Who Will Ride the Gas-to-Oil Price Differential to Riches?

There is always big money to be made in substituting a lower cost feedstock or commodity for a higher priced one. The obvious big money substitution opportunity in the energy field, is the substitution of low cost natural gas for high priced oil. Natural gas is difficult to transport globally, unless it is transformed into a denser liquid form, such as LPG or GTL. The more economical the transformation process to liquids, the more money that can be made.

NYT
Shell's gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology is producing high value hydrocarbon fuel and chemicals in Qatar and in Malaysia. But it is very expensive to build large scale GTL plants based on this technology, which limits entry into the field. As the technology proves itself in the market, other big players are likely to step in.

Sasol and PetroSA have GTL plants in South Africa, where rich shale gas fields are coming under development. Shell is moving into those gas fields, and may be thinking about opening its own GTL plant in South Africa, if it can deal with the government corruption.

applications of excess product. Primarily, natural gas is used as feedstock for the Gas To Liquid process. The GTL process converts natural gas to synthetic fuels. This has proven to be far more profitable product for oil/energy and exploration companies to supply into the energy markets. There are currently only two plants in SA capable of refining natural gas to liquid petroleum products. Sasol has its GTL plant located in Secunda and PetroSA has its plant in Mosselbay. _CBN

Australian companies are looking at building GTL plants to take advantage of large gas deposits there, but are somewhat daunted by the high cost of entry. The uncertainty of long term oil prices also causes planners to hesitate.

"Higher oil prices provide the incentive to look at ways and means of producing synthetic fuels, other than simply refining crude oil," Mr Wendt told AAP.

However, he says a major barrier is the high price of setting up a processing plant to make a product that is a commercial alternative to oil-based fuels.

It would cost $1 billion or $2 billion to build a plant that produces synthetic diesel at $40 or $50 a barrel.

But if the price of oil drops dramatically, people won't buy the synthetic product, leaving the owner of the plant unable to get a return on the investment, Mr Wendt said. _ninemsn

There is also debate in Alaska about turning North Slope gas into more lucrative liquid fuels. One of the problems is deciding on the best chemical approach to the transformation of gas to liquid fuel.

For a number of years there has been discussion of the potential to convert North Slope gas to diesel fuel on the North Slope using a process called gas to liquids, or GTL, and then shipping the diesel fuel down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. The core of the GTL process is the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, a chemical process first used in Germany in 1936 to produce synthetic liquid fuel. However, a study of the relative costs of the Fischer-Tropsch process and MTG has indicated that it is significantly cheaper to produce a given volume of fuels with MTG than with Fischer-Tropsch, while the gasoline produced from MTG has a higher value and quality than the diesel from GTL, Van Wijk said. _PetroleumNews

The Oxford Catalyst microchannel Fischer Tropsch GTL approach is just getting started, commercially, but is already receiving "buy" recommendations from Charles Stanley -- assuming the investor possesses abundant intestinal fortitude and staying power.

One of the largest driving forces behind the drop in natural gas prices -- and the opportunity to take advantage of the gas-oil price differential -- is the recent advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking technologies. Gas and oil trapped within shale has existed for eons, only waiting for a species intelligent enough to go in and get it.

The image above provides a modest comparison of the relative quantities of energy which are potentially available from conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons. Note the gas to liquids, coal to liquids, and kerogen to liquids potential. It is all about finding the best and most economical ways to liberate the hydrocarbons in high-value form.

Summary of gas-to-liquids technologies

US Gas for Canadian Oil

Energy and Capital
Canada needs US natural gas to help produce its bitumen oil sands. As oil sands production ratchets up from 1.5 million barrels per day to 5 mbpd by 2020, Canada's demand for US gas should continue to rise.

The emergence of shale gas over the last six years has fueled our hopes that we'll be able to safely transition away from our oil addiction.

Not only do we have an abundance of it trapped in the various shale formations across our country, but developing that resource is inevitable, because we're not the only ones counting on that future supply...

You see, it's not just the United States that's depending on U.S. gas production. Remember Canada's trouble with peak natural gas?

It turns out natural gas exports to Canada have doubled in just five years!

