Renewable Diesel and Power from Sweet Sorghum

Producers of advanced biofuels and high value products from biomass and engineered crops and microbes, are still out there working hard in labs around the world. The global bonanza of cheap shale gas may postpone the commercial debut of many of these products, processes, and systems, for a decade or more. But that will give these labs and field scientists more time to perfect their systems. In fact, there are many ways in which cheap methane could be a boon to the production of high value chemicals and fuels. And it is undeniable that high value bio-products can be grown and produced in almost any terrestrial location -- often in places far from hydrocarbon deposits or depots.

The following report demonstrates that top quality scientists are continuing to pursue viable paths to the production of renewable fuels, chemicals, polymers, lubricants, and other high value products.

GCC Amyris Scientists from Amyris and Ceres are presenting new findings at a biotechnology conference in New Orleans on the production of renewable diesel and power from sweet sorghum. Here's more:

The pilot-scale project use both free (soluble) sugars and biomass (cellulosic) sugars from Ceres’ sweet sorghum hybrids grown in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Tennessee. To process the soluble sugars that accumulate in the plants, the sorghum juice was first extracted from the stems and concentrated into sugar syrup by Ceres. The syrup was then processed by Amyris at its California pilot facility using its proprietary yeast fermentation system that converts plant sugars into its trademarked product, Biofene, a renewable hydrocarbon commonly known as farnesene....

The inedible plant fibers of the sweet sorghum provided an additional source of cellulosic sugars. The DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), at its Colorado pilot-scale biochemical conversion facility, converted the biomass from Ceres’ hybrids into cellulosic sugars, which Amyris subsequently fermented into renewable farnesene.

Farnesene is a 15-carbon isoprenoid hydrocarbon molecule that forms the basis for a wide range of products varying from specialty chemical applications to transportation fuels such as diesel. When used as a fuel precursor, farnesene can be hydrogenated to farnesane, which has a high cetane number (58). Amyris modifies farnesene to become renewable diesel.

Life-cycle analysis of Amyris Diesel production from sweet sorghum indicates Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reductions of greater than 80%.

Secondary products from the biorefinery project include lubricants, polymers and other petrochemical substitutes. These secondary products are derived from the same C15 fermentation intermediate (farnesene) as Amyris Renewable Diesel, providing opportunities to de-risk commercial production. _GCC

Biogas Methane: Harvesting Renewable Hydrocarbons

Methane can be readily produced by humans in much the same way it has been produced by under-the-seafloor micro-organisms for eons of geologic time. By using methanogenic microbes in anaerobic digesters, humans can convert a large outflow of garbage and waste into a renewable hydrocarbon product (plus heat) which can help to heat and power residencies, farms, businesses, and societies.

Methane within biogas can be concentrated via a biogas upgrader to the same standards as fossil natural gas(which itself has had to go through a cleaning process), and becomes biomethane. If the local gas network allows for this, the producer of the biogas may utilize the local gas distribution networks. Gas must be very clean to reach pipeline quality, and must be of the correct composition for the local distribution network to accept. Carbon dioxide, water, hydrogen sulfide and particulates must be removed if present. If concentrated and compressed it can also be used in vehicle transportation. Compressed biogas is becoming widely used in Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany. A biogas-powered train has been in service in Sweden since 2005. _Noenigma

Descriptions of single-stage and multi-stage anaerobic digestors

Big plans in the UK for the integral use of anaerobic digestion in the complete food processing cycle

Economical new approach for upgrading biogas to pure methane for integration into municipal natural gas distribution networks

Uses of the residual digestate left over from the anaerobic digestion process

Turning Methane into "Gold"; Siluria's Viral Nanowire Catalyst Gets More Funding from Venture Fund

Viral Template for Nanocatalyst
Wellcome Trust is giving San Francisco startup Siluria another $20 million in funding in order to advance its methane-to-ethylene advanced viral templated nano-catalytic technology. Ethylene is a $160 billion a year commodity chemical, used for the creation of a wide range of high-value products. The ability to cheaply convert abundant methane into high-value ethylene would be the chemical equivalent of the Midas touch.

