Waste to Energy: Micro-Channel Fischer Tropsch

Sierra Energy plans to build a municipal waste to liquid fuels plant in Northern California, based upon the scalable microchannel Fischer Tropsch technology developed by Velocys / Oxford Catalysts.

The microchannel FT technology can affordably convert any carbonaceous form of matter -- from biomass to coal to natural gas to municipal waste, etc. -- to high quality diesel fuel and other high value chemicals.

The waste-to-liquids process involves two main operations: production of a synthesis gas (syngas) using a gasifier; followed by FT synthesis. The resulting FT product can then be upgraded via hydrocracking and fractionation to produce a range of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. The fuels produced can be directly substituted for conventional fuels, and are generally of higher quality than those derived by conventional means.

In the commercial demonstration, which will be hosted by SacPort Biofuels, the gasification will be carried out using Sierra Energy’s proprietary FastOx waste gasification process. The FT synthesis will be carried out using Velocys’ microchannel FT reactor technology. Sierra Energy intends to use this commercial demonstration as the basis for the design of a turn-key, waste gasification system called the FastOx Pathfinder.

The FastOx gasifier is a simple derivative of the blast furnace, specifically designed to convert waste; waste is fed into the top of the gasifier while oxygen and steam are injected into the bottom. The injection of oxygen and steam is one of Sierra Energy’s patented innovations. The waste passes through four reaction zones as it descends in the gasifier:

Drying occurs when the hot syngas produced at the bottom of the gasifier rises and passes through the waste in the top zone of the unit, drying the waste as it passes.

Devolatization is where the majority of the organic matter is driven off into syngas.

Partial oxidation occurs when carbon-containing materials in the waste react with the injectors. This reaction creates high temperatures in the range of 4,000 °F, allowing for the thorough conversion of remaining carbon into syngas.

Melting of inorganic compounds results from the high temperatures occurring in the partial oxidation zone. These compounds collect at the bottom of the unit and are continuously removed as inert stone (slag) and recycled metals.

_GCC

While California's government is attempting to promote this nifty technology for waste to liquids, a more economical use at this time would be on offshore oil platforms and at stranded gas wells -- to reduce the level of natural gas flaring and to make economical use of stranded and offshore gas.

This technology would also work well for decentralised biomass to liquids (BTL) production on a local and regional level -- once the infrastructures for collection and densification of biomass are developed.

Hot Plasma Makes Quick Work of Garbage -- And Generates Power Too!

From the highway, one of the biggest landfills in the US doesn’t look at all like a dump. It’s more like a misplaced mesa. Only when you drive closer to the center of operations at the 700-acre Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, Oregon, does the function of this place become clear. Some 35,000 tons of mostly household trash arrive here weekly by train from Seattle and by truck from Portland....

On the southwest side of the landfill, bus-sized containers of gas connect to ribbons of piping, which run into a building that looks like an airplane hangar with a loading dock. Here, dump trucks also offload refuse. This trash, however, is destined for a special kind of treatment—one that could redefine how we think about trash.... _Wired

Here’s how it works: The household waste delivered into this hangar will get shredded, then travel via conveyer to the top of a large tank. From there it falls into a furnace that’s heated to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit and mixes with oxygen and steam. The resulting chemical reaction vaporizes 75 to 85 percent of the waste, transforming it into a blend of gases known as syngas (so called because they can be used to create synthetic natural gas). The syngas is piped out of the system and segregated. The remaining substances, still chemically intact, descend into a second vessel that’s roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

This cauldron makes the one above sound lukewarm by comparison. Inside, two electrodes aimed toward the middle of the vessel create an electric arc that, at 18,000 degrees, is almost as hot as lightning. This intense, sustained energy becomes so hot that it transforms materials into their constituent atomic elements. The reactions take place at more than 2,700 degrees, which means this isn’t incineration—this is emission-free molecular deconstruction. (The small amount of waste material that survives falls to the bottom of the chamber, where it’s trapped in molten glass that later hardens into inert blocks.)

The seemingly sci-fi transformation occurs because the trash is blasted apart by plasma—the forgotten-stepsister state of matter. Plasma is like gas in that you can’t grip or pour it. But because extreme heat ionizes some atoms (adding or subtracting electrons), causing conductivity, it behaves in ways that are distinct from gas. _Wired

Wired
Curiously, in Cleveland, Ohio, bug-witted politician Dennis Kucinich is leading the rabble in protest against the building of a similar garbage gasification plant. Is it that people Cleveland like trash too much to give it up, or is it that their trashy politicians enjoy stuffing the garbage down their throats too much to give it up?

Garbage Gasification Power Gaining Global Traction

Dozens of companies -- large and small -- are vying for the rights to access municipal waste disposal landfills, to get in on the riches of fuel and power from garbage.

