOR Inc.
I like what your company is doing. Our own company is developing renewable energy projects in South East Asia and we see huge potential for these types of technologies there. The main reasons for this is the availability of biomass in the form of agricultural wastes and potentially the energy crop industry. Coupled to the huge need/shortage of energy in this region and willingness to pay a higher price for renewables these kinds of projects have great potential. Just do it - good luck.
Rob,
This is great news, if it pans out well.
Does the biomass need to be dried throughly for this process? Eliminating that step (and the ability to provide relatively decentralized/on-site processing) would be huge.
Congrats in the successes so far.
Consider using wood slash piles left over from logging to solve two problems - create biofuel feed stock and elimination of wood piles that we pay to have burned, or let to rot. Rotting creates problems in elimination of space for tree replanting, and it creates methane, which is 20X more powerful as a global warming gas before oxidizing 7 years later into CO2. As long as it is less than cost of burning, I would pay to have someone remove the slash piles. Alternately, can a wood burning furnance, like a Heatmor, be inexpensively created that releases heat AND creates oil, which can be collected?
Removing and then using wood waste is a value added to logging areas which have to remove or burn slash piles. Intensively logged areas such as where I'm located would benefit from such a process.
There is limited land available for planting trees on . Natural habitats are being replaced with farmland to provide food for a growing world population . That means the largest area available for storing carbon is agricultural . This isn't such a bad thing because farms are good wildlife habitats as well . By building up the level of carbon in agricultural soil , fertility increases , providing more food for people , more food for wildlife and more biofuel . Carbon negative food and fuel would be superb .
A good use for kudzu, a noxious plant that grows so fast you can hear it.
Guest (Rudolf)
What about using (dried) algae or seeweed for converting it to hydrocarbons? This natural product should be easy to grow at sea farms or in the open sea in the south and easy to harvest from the sea and to drie it there at the air - and you could put the factory on a ship and from there you can deliver it all over the world. Isn't it an alternative?
See
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
and
http://www.livefuels.com/
Rather than using greatly needed algae and seaweed from our oceans, utilizing a procedure that will aid in cleaning the oceans and rivers of acumulated waste products and pollutants would greatly aid this planet's survival.
This is potentially useful. However, as we run out of things to eat and burn, it might be useful to focus even more attention on ways to reduce consumption, especially in the context of climate instability, growing populations, and increasing vehicle miles traveled.
At our house, we are gradually working our way towards going 'off the grid', but this makes us realize that the first step is reduction in consumption, since generally once you go off cheap fossil fuel, you really appreciate how much energy is worth and how hard it is to get.
So every article or discussion of some form of alternative energy supply should be accompanied by discussion of new and creative ways to reduce usage.
Generally, it seems like these reductions come from: Community (sharing things), being 'light', being more easily satisfied, moderating wants, better systems, and technology. It can be just as useful to look to the past as to the future for 'innovative' systemic (or even technological) solutions to many problems.
I like this approach. Reducing energy consumption is useful in any of the scenarios from renewables to fossil based energy sources, especially if one keeps in mind that any energy capturing and storage system has some manufacturing and assiciated environmental costs. Energy use reduction also is not necessarily only big changes, but a collection of small changes can also have an impact. Going about giving examples will be a new thread and maybe does not belong here.
About 70% of the cost for biocrude is the production, transportation and handling of feedstock. As time goes on, these costs grow. Then the feedstock would likely be pulverized into a sawdust consistency in order to obtain high permeation by the clayish catalyst. That takes extra energy and money too.
This method sounds like a step forward from the high-energy biocrude processes proposed so far, which cost $100/bbl or more and make a low-quality fuel. Maybe Kior represents a technology that yields high-ER quality fuel for about $85/bbl.
The problem with costly alternatives is that they would be victims of their own success. Look at ethanol: facing a glut and high feedstock prices. If we make significant amounts of synfuels, then they need to be cheap in order to compete with falling oil prices. Otherwise, they remain marginal.
Without knowing specifics about these catalysts, it's quite possible that they will be in limited supply.
oil from woood as a source of fuel
What for????? that is the most --------- idea i have ever heard imagine the processing etc, the only way this would work would be to tie it in with some other industry we already do like paper or something else,( but we are trying to lessen paper usage). Kearns has got the best idea i have heard so far everything is there collection processing may need to be modified to incorporate the new processes etc.
Cost of implementing it would be low, but they wont go for it it would have to be wasteful and destructive and damage our planet beyond repair before you people get it. stop speaking it and start using it. hehehe lol You people looking for oil outa wood man oh man simple. Only for paint maybe, anyways enuff said some people really need to use their heads and not something else, or if we implement this, the other way around, ohhh ehehehe damn im funny.
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norppa
1 Comment
Lack of immagination?
"Trucking costs can become exorbitant. You want to preprocess it at the farm and then ship a high-density, high-energy intermediate to processing plants."
The answer is ofcourse harvesting of seaweed. You have huge refinary ships that process the seaweed collected with smaller boats. You pump the ready fuel to tankers and the waste products can be shipped as fertilizers (?)
Land can be used for more constructive things. E.g. forests
Reply
urian1975
16 Comments
Re: Lack of immagination?
actually more construtive use for the land would be expanding industry especially energy related....forget about trees...the population is growing
Reply
Tysto
34 Comments
Re: Lack of immagination?
Yeah, we can always put all the trees in a tree museum and charge all the people a dollar and a half to see 'em.
Reply