More on Siluria's underlying viral-template-to-nanowire-catalyst technology:

Creating a better catalyst may be as simple as letting a virus do the construction for you. Angela Belcher and coworkers at MIT have used the M13 bacteriophage as a template for growing nanoparticles and nanowires of rhodium and nickel on ceria...“The virus is relatively stiff and has a high aspect ratio, so it forms stunning open and porous nanostructures which increase the surface area and shift the pore size distribution,” explains Brian Neltner, the report’s first author. “Surface area and pore size distribution are critical aspects of catalysts, and can improve the reaction rates and selectivity.”

The researchers also found they could eliminate expensive rhodium from the biotemplated material, creating a catalyst with just nickel on ceria. This material can catalytically reform ethanol at temperatures around 400 °C, “offering an alternative, inexpensive catalyst when higher temperatures are acceptable,” they write.

“This new approach to catalyst synthesis clearly provides desirable alternative possibilities for catalytic process applications,” comments Galen Stucky, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. _ACSNews

Siluria received $13.3 million in funding last year from venture funds to develop this technology, and the additional $20 million this year reflects the progress that the startup company has made.

The chemistry for directly making ethylene from methane had eluded researchers in part because of the difficulty of getting the reaction to stop at ethylene, and not produce carbon dioxide. Siluria believes it can overcome the challenge because of the availability of new chemical discovery-and-synthesis tools. Top among these is the use of virus-based templates, a technology developed by Angela Belcher, a professor at MIT and member of Siluria's board of directors, that guides the growth of nanowire catalysts made of inorganic crystals. After the template is burned away, the researchers are left with structure of the inorganic material with a high surface area—perfect candidates for high catalytic activity. They then use high-throughput screening methods to rapidly try and find any of the nanowire structures with the desirable catalytic activities.

Siluria says it has received the additional investment because it now has multiple catalysts that work in a "commercially viable realm" of relatively low temperatures and pressures. Erik Scher, Siluria's vice president of R&D, says the company's candidate catalysts will work with conventional types of reactors and reactor designs, providing manufacturers "with a minimal risk of scale-up. They won't have to invent new types of reactors." _TechnologyReview

This approach is particularly promising due to its largely off-the-shelf high-throughput approach to selecting the most efficient catalysts. The nanowire catalysts "mimic" the structure of the viral scaffolding, which combined with genetic engineering techniques could produce an almost infinite variety of nano-configurations.

In other words, the virus-to-nanowire method of producing catalysts is extremely prolific. And off-the-shelf high throughput screening methods allow the rapid selection of the most promising catalysts.

The metallic nanowire catalysts are far more robust than their biological models, and are capable of surviving conditions of high pressure and temperature, as well as a toxic chemical environment.

Al Fin energy technologists have been predicting similar technology as the ultimate basis for high yield biofuels production. But at this point in time, abundant unconventional methane provides an economically more advantageous feedstock, due to price, existing infrastructure, and the minimal pre-processing required.

A Technique from Spain et France to Convert Methane to Longer Chain Hydrocarbons

If science could find a way to economically turn cheap, abundant methane into higher value, longer chain hydrocarbons, the global energy balance would be rocked back on its axis.  Scientists from Spain and France have discovered a catalyst and solvent combination which provide an early step in the conversion process.   Combining a silver complexed catalyst with super-critical CO2 as solvent, the multi-university team has achieved promising early stage results.

Researchers from the Universities of Valencia, Huelva and Toulouse, led by Professors Gregorio Asensio, Pedro J. Pérez and Michel Etienne, have developed a methodology for transforming methane into more complex organic molecules. A paper on their work is published in the journal Science.

The use of methane, the simplest hydrocarbon and main component of natural gas, as a source for the production of more complex organic compounds is of great interest from both economic and environmental points of view. However, methane has the strongest C-H links in the whole series of alkanes.

Another challenge for chemically transforming methane derives from of its gaseous nature and its low solubility in common solvents. These features make it difficult for methane to come in contact with the catalysts and reagents that perform the chemical reaction and, therefore, this does not occur or it does but with great difficulty. For these reasons, very few processes are known to be effective for the functionalization of this hydrocarbon.

...The transformation involves a carbene insertion into a C-H methane bond catalyzed by silver complexes with halogenated scorpionate ligands in supercritical carbon dioxide. The described process establishes the feasibility of the insertion of carbenes into C-H methane bonds catalyzed by transition metals. The reaction leads to the creation of a C-C bond over the methane to give ethyl propanoate with a yield of 19% and opens new perspectives to the process of functionalization of methane and of hydrocarbons in general.