The US military has been in the forefront of the gasification of garbage for purposes of sanitation and energy production. First the US Army, next the US Air Force, and now the US Marine Corps are learning how to fit small, portable gasification plants into their strategic planning.

One company has signed a billion euro agreement which allows it to mine many of the world's landfills for solid waste to turn into fuels and power, via gasification.

This is one form of decentralised power and fuels production at its most extreme, since the sources of garbage are even more decentralised and diffuse than the sources of biomass, if one starts at the beginning. The same is true for municipal sewage, which can also be turned into fuels and energy.

It has been worth society's while to create an infrastructure for centralising and disposing of wastes and garbage -- for purposes of sanitation alone. How much more will it be worth developing even better infrastructure to achieve both sanitation and energy + fuels?

Waste Polymers to Fuels, Energy, and High Value Chemicals = $$$

Three US companies which are devising profitable ways to process waste polymers into fuels, energy, and chemicals are Cleveland's Vadxx, Oregon's Agilyx, and Akron's Polyflow.

Vadxx Energy, a Cleveland-based company, says it uses a continuous depolymerization process that takes long chains of polymers and breaks them down into shorter chains of hydrocarbons in the form of light, sweet synthetic crude and hydrocarbon gas.

Sean Arnold, Vadxx Energy chief operating officer, says he has found the continuous depolymerization process to be energy efficient. It also allows his company to use different sources of feedstock while achieving a consistent process "that meets the specifications of the refining marketplace," he says.

Jamil Karim, communications specialist for Agilyx, Tigard, Ore., says, "The Agilyx base system consists of four primary vessels and is capable of converting approximately 10 tons of plastic into approximately 60 barrels, or 2,400 gallons, of oil per day."

Polyflow LLC, Akron, Ohio, says it uses a patented thermal pyrolysis process that breaks apart the polymers into a set of reactive species and then allows them to reform into aromatic chemicals, which are the lightest and most valuable chemical compounds produced from crude oil.

Jay Schabel, Polyflow CEO, says, "The benefit of our process is that it can take all forms of polymer waste without sorting and cleaning, so the raw material and processing cost is very low. Just as important is the fact that it produces a light, clean and valuable end product that was previously made from crude oil. The net result is a business model that works without government subsidies or requiring special contracts to make it financially viable. It is both financially and environmentally sustainable." _RecyclingToday
Pyrolysis and continuous thermal depolymerisation are effective ways of converting most forms of waste plastics to useful products and energy. Another approach to depolymerisation of waste polymers is via ionic liquids. Ionic liquids approaches can allow less expensive low-pressure processing, when compared to pyrolysis, gasification, and thermal depolymerisation.

Waste to energy and waste to high value materials are quickly growing parts of the economy. Rather than to push waste into massive landfills, clever entrepreneurs and engineers are devising multiple ways of converting wastes into valuable products and energy. These people are devoting their time and energy to these projects in order to capitalise upon an opportunity.

It is a shame that leftist greens do not also devote their considerable time and energy to productive and profitable methods to eliminate wastes. Instead, by acting as energy obstructionists and starvationists, lefty-Luddite greens act as enemies of humanity.

Dynamic Fuels Plant Produces 5.4 Million Gallons of Synthetic Fuel in July 2011

Dynamic Fuels LLC is a 50/50 joint venture of Syntroleum and Tyson. Unlike the ethanol and biodiesel industries, which use food ingredients such as corn and soybean oil to produce fuel, Dynamic Fuels uses non-food-grade animal fats and greases.

...To date, the Geismar plant has manufactured renewable diesel with a cloud point as low as minus-26 degrees Fahrenheit and cetane as high as 88, more than twice that of the ASTM petroleum diesel specification. The facility’s renewable diesel fuel product meets all ASTM D975 specifications for diesel fuel.

Gary Roth, chief executive officer of Syntroleum, said, “Our U.S. plant is producing some of the highest quality diesel fuel in the world, and best of all, it is renewable with a carbon footprint 75 percent below that of petroleum diesel. We can also make renewable, high value specialty distillate products that can be used in a wide variety of applications such as dry cleaning, ink cartridges and drilling fluids, and we are actively pursuing these markets.” _ReliablePlant

Turkey king Tyson Foods is helping to turn tonnes of waste chicken, beef, pork, and turkey fat into a better diesel than most oil refineries produce. 5.4 million gallons of high quality synthetic fuels were produced last month, with the potential to produce roughly 7.5 million barrels a month from the one plant.

Syntroleum Corporation reported that the Dynamic Fuels plant in Geismar—its 50/50 joint venture with Tyson Foods (earlier post)—produced 5.4 million gallons (20.4 million liters) of drop-in synthetic fuel in July, a production level representing 87% of the plant’s design capacity.