We may be relying heavily on an ever-increasing amount of Canadian crude to meet our oil fix, but Canada's natural gas troubles will only worsen as production from the oil sands grows to more than five million barrels per day in the coming decade. (Natural gas plays a vital role in the extraction process of deeply-buried bitumen.)

Remember, more than three-quarters of Alberta's oil production comes from oil sands operations.

As if that weren't enough, Canada isn't the only country crossing her fingers for more U.S. natural gas. South of the border, Mexico is also relying more on our supply.

U.S. exports to Mexico have also jumped significantly. Prior to 2000, we barely exported any natural gas to either Canada or Mexico. Today's a different story.

Just like Canada, Mexico can't get enough of it...

Last year, natural gas production from the Marcellus averaged 1.3 Bcfe/d. By the start of 2011, production was around two billion cubic feet per day. And this is only the beginning.

Within the next eight years, production is expected to jump more than 775% to 17.5 billion cubic feet per day. In the process, it'll add at least 250,000 jobs and tack on over $20 billion in revenue to Pennsylvania's economy.

We're also expecting the drillers to have a field day. Even though natural gas prices have been lackluster since crashing in 2008, drilling more than doubled in 2010. There are more rigs drilling the formation than ever before...

_EnergyandCapital

Canada has plenty of shale gas too, but for now it is more lucrative to produce oil than gas, given current price spreads. Once the nascent gas to liquids (GTL) industry revs up, prices should slowly converge, and gas will become a more lucrative product.

Cross-posted from Al Fin blog

Methane to Methanol to Gasoline at Competitive Prices

GCC
Methane to methanol to gasoline for $2.85 a gallon, including a healthy $1.45 margin? That is what is being claimed for a combined "Gigamethanol" and MTG (methanol to gasoline) plant proposed for Alaska. Converting all the North Slope gas to gasoline could produce almost 500,000 barrels per day.

... a plant would produce methanol from natural gas on the North Slope using the proposed GigaMethanol technology. The resulting methanol would be blended with crude and transported via the trans-Alaska oil pipeline to Valdez, where it would be extracted from the oil and processed via Methanol-to-Gasoline technology into gasoline.

In January, ICIS reported that Eastman Chemical reached an agreement to sell a mothballed Texas methanol and ammonia plant to Pandora Methanol, a subsidiary of Janus Methanol.

The plant will have a capacity of 850,000 tonnes/year of methanol and 250,000 tonnes/year of ammonia, according to van Wijk. ...Van Wijk at the time said the new plant might consider the methanol-to-gasoline MTG process pioneered by ExxonMobil.
Eastman originally bought the plant in 2007 for a $1.6-billion coal-gasification project, but called off the project in late 2009 due to high capital requirements, the narrow difference between petroleum and natural gas prices and uncertain US energy policy....

Costs for a 63,000 barrel (of gasoline) per day system would be approximately $5.2 billion, he said. Gasoline could be delivered from Valdez at $2.65 to $2.85 per gallon, including a $1.45 margin.

In addition to providing a market for North Slope gas, the mix of methanol in the pipeline flow would help prevent problems with ice forming in the line, van Wijk, a former Methanex executive, suggested. If the entire daily output of North Slope gas (4.5 billion cubic feet, bcf) were converted to gasoline, it would produce 450,000 barrels per day, he suggested. _GCC

This is a different approach from the Oxford Catalysts and Sasol approaches. But the claims for efficiency and economic viability are difficult to beat, if true.

While the proposal is meant to take advantage of Alaskan natural gas, the same approach could conceivably be taken with shale gas or any other large gas deposits located anywhere.

Ratio of Oil Price to Natural Gas Price Skyrockets

Image via Bespoke
Whenever the price of oil diverges from the price of natural gas, opportunities for profit emerge.

With the price of natural gas remaining below $4 even as NYMEX crude is rising above $100 per barrel, the ratio of the price of oil to natural gas is currently right near record highs. Prior to the last five years, large spikes in this ratio were usually a sign that the price of oil had gotten ahead of itself. However, in recent years the historical relationship has become unhinged due to large discoveries of natural gas reserves in the United States. Given the fact that natural gas is harder to transport, there is less of a market for US supplies outside of the country.