The research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the Regional Governments of Valencia and Andalusia, and the European Union through its ERA Chemistry program. _GCC

Abstract from Science:

Even in the context of hydrocarbons’ general resistance to selective functionalization, methane’s volatility and strong bonds pose a particular challenge. We report here that silver complexes bearing perfluorinated indazolylborate ligands catalyze the reaction of methane (CH4) with ethyl diazoacetate (N2CHCO2Et) to yield ethyl propionate (CH3CH2CO2Et). The use of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) as the solvent is key to the reaction’s success. Although the catalyst is only sparingly soluble in CH4/CO2 mixtures, optimized conditions presently result in a 19% yield of ethyl propionate (based on starting quantity of the diazoester) at 40°C over 14 hours. _Science

This result is a beginning, which may lead to industrial processes of higher yield, with a wide range of chemical product. With improved nano-catalytic design, expect to see basic synthetic results even more startling in the future, using simple starting feedstocks such as CO, CO2, H2, CH4, H2O, and similar small molecules.

Faux environmental greens may want to power such processes using wind or solar, but that would be an absurd waste of resources. Nuclear power is a far better fit to power the wide range of new processes for creating synthetic fuels, chemicals, plastics, and other materials.

Carbon Sciences Claims Better Catalysts for GTL

1. The conventional steam reforming using steam:
CH4 + H2O ↔ CO + 3 H2 (∆H = 206 kJ/mol) …………..( 1.1)
2. Carbon dioxide reforming of methane:
CH4 + CO2 ↔ 2 CO + 2 H2 (∆H = 247 kJ/mol) ……… (1.2)
3. Partial oxidation using oxygen:
CH4 + O2 ↔ CO + 2 H2 (∆H = - 38 kJ/mol) ………….. (1.3)
(Source)

GCCThe race is on to find economical uses for the rich bonanzas of methane being unleashed globally by North American practises of horizontal drilling and various types of fracturing tight shale gas formations. Both gas-to-liquids (GTL) and LNG are being proposed and developed to extend the economic reach of methane deposits -- many of which may be stranded far from lucrative markets.

Carbon Sciences Inc. has developed a catalyst which it claims will make the process of dry (CO2 reforming, #2 above) reforming of methane to syngas more profitable. From high quality syngas, any number of high value chemicals or liquid fuels can be produced.

The UOS catalyst technology, developed over the past decade by Dr. Hui Wang, professor of Chemical Engineering, has demonstrated high performance and reliability. The UOS catalyst achieved 92% conversion into essentially 1:1 H2/CO syngas with no detectable sintering, no significant carbon deposition, and thus no catalyst deactivation. Dr. Wang’s research team has successfully tested the catalyst for 2,000 hours of continuous operation in a bench top reactor.


The catalyst has also undergone 600 hours of commercial testing without regeneration. The company claims that its second-generation catalyst has achieved performance levels close to its theoretical limits.


After achieving very positive commercial test results for our catalyst, we are moving ahead aggressively to accelerate the production of larger quantities of the catalyst, as well as completing the technical and economic analyses in preparation for discussions with strategic partners. Working with the GTL experts at our engineering firm, Emerging Fuels Technology, we also plan to demonstrate an end-to-end process that will produce samples of diesel fuel that can be used by existing diesel vehicles.


—Byron Elton, Carbon Sciences’ CEO
Broadly, the methane dry reforming reaction is:

CO2 + CH4 → 2CO + 2H2

...Carbon Sciences’ claims that using its catalyst can achieve a 20% to 30% capital cost advantage over the alternatives because dry reforming is a simpler process, does not require an oxygen plant, uses small amounts of steam and has high conversion efficiency. Additionally, the feedstock cost of dry reforming syngas may be lowered by as much as 25% because CO2 is a zero cost feedstock (and often negative value) that occurs naturally in methane gas fields.
... _GCC

In situations where plentiful CO2 is freely available, the dry reforming method may well offer several advantages, and Carbon Sciences Inc.'s new catalyst may find itself a very lucrative niche in the brave new world of synthetic liquid hydrocarbons and high value chemicals.

But in the long run, better catalysts will lead to GTL processes which will bypass the energy-intensive gasification stage. It is commonly known that micro-organisms break down hydrocarbons in the environment to methane. Other micro-organisms have enzymes which perform reverse, synthesis reactions to create medium and longer chain hydrocarbons. It is these lower temperature synthesis reactions which will win out in the end, probably using robust biomimetic inorganic nano-catalysis. While humans will eventually move away from hydrocarbon fuels, they will likely be using hydrocarbon based chemicals and plastics for many centuries to come.