The 5.4 million level implies an annual run rate of 65 million gallons per year, Syntroleum noted. The Geismar Plant was designed to produce 75 million gallons per year and the plant has demonstrated production rates of 120% of its design basis.

We have focused 100% of our energy since last October on bringing our first of a kind advanced biofuels plant up to commercial production rates. Now that we have accomplished this, we intend to focus our efforts on optimizing the plant’s performance enabling us to produce more and more of the drop-in renewable fuels needed to meet the growing demand for biofuels.

—Gary Roth, CEO

...Syntroleum Corporation owns the Syntroleum Process for Fischer-Tropsch (FT) conversion of synthesis gas derived from biomass, coal, natural gas and other carbon-based feedstocks into liquid hydrocarbons, the Synfining Process for upgrading FT liquid hydrocarbons into middle distillate products such as synthetic diesel and jet fuels, and the Bio-Synfining technology for converting animal fat and vegetable oil feedstocks into middle distillate products such as renewable diesel and jet fuel using inedible fats and greases as feedstock. _GCC

The venture has lost money during the ramping up phase, of course. But as production approaches 100% -- and perhaps 120% -- of designed capacity for the one plant in Geismar, Louisiana, the profit picture should improve. Tyson is also hoping for more government subsidies such as the renewable diesel tax credit which expired in December, 2009. But if Tyson cannot make a profit without government handouts, perhaps it should stick to its core business and let others take over the synthetic fuels line.

Waste Plastic to Fuel Ratcheting Up

JBI, Inc. has entered into an agreement with Rock-Tenn Company to convert mill by-product waste into fuel using JBI’s Plastic2Oil technology. The products of the P2O process are naphtha, fuel oil, and an off-gas similar to natural gas. Naphtha is similar in many respects to gasoline, and fuel oil is similar in many respects to diesel fuel.

...RockTenn’s paper mills and MRFs currently produce thousands of tons of plastic per day. To handle the plastic waste stream, RockTenn has been storing this by-product in company-owned plastic-only monofill sites for several years. The agreement gives JBI the exclusive rights to mine plastic from these sites. _GCC

Rather than looking at used plastics as garbage, an increasing number of industrial companies are beginning to look at waste plastic as the starting point for producing valuable fuels and chemicals. JBI's process is said to be clean and economical, and time will tell.

JBI’s P2O process converts waste plastic into fuel without the need of further refinement. JBI scaled a 1kg process to a 20MT commercial processor in less than one year...The Plastic2Oil conversion process is similar to pyrolysis, and involves the cracking of plastic hydrocarbon chains at ambient pressure and low temperature using a reusable catalyst.

In addition to liquid fuel, the P2O process produces off-gas, which is similar to natural gas. In order to avoid having to flare the off-gas, JBI uses a gas compression system that buffers and regulates the off-gas and then feeds the off-gas into the P2O processor’s furnace, creating a closed loop operating system.

Excess off-gas is stored in mobile tanks and can be sold or used to cold-start the P2O processor’s furnace. In other words, the P2O process requires minimal external energy to operate since the processor can operate on its own captured and stored off-gas, according to JBI.

To most efficiently load the P2O processor, the plastic feedstock is passed through a shredder and granulator. A hopper is loaded with approximately 1,800 pounds of waste plastic using a forklift. The plastic is loaded into the processor by a continuous conveyor belt between the hopper and reactor. The plastic is then fed into the processor chamber where it is heated by burning off-gas produced from the conversion process.

In the reactor, plastic hydrocarbons are cracked into various shorter hydrocarbon chains and exit in a gaseous state. Any residue or non-usable substances remain in the processor chamber and must be removed periodically. From the processor, the gasses containing fuel oil and naphtha are condensed and separated, then proceed into temporary fuel tanks.

...A 20 MT capacity P2O processor at the Niagara Falls Facility resides in an approximately 10,000 square foot building and is about 24 feet high at its highest point. Operations and general maintenance for this processor requires approximately 3,000 square feet of space. The process is automated, and the machine is equipped with 63 different sensors. General operations involve monitoring the display screen to track the machine’s operating parameters, and the loading of plastic onto the machine’s in-feed system. _GCC

Waste plastics can be high value feedstocks for producing fuels, chemicals, and other products if industrial engineers are clever enough. Once clean and efficient processes are developed, the key for economical reclamation of wastes is a strong cooperation between the producers of waste plastics and the industrial consumers of those waste plastics.

Energy News Briefs

Gas Techno Mini-GTL
Gas Techno is offering to "mini gas-to-liquids (GTL)" plant packages using its technology of natural gas to methanol conversion, for between $1.5 million and $2 million. The packages can fit inside a standard 40 foot shipping container. Instead of converting natural gas to syngas, Gas Techno's process converts the gas to methanol, with formalin as a side product.