The big question with the ever increasing ratio between oil and natural gas is why more hasn't been done to exploit the discrepancy. It's now been nearly three years to the day since oil first spiked above $100 per barrel. Since then we have heard incessant talk and catchphrases about how the US needed to become more energy independent and create alternative domestic sources of energy. What's been missing in all this talk, however, is meaningful action on the part of policy makers, corporations or automakers to create alternative uses for all this excess fuel, which is practically burning a hole in the nation's pocket. _SeekingAlpha

The smart approach would be to push gas-to-liquids technologies and liquefied natural gas export terminals. But the Obama regime is instead working on ways to shut down the unconventional gas wealth of the US. How stupid is that?

International oil prices are being buffeted by political unrest across MENA (middle east and north africa). This is best viewed as a temporary phenomenon, just one of many possible manifestations of "political peak oil." In other words, it is one type of price bubble. Many opportunists of questionable ethics are using this bubble to drum up business. Sensationalising the situation, they attempt to create a virtual catastrophe in the minds of the public.

But more intelligent people can see through the flack to the truth beyond: the oil is still there, the gas is still there, the coal is still there, the uranium is still there, geothermal resources are still there. The only problem of any consequence is the political obstructionism, corruption, and incompetence which impedes the clean, cheap, and abundant use of energy resources.

Breakthrough CO2 - Based Gas to Liquid Fuels Process

Update: Commenter Jono points out that company R&D spending for Carbon Sciences is not impressively high. Some people have questioned the viability of the technology Carbon Sciences wants to use. Regardless of the viability of any particular company, the technologies of GTL, CTL, BTL, KTL (kerogens to liquids), bitumens to liquids, methane clathrates to liquids, etc etc. have high enough payoffs to assure that viable processes that place these products firmly in the competitive marketplace will be developed.

"Unlike other technologies, such as those for algae biofuels, that may require decades for commercial deployment, our plan for delivering a market-ready technology may be available as soon as early next year. Within a short period of time, we believe that the world can stop drilling for oil and start converting natural gas and greenhouse gases to gasoline.” _TGDaily

CarbonSciences

A new process from Carbon Sciences aims to convert CO2 plus natural gas into gasoline and other advanced hydrocarbon fuels and high value chemicals. Carbon Sciences is developing this technology as a set of highly scalable modular processes, which together will be capable of providing a wide array of hydrocarbon products.

Carbon Sciences' Gas to Liquids (GTL) fuel technology is based on a chemical catalyst that converts methane and carbon dioxide directly into gasoline. The gases can be sourced from natural gas fields or coal-fired power plants, landfill gas, municipal waste, and even algae.

The company says it could have the system ready as soon as next year.

"The ongoing tragic events involving BP’s unchecked flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico further underscores the urgent need to reduce and eliminate our addiction to petroleum, foreign and domestic," said Byron Elton, CEO of Carbon Sciences.

"Carbon Sciences’ breakthrough technology takes us closer to a world without petroleum by essentially transforming pollution into energy."

The latest announcement is the development of a standalone system that, says the company, can reduce overall systems and operating costs and produce a fuel that can be used in existing infrastructure, supply chain and vehicles. __TGDaily

Gas to liquids and coal to liquids are the two technologies which offer the most immediate prospects for large scale replacement of crude oil in transportation fuels. Eventually, other carbonaceous sources such as kerogens, biomass, and perhaps methane clathrates will provide relatively inexpensive substitutes for crude oil based fuels, as well. It is a matter of developing the proper methods of mining or harvesting the feedstock, and discovering the best catalysts and other processes for refining the product most efficiently and economically.

The scary bedtime story of Peak Oil Doom was never well plotted or thought out. There have always been too many potential substitutes for light sweet crude -- in very large and accessible quantities -- for mature and informed individuals and institutions to panic. The only prospect for severe hardship as a result of a shortage of energy, is the prospect of governmental incompetence when interfering in the energy industry, or deliberate energy starvation policies implemented by governments as a part of a larger, intentional scheme. Such energy starvation policies could be properly labeled "Political Peak Oil."