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.

A Methane Bonanza: What To Do With All the Gas?

A wealth of unconventional methane is exploding onto the energy scene, much to the dismay of dieoff doomers, Russian energy tsars, and carbon hysterics. But what is the world to do with all this methane -- which is difficult to transport, and cannot be easily used within the liquid fuels infrastructure?

The answer would seem to be to convert the gas into liquids, but what is the most economical way to do that? Liquified natural gas (LNG) is difficult and expensive to handle, Fischer-Tropsch gas to liquids (GTL) is likewise expensive and requires costly chemical plants (although microchannel FT architectures may alter the equation). What to do, what to do?

German researchers at Max Planck Institute for Carbon Research in Mulheim are trying to develop better ways of converting gaseous methane to liquid methanol -- which would open a world of economic possiblities.

Methanol is a useful starting material for many chemical syntheses, including fuels; it can also be added to conventional fuels to power fuel cell or used in combustion engines. Conventional processes for producing methanol from methane involve detours (synthesis gas), are complex and energy-intensive, and require high temperatures and pressures. By contrast, the enzyme methane monooxygenase does the job gently and efficiently. However, this is a very complex enzyme that cannot easily be produced and used in an artificial environment....

In contrast to time-consuming protein engineering, the present approach simply requires the addition of an appropriate chemically inert perfluoro fatty acid to the enzyme, thereby triggering a catalytically activating effect which originates from specific guest/host interactions in the binding pocket. A shift from an inactive low-spin state to a catalytically active high-spin state and a decrease in the effective volume of the binding pocket appear to be the crucial factors as shown by UV/Vis difference spectra as well as a theoretical analysis based on MD simulations and docking experiments.

The present approach not only allows methane to be oxidized with notable enzyme activity, but also opens the door for using perfluoro carboxylic acids, which can be expected to bind to most CPYs, to influence the catalytic profile of monooxygenases as catalysts in the functionalization of more complex organic compounds, including the control of regio- and stereoselectivity.
—Zilly et al.

_GCC

The dynamics of enzymes and how they work their semi-selective magic, is an area of frantic study. But as noted here recently, nanotechnological catalysts are likely to eventually take over for most biological enzymes, for high volume synthesis of potentially toxic chemicals such as hydrocarbons.

New Nano-Wire Catalysts Convert Methane to Ethylene

The oxidative coupling of methane converts methane into ethane and ethylene (C2 hydrocarbons). The basic OCM reaction (which is exothermic) is:

2CH4 + O2 → C2H4 + 2H2O


In the OCM reaction, methane (CH4) is activated on the catalyst surface, forming methyl free radicals (CH3) which then couple in the gas phase to form ethane (C2H6). The ethane subsequently undergoes dehydrogenation to form ethylene and water. _GCC

We are seeing the early stages of a trend which has been long predicted by Al Fin energy analysts: The creation of robust non-biological nano-catalysts which are modeled on a biological template. These newer and tougher catalysts are only possible due to advances in nanotechnological fabrication processes, and they will eventually change the way that synthetic fuels are made -- avoiding the expensive Fischer-Tropsch pathways.

The Siluria advance described in the article below, involves the catalytic production of ethylene from methane -- currently in quite abundant supply due to the ongoing unconventional natural gas bonanza. Ethylene can then be converted catalytically to long chain, high value hydrocarbons.

The catalyst materials are proprietary, doped metal oxides of early transition metals that are designed for compatibility with existing petrochemical industry infrastructure. Siluria has developed a library of compounds with a range of crystal structures, and has tested their behavior in catalyzing the OCM reaction.

The first step is creating the library of organic templates—that’s the phage. Second, you do synthetic prep, so inorganic synthetic chemistry on each of those phages, and you create a diversity of catalyst nanowires: the same composition, but a different active site. Then we take these individual compositions, we combine them with high-throughput screening to screen not some incidental or ancillary property that you then infer; we actually run every single one in the reaction of interest. We get a direct measurement on each one of those little dots [256 per wafer] which is a different catalyst.
—Erik Scher

...