Biomass to Wheel Comparison
A Virginia Tech U. professor has devised a simple "biomass to wheels" method of calculating comparative efficiencies between different biomass methods for powering automobiles. A preliminary comparison is pictured above, with the basic approach outlined below.

Rentech's 55 MW biomass powerplant in Port St. Joe, Florida, received its final and unappealable air permit. The plant uses biomass gasification and gas turbine generation technology. Such a plant is ideal for CHP -- combined heat and power -- and for auxiliary production of fuels and renewable chemicals.

Also in Florida, GreenEnviroTech is building two plants for converting used vehicle tyres to oil. (via Biofuelsdigest)

Brazil's massive offshore oil reserves comparable in size to those of the North Sea

Positive news on small modular fission reactors (SMRs) from Dan Yurman and US Senator Lamar Alexander.

The Al Fin Energy blog does not focus upon any particular source of energy, because human civilisation is going to need most available forms of energy to get to the next level. The energy starvationists who currently control most governments of the advanced world are steering civilisation directly toward the Idiocracy.

Since civilisations cannot survive without relatively abundant energy, and since so many forms of energy are being prohibited and over-regulated, over-taxed, and over-priced by governmental agencies and international cartels, virtually all forms of energy must remain on the table for those remaining who wish civilisation to succeed. It is up to us that these forms of energy be utilised in as clean and sustainable a manner as possible.

Bonus! via NextBigFuture, Kirk Sorensen's information-packed TED Talk:

Rapid Pyrolysis Fuels, Chemicals, Food etc. from Waste

Ensyn Technology
Ensyn Technology has been producing fuels and chemicals from wood since 1989, and continues expanding.

A new Alberta plant will convert wood waste from a sawmill into pyrolysis oil, using Ensyn's fast pyrolysis process.

The RTP technology has multiple proven applications and has been commercially demonstrated in a number of industrial sectors. In addition to renewable fuels, RTP liquids are a source of numerous chemical products, including food ingredients and resins, over 30 of which have already been commercialised. RTP also is being applied in the petroleum industry for heavy oil upgrading under the name “HTL” by Ensyn’s strategic partner, Ivanhoe Energy Inc., where it is providing a revolutionary step-change in economics and competitive advantage. At the core of each of these applications is the same platform RTP technology. _Ensyn

The conversion of wood and agricultural waste into high value fuels and chemicals is an economic activity which will have to compete with many other approaches to fuels, chemicals, and energy production. But over time, waste to energy processes will become more efficient and cost-effective, while most competing feedstocks and approaches are likely to grow ever more expensive.

Cheap methane from shale deposits will likely delay many waste to energy projects for a number of years. But there will also be companies such as Ensyn which find niches of opportunity within which to operate profitably. When fossil fuel prices begin once again to edge upwards, Ensyn and other opportunistic innovators will already be in position to expand.

Producing Oil at $45 a Barrel from Mixed Waste Plastics

Oregon company Agilyx has raised $22 million in new operating cash from high profile investors including Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, venture capital firm Chrystalix, and corporate investors Waste Management and Total Energy Ventures International. Agilyx has developed a system of rapid pyrolytic treatment of mixed and contaminated plastics into pure petroleum oil -- which it says it can produce at about $45 a barrel.

The company has developed a multi-step process which it says can convert about ten pounds of mixed plastics into one gallon of crude oil.

To make oil, it heats plastics to the point where they turn into a gas. There is then a condensing stage, which converts the gas back into a liquid and removes impurities.

Agilyx is now operating a demonstration plant, which is selling oil to a refiner, and intends to sell its equipment to plastic handlers and recyclers which deal with large volumes. The synthetic crude oil can be refined on site or shipped to standard refiners and the net carbon footprint from its technology is favorable, according to the company.

...The technology can produce oil at about $45 a barrel, Brian Wawro from Chrysalix told the Portland Business Journal. _CNET

The cost of the final product will depend in part upon how much the feedstock wastes cost the producer. The cheaper the garbage, the cheaper the end fuels and energy.

Agilyx is one of dozens of companies hoping to cash in on the waste-to-energy trend. Anyone who has seen video of the great garbage avalanche of 2505, will understand the importance of a tidy and resourceful re-cycling of civilisation's garbage. If you can profit from maintaining a cleaner landscape at the same time, who will complain except the dieoff.orgy greens?