Political Peak Oil is a genuine possibility, given the sort of politicians which have been getting elected recently -- and the sort of regulators they have been appointing. But that is a different type of problem with a different sort of solution.

Hotelling's Rule Beats Peak Oil Doom Every Time

The “Hotelling rule”, named after the late US mathematician Harold Hotelling, states that the price of an exhaustible commodity should converge towards the price of a substitute resource. _National

Peak Oil Doom is all about the massive devastating crash of the world economy that occurs, shortly after world crude oil production "peaks." The movement has collected a lot of adherents over the years, and several websites are dedicated to perpetuating the pornographic pleasure that peak oil doomers experience when contemplating the world after peak oil.

There is a serious problem with peak oil theory. It tends to ignore other forms of energy besides crude oil, which can be substituted for crude. Taking all the potential substitutes for crude oil into account tends to change the picture significantly.

From shale gas in North America to big new discoveries off the coasts of Venezuela and Israel, the recent appraisal of a huge Turkmen gasfield, new Australasian, Russian and Yemeni liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects and initiatives to reduce gas flaring in Nigeria, Russia and Iraq, it has never been clearer that the world is floating on a party balloon of gas.

Ironically, the more geologists search for oil, the more they usually find gas.

Consequently, gas prices have fallen in markets where the commodity trades freely.

Not so long ago, gas produced from oilfields was considered a nuisance, and it was burned as waste.

Now gas is a valued commodity for heating, power generation, the production of petrochemicals and fertiliser, for pushing more oil out of the ground, and even for conversion into synthetic crude oil and for use in some diesel engines.

Like oil, it can now be shipped around the world in tankers as well as moved through pipelines. If global warming continues, LNG tankers may soon ship gas from the Arctic.

Because of its infrastructure requirements, however, gas has most often been sold under long-term contracts linked to crude prices. In future, if Dr Austvik is right, crude markets may follow international gas prices. _National

Important new crude oil discoveries are being made on the continent and continental shelves of North America. But North America with its massive coal reserves, its trillions of barrels of oil sands bitumens and oil shale kerogens, and its massive new finds of natural gas, is in an excellent position to substitute "home grown" fuels for imported crude oil, if necessary.

Texas A&M University said US methods could increase global gas reserves by nine times to 16,000 TCF (trillion cubic feet). Almost a quarter is in China but it may lack the water resources to harness the technology given the depletion of the North China water basin.

Needless to say, the Kremlin is irked. "There's a lot of myths about shale production," said Gazprom's Alexander Medvedev.

If the new forecasts are accurate, Gazprom is not going to be the perennial cash cow funding Russia's great power resurgence. Russia's budget may be in structural deficit. _Telegraph

There is of course another kind of oil -- bio-oils. Bio-oils from microbes are the next big liquid fuels revolution (after CTL coal-to-liquids, GTL gas-to-liquids, and BTL biomass-to-liquids). It will take 10 to 20 years for microbe-produced oils to begin hitting the market and begin enacting Hotelling's Rule of economic substitution. BTL, CTL, and GTL will hit the markets much sooner.

And then there is the nuclear revolution -- safer and more efficient reactor designs just waiting for more enlightened governments in North America, Europe, and elsewhere to approve the next obvious step in large scale power generation.  It takes about ten years to construct a modern nuclear plant once approved, but the Luddites in the Obama - Pelosi government and its alliance with the reactionary faux environmental factions are obstructing every form of useful new energy as far as possible -- including nuclear.

Peak Oil Doom is the twin of Climate Catastrophe Doom.  The two movements conveniently dovetail, since Peak Oil Doom uses Climate Catastrophe Doom in an attempt to deny the use of coal, gas, kerogens, bitumens, heavy oils, and even regular crude.  These faux environmental political movements are oriented around the hobbling of the industrial base of the western world.  It is simply a matter of the consolidation of political power through energy starvation and a general economic hardship.

But the plan will not work, unless the Obama - Pelosi government is allowed to complete its well mapped agenda. There are several reasons -- including this one -- to doubt that the O-P Reich will have enough time to finish the job.

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the future of human governments and human society. Falling into a zombie panic over phantom doom will help no one.  It will only prevent us from doing what has to be done.