The excitement and the promise is where we will be 5 years from now. The non-reducible advantages of OCM versus FT and a syngas-based route is threefold. One, [OCM] is a simpler chemistry, in terms of the number of steps required to get to the end product. With OCM, its two steps: methane to ethylene, oligomerize to liquids. In FT, there are three steps: steam methane reforming to syngas, syngas to a mixture, hydrocracking to clean it up. Non-reducible.

Two, [OCM] is a chemistry that is easier to control. Ethylene is a versatile and flexible molecule that is easy through existing technologies to convert to longer chains: detergents, lubricants, fuels. And three, it has a better energy balance. The first step in FT is endothermic; the first in OCM is exothermic.
—Alex Tkachenko

_GCC

In other alternative liquid fuels news, UCLA researchers are aiming to develop microbes which create advanced biofuels from biomass proteins. Proteins are often found in greater quantity in biomass than either carbohydrates or lipids. By creating microbes to ferment the protein component into fuels, technologists will be able to convert biomass to fuels more completely and efficiently.

Thermochemical conversion of biomass takes a lot of energy -- although it is available now, rather than 10 years from now. But in 10 years, microbes which convert biomass to fuels more efficiently will begin taking over from the less efficient thermochemical processes. And in 20 to 30 years, non-biological nano-catalysts will begin taking over liquid fuels synthesis from many of the microbial fuels approaches -- and from the more efficient thermochemical approaches.

As long as government interference can be kept to a minimum, marketplace incentives should drive synthetic liquid fuels to a high level of replacement for petrol fuels over the next 30 years.

Methane plus CO2 Yields Gasoline: U of Saskatchewan

Everyone is looking for ways to convert an abundance of low-priced methane into something of higher value. The University of Saskatchewan is licensing a process to Carbon Sciences Inc. which combines CH4 and CO2 to produce syngas (CO + H2), which is catalytically transformed to liquid fuels such as gasoline.

For the past year, CSI has been developing its own catalyst for the efficient transformation of CO2 and methane gas into a synthesis gas, which is then be further catalytically processed into gasoline and other fuels. The overall reaction is:

CH4 + CO2 → (C5-10Hn) + H2O

The specific methane reforming reaction is:
CO2 + CH4 → 2CO + 2H2

The technology licensed from the UOS directly complements its own development efforts in this area, the company said.

The major challenges faced by previous industry attempts at developing a successful catalyst include coking (fouling the catalyst with carbon deposits) and continued long-time performance.

...CSI’s development was directed at solving these problems and its research team observed encouraging short-term laboratory results, the company said. However, the UOS technology developed over the past decade by Dr. Hui Wang, professor of Chemical Engineering, and colleagues has demonstrated high performance and reliability, the company noted.


The UOS catalyst achieved 92% conversion with no detectable sintering, no significant carbon deposition, and thus no catalyst deactivation. Dr. Wang’s research team has successfully tested the catalyst for 2,000 hours of continuous operation in a bench top reactor. _GCC

In other energy news, U. of Illinois, UC Berkeley, Seoul National University, and BP have combined with Lawrence Berkeley Lab to genetically engineer a strain of yeast capable of co-fermenting glucose and xylose simultaneously. This development will prove important, as cellulosic biomass conversion to alcohols moves into the marketplace.

The new yeast strain is at least 20% more efficient at converting xylose to ethanol than other strains, making it the best xylose-fermenting strain reported in any study, according to Jin.

The Energy Biosciences Institute, a BP-funded initiative, supported the research. A paper on their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

S. cerevisiae has been used for centuries in baking and brewing because it efficiently ferments sugars and in the process produces ethanol and carbon dioxide. The biofuel industry uses this yeast to convert plant sugars to bioethanol. While S. cerevisiae is very good at utilizing glucose, a building block of cellulose and the primary sugar in plants, it cannot use xylose, a secondary but significant component of the lignocellulose that makes up plant stems and leaves. Most yeast strains that are engineered to metabolize xylose do so very slowly. _GCC

The Age of Unconventional Methane

We are seeing the rise of methane from numerous unconventional sources as a rival player to petroleum and oil field natural gas. Already, the rapid expansion of shale gas resources has changed the local, regional, and global energy outlook. Other forms of unconventional gas -- including coal bed methane and tight sands methane -- only add to the global bonanza.

Bio-methane from the anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste provides yet another source of the clean combustible fuel for farm, ranch, and dairy regions. There is also a push to utilise the rich methane deposits being generated in municipal landfills around the world.