Off-Grid Local Power Generation Using Wastewater & Other Waste

Pilus Energy is converging digester, fermenter, scrubber, and other time-proven technologies into a single solution we call an electrogenic bioreactor (EBR). This transformative technology is the basis of the Pilus Cell™. The EBR harnesses genetically enhanced bacteria and harvests the direct current (DC) electricity, economically important biogases like hydrogen, isoprene, and methane from bacterial metabolism (cellular respiration) of organic molecules. _Pilus

Pilus Energy of Ohio is partnering with Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies of Singapore to provide a sustainable self-contained waste-to-electric power generation platform.

Ohio-based Pilus Energy has announced a strategic relationship with Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies in Singapore, to combine Horizon hydrogen fuel cells with Pilus Energy’s renewable hydrogen production platform.

The partnership will integrate Horizon’s PEM fuel cells with Pilus Energy's platform for renewable hydrogen production, to provide a unique turnkey, end-to-end solution to generate clean power at low cost.

Distributed or localized production of hydrogen can reduce reliance on external hydrogen supplies, and opens up the opportunity for self-sustainable power systems in remote, off-grid locations. Using waste or wastewater as feedstock for distributed bio-hydrogen production also offers a carbon-free solution for both urban and remote environments. _RenewableEnergyFocus

This combination of microbial hydrogen-from-waste plus fuel cell power generation, should allow for sustained power generation without need for relying on an outside source of fuel.

Converting Abundant Glycerol Waste into Useful Chemicals & Fuel

Source
A research student at U. Alabama Huntsville, is developing the capacity of cell bacterium Clostridium Pasteurianum to convert waste glycerol from biodiesel manaufacture into valuable fuels and chemicals.

A strain of bacteria found in soil is being studied for its ability to convert waste from a promising alternative fuel into several useful materials, including another alternative fuel.

A graduate student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville is developing biological tools to make products from crude glycerol -- a waste material from the production of biodiesel. The research is being funded by the National Science Foundation.

... About 100,000 gallons of glycerol is produced with every million gallons of biodiesel manufactured from animal fats or vegetable oils. (In 2009 more than 500 million gallons of biodiesel were produced in the U.S. while more than 2.75 billion gallons were produced in Europe.)

...The bacteria uses glycerol as a carbohydrate source. From that they produce three alcohol byproducts -- butanol, propanediol and ethanol -- plus acetic acid and butyric acid. Butanol is a particularly interesting byproduct.

"Butanol is a big alcohol molecule, twice as big as ethanol," Venkataramanan said. "You can use it as an industrial solvent and it can be used in cars, replacing gasoline with no modifications. It doesn't have some of the problems you have with ethanol, such as rapid evaporation. And ethanol is a two-carbon molecule, but butanol is a four-carbon molecule so its energy value is much higher. In fact, there are plans to use it for jet fuel.

...In their present form, the bacteria convert about 30 to 35 percent of their gylcerol meals into butanol and another 25 to 30 percent into a chemical used to make plastics. Venkataramanan is looking at different strategies to improve that yield. He is also studying the bacteria's genes to see if a more productive strain can be bioengineered. _Newswise_via_BiofuelsDigest

Similar approaches to microbial chemical synthesis are utilised at massive scale in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. It is more difficult to produce fuels economically, given the much lower prices for fuels by weight or volume, compared to prices for pharmaceuticals, chemicals, foods, etc.

In Europe, planners are anticipating much higher utilisations of biofuels and sustainable fuels over the next 30 years. After taking a foolish and ruinous detour into wind and solar investments, some of the more intelligent energy analysts and planners of Europe are beginning to sober up and comprehend the gravity of their situation. Others -- particularly lefty-Luddites -- will never learn.

Bio-DiMethylEther from Black Liquor in Sweden: More On the Way

The European Union has approved the SEK 500 million (€55 million, $75 million) R&D grant awarded by the Swedish Energy Agency towards the industrial scale demonstration biofuels plant based on Chemrec’s gasification technology at the Domsjö Fabriker biorefinery in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. The plant will produce the renewable and environmentally compatible biofuels biomethanol or bioDME using forest harvest residues as energy feedstock.

...Chemrec AB and our partner the Domsjö Fabriker biorefinery were awarded the R&D support in September 2009 by the Swedish Energy Agency. The plant will be based on the Chemrec black liquor gasification technology combined with advanced technology for fuels production. The project investment cost is estimated at approximately SEK 3 billion for a production capacity of 140 000 ton biomethanol or 100 000 ton bioDME per year in a dual product plant. _Chemrec_via_BiofuelsDigest

Chemrec Domsjo Biorefinery
Sweden possesses vast forests which are harvested for timber, specialty cellulose, and paper/pulp. A by-product of the paper/pulp industry is black liquor, which can be converted to useful biofuels via gasification.