Synthetic Fuel Plant: Jet Fuel from Garbage

Rentech has begun producing synthetic jet fuel from carbon sources at its new synthetic fuel Product Demonstration Unit (PDU) in Commerce City, Colorado. Once the gasification unit is installed, Rentech will be able to produce synthetic fuels from garbage, biomass, agricultural and forestry waste, or any other carbon source.

The Rentech Process is a patented and proprietary technology that converts synthesis gas from carbon-bearing resources into hydrocarbons that can be processed and upgraded into ultra clean synthetic jet and diesel fuels. Rentech’s Colorado facility provides a platform for the production of these products from a wide variety of resources, including waste materials, into fuels that could have a potentially carbon neutral or even carbon negative footprint. These fuels are also cleaner burning and more efficient than petroleum-derived fuels. The PDU is currently producing synthetic fuels from natural gas, and once gasification is added, it will also be capable of producing fuels from biomass and other fossil resources.

Rentech believes the design of the PDU will verify the engineering parameters for scale-up to commercial operations. In addition, the PDU provides the Company with valuable engineering, design and process knowledge that will be transferred to the planning and construction of its commercial scale facilities.

Achieving production at the PDU is the result of the successful operation and integration of all processes at the facility, including the steam methane reformer for the production of synthesis gas; the conversion of the synthesis gas in the Rentech reactor into clean hydrocarbons; the separation of the Rentech catalyst from the wax produced from the reactor; and the processing and upgrading of the hydrocarbons into ultra-clean synthetic fuels using UOP hydrocracking and hydrotreating technologies. Rentech and UOP maintain an alliance which provides a one-stop solution to developers of commercial synthetic fuels facilities worldwide for synthesis gas conversion and product upgrading.

With the PDU successfully operating, the Company will focus on confirming and refining the design parameters of the Rentech Process during longer-term production runs as well as the effect of various operating parameters on product yields and composition. _Source_via_NEN

Initial production uses natural gas as feedstock for conversion to jet fuels. Installation of the gasification unit will allow the use of any carbon source including garbage, for feedstock.

Next Level Biofuels: Beyond Ethanol and Methanol

Four next level biofuels companies are featured in the current issue of Biomass Mag:

1. LS9
2. Gevo
3. Amyris Biotech
4. Synthetic Genomics

Fatty acids are molecularly similar to hydrocarbons, which are the building blocks of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, Pal says. By re-engineering the genetic coding of e.coli and yeast, LS9 creates a miniature assembly line (metabolic pathway) to synthesize the biofuel.

Genes missing from the microbes and required to produce intermediate substances and enzymes (which produce biochemical reactions) are inserted into the organisms. Genes producing unwanted substances or diverting energy from the biofuel production process are silenced....LS9’s goal is to create fuel that is cost competitive with oil at $40 to $50 per barrel, Pal says. A small-scale pilot facility, planned for this year, will generate the performance and economic data to support investment in a large-scale commercial facility. Pal expects to have a product to market in three to four years.

Gevo, founded in 2005, initially focused on redesigning the metabolic processes of microbes to convert waste methane gas into methanol....[But] Butanol contains more energy than methanol or ethanol, it can be blended with gasoline without retrofitting engines and it can be distributed in existing pipelines. It is also used as a chemical intermediate, creating numerous market opportunities, Gruber says.

Most efforts to ferment sugars into butanol rely upon bacteria, Clostridium acetobutylicum. But even with genetic modification, the bacterium doesn’t produce enough butanol to be economically viable...Gevo’s approach is to concentrate on organisms, such as e.coli and yeasts, that serve as outstanding platforms for biofuel production, explains Matthew Peters, Gevo vice president and chief scientific officer.

The company recently licensed technology from James Liao, a chemical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles, which re-engineers e.coli to make butanol. Liao rewired e.coli’s genetic circuitry by adding genes to convert keto acids, produced during metabolism, into butanol...Liao removed genes producing nonessential substances and enhanced the productivity of others. These modifications increased keto acid production, boosting butanol production.