The Japanese are moving to exploit the rich fields of undersea methane clathrates -- which may represent a hydrocarbon resource equal to or greater than all other hydrocarbon deposits on Earth combined.

Finally, the impending tsunami of the use of synthesis gas as a niche replacement for methane and natural gas, promises to extend the already-massive reserves of methane and natural gas into the distant future.

Coal to Gas, Coal to Hydrogen

Coal represents a massive energy resource to allow a smooth transition from a petroleum economy to a sustainable energy economy. Cleaner and more efficient means of using coal (and other unconventionals like oil sands, oil shale, heavy oil) will be necessary, as unconventional fossil fuels displace light, sweet crude in transportation and other energy uses. The clean gasification of coal is an important process for eliminating much of the pollution from coal combustion that is rampant in China and India at this time.

By adding a catalyst to the coal gasification system, GreatPoint Energy is able to reduce the operating temperature in the gasifier, while directly promoting the reactions that yield methane, (CH4). Under these mild catalytic conditions, less expensive reactor components are required, pipeline grade methane is produced, and very low cost carbon sources (such as lignites, sub-bituminous coals, tar sands, petroleum coke and petroleum resid) can be used as feedstocks.

Because hydromethanation is a catalytic process that does not rely on combustion, it does not produce the nitrogen oxide (NOx), sulphur oxide (SOx) and particulate emissions typically associated with the burning of carbon feedstock. Instead, the process captures nearly all of the impurities found in coal, petroleum coke and biomass and converts them into valuable chemical-grade byproducts.

The first step in the hydromethanation process is to combine the catalyst with the feedstock in such a way as to ensure that the catalyst disperses throughout the matrix of the feedstock for effective reactivity. The catalyst/feedstock material is then loaded into the hydromethanation reactor.

Inside the reactor, pressurized steam is injected to “fluidize” the mixture and ensure constant contact between the catalyst and the carbon particles. In this environment, the catalyst facilitates multiple chemical reactions between the carbon and the steam on the surface of the coal or biomass.

Compared to more conventional approaches to gasification and SNG production, the bluegas process eliminates the need for an external water gas shift reactor, a methanation reactor, and air separation plant.

The hydrogen will be used for industrial applications or combusted to generate near-zero carbon electricity. The SNG can be transported in the existing pipeline infrastructure and used as fuel in home heating, power plants or industrial processes. _GCC

Although hydrogen is an inferior fuel, it is quite useful in chemical processes of various types -- including the production of superior fuels using biomass, coal, and other carbon sources.

A Russian Energy Avalanche, and More

Russia is a corrupt, exhausted, dying nation.  But Russia is full of valuable energy and mineral assets -- enough to make any oil sheikh envious.  For a number of reasons, Russia's energy assets have remained largely undeveloped up until now.  But with enormous discoveries of unconventional natural gas in North America, and with increasing development of Canada's oil sands, Russia is beginning to understand that if it doesn't develop and sell its energy assets now -- it may never have the chance.

As young ethnic Russians disappear from the planet, the ability of Russia to defend its vast mineral wealth is shrinking daily.  And as unconventional fossil fuel use, plus nuclear energy infrastructure, plus bioenergy  development all expand, the world's need for Russia's product is beginning to shrink.  The lesson to Russia: use it or lose it.

Gazprom started coal-bed methane production in Russia after U.S. success in developing unconventional fuel reserves spurred global interest.

Gazprom plans to produce 1.5 billion cubic meters of the gas a year in 2012 at the Taldinskoye field in Siberia’s coal-rich Kuzbass area, the Kremlin press service said Friday in a statement distributed to reporters during President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the region.

Successful extraction of shale gas, another unconventional fuel, has led to what International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih Birol called “a silent revolution” in the United States. The world’s biggest energy consumer, the United States may become self-sufficient in gas through its shale-gas developments. Unconventional fuels had been too complex to develop until new technologies made extraction feasible.

Russia, which holds the largest gas reserves, may have as much as 87 trillion cubic meters of coal-bed methane, according to Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller.

“It’s two Gazproms,” Medvedev said in Omsk, where he met with businesses to discuss innovation in the energy industry, which he said accounts for as much as one third of the country’s gross domestic product.