Biofuels produced using our gasification technology reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 95% compared to gasoline or diesel and replace imported fossil fuels with renewable fuels. The global potential of the technology is equivalent to replacement of approximately 30 million tons of diesel oil. The Domsjö plant will have the capacity equivalent to the fuel demand of over 2000 heavy trucks. _Chemrec Press Release

The bio-DME and bio-methanol produced by these plants will replace significant amounts of diesel fuel, and other petroleum products. But the process is but a niche application -- an add-on to a pre-existing industry which is itself an add-on (or offshoot) to the lumber industry.

That is one way in which market capitalism works -- by locating waste products of pre-existing enterprises which can be converted to valuable feedstocks and end-products.

Turning Old Carpets Into Oil: Garbage to Energy

Four billion pounds of carpet enter waste streams in the U.S. each year, says CEO Ron Simonetti. Five pounds of oil go into a single pound of nylon, so annually the U.S. could curb oil exports by millions of barrels via recycling. _GTM

GreenTechMedia
US companies are scrambling to find economical ways to use garbage and waste profitably. From municipal solid waste to sewage to discarded tyres and carpets to farm and forest waste, the US is endowed with plentiful waste materials. The key is devising economical processes to convert and recycle the waste to valuable products.

The key to MCR’s technology is a precipitation/distillation process it calls DynaSep. First, carpet goes to a recycler where it gets shaved. The backing, made of calcium carbonate, goes to one company and MCR takes the fibers.

MCR dissolves the fiber in formic acid to make a nylon soup. Then comes the secret precipitation process. The process occurs at room temperature, but at an elevated pressure. In the end, the process fleeces out the dirt so that the company is left with 99 percent pure nylon and a reusable tub of formic acid. _GTM

Here is a nice online directory for Waste to Energy

Other materials used in carpet-making are not as easily recycled in this way as is nylon. For them, other approaches for conversion to high value products will be necessary.

The prime shortage is the shortage of human ingenuity, inventiveness, and ambition.

Diesel from Waste Plastics Scales Up in UK and Ireland

STA UK is gearing up to build 10 new waste plastic to diesel plants in the UK. The first plant is to be built in Port Laoighise, Ireland. The process utilises pyrolysis (heating in absence of oxygen) of waste plastics, with fractional distillation of the pyrolysis gases to purify the diesel.

Plastic waste is continuously treated in a cylindrical chamber and the pyrolytic gases condensed in a specially-designed condenser system to yield predominantly straight chain aliphatic hydrocarbons with little formation of by-products. These hydrocarbons are then selectively condensed and cleaved further catalytically to produce the average carbon chain length required for distillate fuel.

The plastic is pyrolized at 370 ºC-420 ºC and the pyrolysis gases are condensed in a 2-stage condenser to produce a low-sulfur distillate. (Pyrolysis is a process of thermal degradation in the absence of oxygen.) _GCC

On the biofuels front, Butamax (a partnership between BP and DuPont) has opened a production laboratory in Sao Paolo, Brasil, to develop scalable and efficient means of producing bio-butanol from sugar cane. Butanol is a simple four carbon alcohol which can be added to either gasoline or diesel, substituted for gasoline without modification in modern gasoline engines, and pumped through ordinary pipelines without additional concern about corrosion (unlike ethanol).

The problem with the production of butanol is that current micro-organisms cannot tolerate more than a few per cent concentration of butanol, and die off before they can produce appreciable yield. So either Butamax will have to develop hardier organisms, or they will need to find an efficient way to pull the butanol out of solution as quickly as it is produced. Additional solutions to the problem might include a staged platform of multiple microbes or "pseudo-microbes" (catalytic platforms which perform the essential synthesis operations of the microbe without the cells). Each stage might perform a separate step in the synthesis process, with each stage adapted to its own set of reactants and products to minimise toxicity for that particular stage.

New Diesel and Bio-Diesel Powered Fuel Cell

Brian Westenhaus has a story about a new solid-acid fuel cell capable of running on diesel and biodiesel fuels. The development comes from research taking place in Norway. If the new fuel cell proves out, it should be a big boost for electric vehicles -- allowing rapid re-fueling with current infrastructure. Future biodiesel infrastructures will easily fit into the scheme for both vehicular and stationary applications.

In trials, a 200-watt solid-acid fuel cell ran on both pure hydrogen and on hydrogen produced from diesel by the unit’s reformer – with only an insignificant difference in performance. The system is another handy way to solve the hydrogen production and storage issue as well as keep consumers access to abundant fuels used at very high efficiencies.

Diesel is a hydrocarbon thus CO2 is an issue. The reformer section converts the hydrocarbons into hydrogen, CO2 and heat. Due to the unit’s high efficiency, CO2 emissions are substantially lower than in conventional combustion engines, and no other demonstrable exhaust is discharged – meaning that diesel particulates, black carbon soot, nitrous oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) are eliminated. An added plus is that the reformer emits no smoke or odor. And, it’s dead silent.