Gevo’s goal is to produce fuel at an unsubsidized price that is less than gasoline, says Tom Dries, vice president of business development. To keep costs down, the company will retrofit existing ethanol plants to run its processes, at a cost of about $20 million per facility. Dries expects to produce its first product sometime in 2009.

The Amyris team is using computation tools to identify the suites of genes to assemble within an organism to produce its biofuels, along with tools to optimize the genes for use in the system. “Dozens of genes are affected, inserted and changed in the process,” Reiling says.

The company is initially focusing its efforts on commercializing its diesel product. “Diesel is growing at two to three times the rate of gasoline,” Melo says. “There is not a scaleable renewable fuel today servicing the diesel market.”...the company is working on increasing the productivity of its process to reach parity with oil at $55 to $60 per barrel.

...Amyris is forming partnerships...In April, Amyris announced a joint venture with Crystalsev, one of Brazil’s largest ethanol producers, to commercialize its diesel technology in Brazil. Crystalsev will provide 2 million tons of sugarcane crushing capacity and will convert two of its ethanol plants to produce Amyris’ renewable diesel from cane juice, Melo explains. Production is slated to begin by 2010.

At Synthetic Genomics, research efforts are also focused on creating all the genetic material for an organism (its genome) from scratch (de novo), tailored to biofuel production. “Most of these organisms have other priorities in life producing substances for their own particular needs,” explains Ari Patrinos, the company’s president. “There is a limit to how much you can tweak them to do what you want.”

“If you can design the genome de novo, you only include those processes and activities of interest to you,” Patrinos says. As a result, the biological processes will be more efficient and productive and include built in tolerances.

....“Once you have demonstrated that you can do the genome, you can add the appropriate promoters that turn on and off genes,” Patrinos says. He envisions inserting sets of genes into the genome, observing the outcomes and then optimizing the final combination of genes that produces the best product at the highest efficiencies.

Patrinos believes Synthetic Genomes will begin producing biofuels in the next few years. “I think we have a leg up on scaling up because the organisms can be tailored for the scaling process.”
_Biomass

Pay attention to the time targets these companies are shooting for. Within 5 years or less. If any of them succeed with large scale production of oil-equivalent under $60 a barrel, the economics of liquid fuels will be overturned overnight. Even well funded biomass to ethanol companies will be pressed to achieve significant scale production with competitive priced product in that time frame. Biomass to liquid fuels will be a huge industry, once it scales up and shakes out. And it will have a lot of two bit oil dictators to thank--for keeping oil prices artificially high long enough for the new bio-fuels to become cost-competitive.

Of course, if massive social and economic unrest occurs in the US due to artificially high oil prices, US taxpayers and Oynklent Green [OTC:OYNK] will know exactly who to thank closer to home. Nancy and Barbara would likely be the first to receive callers, unless Barry becomes an even greater symbol for energy luddism by that time.

Producing Renewable Natural Bio-Gas

Biomass can be converted into high quality renewable natural gas which can be used in the same ways as fossil natural gas. Such a process is being set in motion in Texas and in the Netherlands.

The Energy Research Center of the Netherlands has completed an 800 kilowatt-hour pilot-scale gasification plant based on its Milena gasifier technology, which uses an indirectly heated biomass gasification process with high cold-gas efficiency and a high methane yield, and is optimized for the production of substitute natural gas.

According to Christiaan van der Meijden, a researcher with the center’s Biomass, Coal & Environmental Research division, the primary feedstock for the pilot plant is waste wood. “We plan to test other biomass fuels, as well, [such as] sunflower husks,” he said. The green gas produced by the pilot-scale plant will be used to fuel one of several natural-gas-powered consumer automobiles currently available in Europe, he said.

The next step will be to begin construction of a 10-megawatt demonstration plant in 2009. “Several industrial parties are interested and involved in parts of the development,” van der Meijden said. “We have not licensed the Milena technology yet.” However, he added, the technology will become commercially available after the demonstration. _CheckBiotech

Biomass can be converted to liquid fuels by various means, to high density solid fuel by torrefaction, and to high quality synthetic natural gas as explained in the links above.

Given that the planet Earth's biosphere is hugely expandable, it would seem that beyond oil reserves, beyond coal reserves, beyond oil sands and shale oil reserves, beyond undersea methane hydrates, the Earth's capacity to produce high value fuels is very far from reaching its peak.

Cellulose to Gasoline Conversion

Most biofuels startups today focus on creating ethanol from cellulose and waste biomass. Before long, it will be possible to make gasoline itself from cellulose, using clever catalysts with fast pyrolysis.

the team at PNNL, which Holladay is a part of, uses high-throughput screening to test multiple catalysts at a time and to increase the number of experiments they can do over a given period of time. This method for identifying new catalysts is carried out at PNNL’s Combinatorial Catalysis Lab. Initially, robotic equipment is used to form each catalyst to be tested. Solids handling robots weigh and add an appropriate amount of solid support to a small well on a microtiter plate. Each plate holds 96 wells, so up to 96 catalysts can be developed and tested together. Liquids handling robots then add a salt solution of metals, which fill the pore spaces of the support. The liquid is evaporated leaving the metals embedded in the support. Once the catalyst is treated to set the metals in the active state, the plate is moved to a reactor system where the biomass to be tested is applied to each well. The reaction is carried out in a second reactor and then another set of robotic systems draws samples from each well for analysis, Holladay explains.

...“We’ll take the ones that show activity and do further experimentation on them,” he says. It’s these experiments that provide a fundamental understanding of how the catalyst works. Using tools such as gas chromatography, high- pressure liquid chromatography and microscopy techniques that weren’t available 20 years ago, new catalysts can be discovered and the surface chemistry can be studied to understand and ultimately improve such things as the interactions between the metals and their supports. “It’s kind of a balance of both approaches,” Holladay explains. “We start with the discovery phase and then move into the fundamental stage with the overall goal being to develop this industry quickly.” _EthanolProducer

The race to develop efficient and hardy catalysts that can withstand continuous thermochemical reactions of cellulose to hydrocarbon , is on. Taking a page from high throughput biochemical and pharmacological research, these scientists are developing high throughput tools to find the best catalysts to produce high yield hydrocarbon fuel from cellulose. Skip ethanol altogether and go to the higher energy density fuels--the fuels that modern engines were built for.

Ethanol has always been a stop-gap fuel between petro-fuels and something better. The sooner we can get to the something better, the sooner we can jump over all the controversy over food to fuels, and other ethanol misinformation the media loves to dwell on.

Biomass Gasification for Electricity, Liquid Fuels

Image Source

Biomass gasification is the most versatile approach to bioenergy at this time. The gas produced by rapid pyrolysis can fire gas turbines to generate electricity, process heat for industry, or can be turned into liquid fuels for transportation and heavy machinery. Iowa's Frontline Bioenergy plans to use corncobs to replace natural gas, in the production of maize ethanol. Given natural gas prices lately, that substitution should certainly help the bottom line.

Chippewa Valley is owned by 980 farmers, so it's natural that the company wants to make its ethanol using a natural resource that is grown close to home.

"We're looking at harvesting 5,000 acres of cobs next fall" for use at the plant, Lee said.

The biomass gasification technology developed by Frontline BioEnergy uses a thermochemical process to break down wood residues, corncobs or prairie grasses into a substance known as producer gas.

Producer gas is a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane that can be burned like natural gas.

Frontline provides a proprietary process called Cleangas that allows producer gas to be piped to several locations within an industrial facility without the typical hydrocarbon condensation concerns associated with conventional biomass gasification.

Besides providing a source of heat, Frontline BioEnergy's biomass gasifiers will be able to produce synthesis gas that can be converted to ethanol through catalytic or biological methods, the company said. __Source

The chemistry of pyrolysis gas was worked out a century ago or more. The work being done now is to adapt the process to different types of waste biomass feedstocks, such as corncobs, grasses, garbage, etc.

The main problem is the lack of developed infrastructure in farming country, to take low energy density, distributed biomass, and pre-process it into higher density, more compact biomass. Bailing, pelleting, briquetting, torrefaction, and other processes are being perfected to accommodate that need.

The US has never had as incompetent a US Congress as now. The Congress is doing everything possible to reduce the ability of the US to become more energy self sufficient. Oynklent Green [OTC:OYNK] officials are monitoring the situation closely.