The silent electric generator is being developed and produced by the Norwegian company Nordic Power Systems (NPS). The new type of fuel cell is being developed and delivered from the California firm SAFCell. The development of solid-based acid fuel cells (SAFC) was pioneered in the Haile Lab of the Material Science Department at Caltech. Dr. Calum Chisholm, together with a team of experienced scientists, engineers, and business executives founded SAFCell to bring the technology to the market in November of 2009. Things are moving very fast – it not been a year yet and the prototype field test units are being built. _BrianWestenhaus

Update on waste-to-fuels enterprise by Terrabon

Chemrec's Swedish BlackLiquor to DME Plant Takes Shape

Black liquor is a waste by-product of paper pulp processing. Chemrec plans to gasify the black liquor and convert the syngas directly to dimethyl ether in an efficient process. The new Swedish demo plant will have a capacity of 584,000 gallons per year of DME.

In Sweden, the steel towers forming the main process units of the new BioDME-plant were put in place beside Chemrec’s development plant in Piteå. On July 21 the world’s first demonstration plant for the energy-efficient automotive fuel DME, dimethyl ether, will be ready for commissioning and start-up. The demonstration plant will have a capacity of 584,000 gallons of BioDME per year, using black liquor gasification of pulp and paper mill waste. _BiofuelsDigest

Sweden has developed a reputation for innovation, along with neighbor Finland.

Europe in general is developing some encouraging plans for developing its bioenergy resources.

For several centuries, Europe has been the world's hotbed of research, innovation, and development of a wide range of technologies and sciences. Unfortunately, unless something is done about the rapid implosion of Europe's population, the best days of European innovation are likely behind us -- other than a last hurrah! which is being largely squandered on the green energy hoax and carbon hysteria.

Biodiesel from Sewage Sludge "Very Close" to Economical

Municipal sewage sludge is a "pre-processed" feedstock for biofuels production. It is relatively concentrated, compared to forestry and agricultural leavings and waste. Sewage is non-edible for most non-politicians and non-attorneys. It would seem to be an ideal feedstock for biofuels -- if only there were not so much oil and other fossil fuels waiting to be used!

Existing technology can produce biodiesel fuel from municipal sewage sludge that is within a few cents a gallon of being competitive with conventional diesel refined from petroleum, according to Dr. David Kargbo, with the US EPA’s Office of Innovation, Environmental Assessment & Innovation Division in Philadelphia, PA. His analysis was published online in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels. Sludge is the solid material left behind from the treatment of sewage at wastewater treatment plants.

...Municipal sewage sludge is gaining traction in the US and around the world as a lipid feedstock for biodiesel production. First, municipal sewage sludge contains significant concentrations of lipids derived from the direct adsorption of lipids onto the sludge. These energy-containing lipids include triglycerides, diglycerides, monoglycerides, phospholipids, and free fatty acids contained in the oils and fats. In addition, microorganisms used in the wastewater treatment process utilize organic and inorganic compounds in the wastewater as a source of energy, carbon, and nutrients. The cell membrane of these microorganisms is a major component of sewage sludge and is composed primarily of phospholipids. It is estimated at 24% to 25% of dry mass of the cell and yields about 7% oil from the dried secondary sludge. Other studies have demonstrated that up to 36.8 wt % of the dry sludge is comprised of fatty acids and steroids. With the fatty acids from sludge predominantly in the range of C10 to C18, these are excellent for the production of biodiesel.

—Kargbo 2010
Other potential benefits of using sludge as a feedstock are:

It’s plentiful. In the US alone, approximately 6.2 million dry metric tons of sludge is produced annually by wastewater treatment facilities.
Sludge management is a formidable environmental challenge. Biodiesel production from sludge as a viable alternative to land disposal could help to solve both energy and environmental problems.
Capacity. Studies show that integrating lipid extraction processes in 50% of all existing municipal wastewater treatment plants in the US and transesterification of the extracted lipids could produce approximately 1.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, which is roughly 0.5% of the yearly national petroleum diesel demand.
However, he notes, sludge biodiesel also faces significant challenges, including:

• Collecting the sludge.

• Maintaining product quality.

• Soap formation and product separation.

• Bioreactor design.

• Pharmaceutical chemicals in sludge.

• Regulatory concerns.

• Economics of biodiesel production.

• Determining how best to collect the different fractions (primary and secondary) and treat them for maximum lipids extraction is a major challenge. To accelerate biodiesel production, cosolvents and high shear mixing have been proposed, he notes, but there is very little information on the cost-effective means of increasing lipid solubility.GCC

The global economy is quite sensitive to any kind of shock. Low economic activity leads to low demand for transportation fuels, leading to low oil prices.

The fact that the Earth is floating in methane of several types, and other fossil fuels, does not help the economic equation -- in terms of making biofuels economical. And yet there may be many special niches where the feedstock for particular biofuel processes can actually lead to economical biofuels production -- fully competitive with existing petro-fuels.

Should that be the case, we should see a growing downward resistance to increases in oil and fossil fuels prices, as technology for making biofuels steadily improves.

What Do You Do with Non-Biodegradable Plastics?

If you are smart, you will turn the plastics into useful fuel.

Northeastern University student researchers have come up with an apparatus to convert plastic waste into clean energy without releasing harmful emissions.

...Self-sustainability is the key to the double-tank combustor design. Plastic waste is first processed in an upper tank through pyrolysis, which converts solid plastic into gas. Next, the gas flows to a lower tank, where it is burned with oxidants to generate heat and steam. The heat sustains the combustor while the steam can be used to generate electric power.

"The prototype can be scaled up to drive a large power plant, which could connect to a plastic recycling center for a constant flow of fuel," said David Laskowski, an undergraduate student working on the team.evendis, who has pursued research on the combustion of plastics and other post-consumer wastes for the past 20 years, is currently focusing on the concept of vaporizing solid plastic waste, which would reduce levels of harmful emissions during the combustion process.
_OneIndia

Waste plastics are too valuable to be thrown into a landfill. A resourceful society would have hundreds of valid and economic uses for every type of garbage, but modern societies are not particularly resourceful.

Gasification is another approach to converting garbage or waste to energy and fuel. Oil rich Norway is promoting new gasification technology for wood, as it looks beyond its current fossil fuel dependency.

New Fuels, Energy, Materials from Waste, Biomass

NYT
Slovakian company Carbon Green announced a new economically viable plan to use pyrolysis to "recycle" used tires.

Cornell University is planning a new waste-to-energy plant which will utilise pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion, combustion, and fermentation.

New York company Clenergen announced a partnership with Honeywell which will use pyrolysis to produce a bio-heating oil from rapid growing biomass -- including bamboo.

Rentech's biomass gasification to jet fuel approach was tested in flight by a US commercial airliner.

A brief look at a variety of waste - to - energy approaches.

Novel Approaches to Biofuels

MIT's Technology Review has a story on Joule Energy's micro-organism, with a novel genetic switch incorporated:

Joule's bioengineers have equipped their microörganisms with a genetic switch that limits growth. The scientists allow them to multiply for only a couple of days before flipping that switch to divert the organisms' energy from growth into fuel production. While other companies try to grow as much biomass as possible, Afeyan says, "I want to make as little biomass as I can." In retrospect, the approach might seem obvious. Indeed, the startup Synthetic Genomics and an academic group at the BioTechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota are also working on making fuels directly from carbon dioxide. Joule hopes to succeed by developing both its organisms and its photobioreactor from scratch, so that they work perfectly together. _TechnologyReview

Joule's approach is exactly the opposite of that taken by a team from the University of Michigan. They maximise biomass in order to pyrolyse the entire bulk of algae into bio-crude.

The pressure-cooker method the U-M researchers are studying bucks the trend in algae-to-fuel processing. The conventional technique involves cultivating special, oily types of algae, drying the algae and then extracting its oil.

The hydrothermal process this project employs allows researchers to start with less-oily types of algae. The process also eliminates the need to dry it, overcoming two major barriers to large-scale conversion of microalgae to liquid fuels.

"We make an algae soup," Savage said. "We heat it to about 300 degrees and keep the water at high enough pressure to keep it liquid as opposed to steam. We cook it for 30 minutes to an hour and we get a crude bio-oil."

The high temperature and pressure allows the algae to react with the water and break down. Not only does the native oil get released, but proteins and carbohydrates also decompose and add to the fuel yield. _EnergyPublisher

Genencor is taking an even broader approach, by engineering a microbe that can produce both biofuels and isoprene -- synthetic rubber for tires.

Genencor, the industrial enzyme specialist, has engineered a microorganism that can produce a version of isoprene that is chemically identical to the 1.7 billion pounds of isoprene created annually with fossil fuels. This so-called BioIsoprene can then be converted into jet fuel, diesel, polymers or synthetic rubber through additional chemical processes.

...How these different products get to market will vary. The company could ship raw BioIsoprene or establish joint ventures for finished or semi-finished products. Revenue from Genencor comes to around $800 million a year.

"One of our core competencies is the design and optimization of the cell factory," LaDuca said. "We make microorganisms to do work for us." _GreenTechMedia

Bioenergy, biofuels, high value chemicals, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, and animal feed. All of that and more will be produced routinely from microbes, biomass, agricultural and forestry waste, municipal waste, and other assorted materials currently considered worthless garbage.