Coal-bed methane, shale gas and tight gas are the most common unconventional sources of the fuel and currently account for about half of U.S. production, said Valery Nesterov, an analyst with Troika Dialog. Unconventional gas won’t make up more than 0.5 percent of output in Russia in the long term, he said.

“It is more about technology, so as not to fall behind" as we did with liquefied natural gas, he said.

Russia last year started liquefying gas, more than a decade after Qatar, the world’s biggest LNG producer.

The world may see an “acute glut” of gas because unconventional fuel output worldwide is set to rise 71 percent between 2007 and 2030, the IEA said in November.

Unconventional gas competes with coal in thermal power generation and will be displacing the commodity from global markets, Vekselberg said.

Russia may produce as much as 21 billion cubic meters a year of coal-bed methane at Kuzbass, Gazprom said Friday.

“We have made an important step on the path toward a new subindustry in Russia’s fuel and energy complex,” Gazprom’s Miller said in an e-mailed statement.

The company plans to drill 30 wells at Taldinskoye this year, and 28 a year starting in 2011, the Kremlin said.

Russian coal-bed methane resources make up one-third of the country’s potential gas resources, Gazprom said in an e-mailed statement. The Kuzbass area of the Kemerovo region may hold 13 trillion cubic meters of the unconventional gas, the Kremlin said.

The United State’s success in extracting gas from shale has spurred global interest, while also displacing some LNG supplies and lowering spot prices in Europe.

Europe and China are playing catch-up, which could increase competition for LNG, Mark Greenwood, a Sydney-based analyst with JPMorgan Chase, said in a Feb. 9 note.

“U.S. shale gas could grow by 2015 to a similar scale as the entire global LNG market currently,” Greenwood said. “A land-grab has occurred in Europe over the last two years” as international companies such as Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp. and Statoil seek resources. _MoscowTimes

The rush for development of Gazprom's unconventional gas follows recent Gazprom claims that "shale gas production may be environmentally hazardous." Hint hint, wink wink to US environmental organisations. In other words, Gazprom wants US shale gas to be shut down, and it wants to use US environmental groups as its cats' paws. Nothing new there. In the past it was the KGB doing similar things. The names of organisations change, but the people stay the same.

If the world's fossil fuel resources were freely developed, the resulting glut of energy would take a thousand years or longer to be exhausted. But thanks to a manufactured crisis of climate hysteria, and myriad faux environmental restrictions, we have Political Peak Oil -- man-made energy starvation. Top-down economic devastation, courtesy of the Obama - Pelosi gang.

Russia and the other oil dictatorships have profited from the artificial constraints that western nations have burdened themselves with. But even with all the constraints, private western companies are finding ways to provide the west with energy -- much to Russia's and Obama's chagrin.

Russia will not be able to defend its vast territories in 50 years. It had best wake up, update its technology, and start turning its minerals into more fungible wealth as fast as it can. Before the world no longer needs fossil fuels. It had better hurry.

Above was previously published at Al Fin

The coming energy avalanche described above did not even mention methane hydrates -- a resource that is abundant throughout the arctic. It is likely that by the time Russia develops efficient means to mine methane hydrate, that either the world will no longer need methane at the prices Russia would demand, or Russia as a country will no longer exist. Time changes things before sluggish minds are prepared for the changes.

In Alaska, an underground in situ coal gasification project has raised excitement levels across the arctic and sub-arctic. If the project is successful, it will open the door to the development of massive new coal deposits, whose development has been suppressed by environmental and faux environmental concerns.

New biomass gasification projects are looking at the possibility of producing hydrogen gas from biomass. Syngas is a combination of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, carbon dioxide, and short chain hydrocarbons. Al Fin chemical engineers say that it is absurd to focus on hydrogen, when other potential products of gasification are far more energy-rich. But hydrogen is the hobby horse of huge numbers of energy hicks. Better that than to have them selling crack on the street.

Poop Power: From Waste Pollutant to Power Source

Livestock manure from dairy farms, feedlots, poultry farms etc. has a tendency to leach into groundwater and overflow into streams and rivers. By capturing the manure and turning it into methane and other forms of energy, farmers and ranchers can eliminate the pollution and generate profits.

It takes slightly more than three gallons of liquid cow manure to create one kilowatt-hour of electricity.

A lot of poop. A small amount of electricity. A big environmental boost to a dairy farmer.

A fledgling anaerobic manure digester is now running at roughly 80 percent capacity near Rexville in southwestern Skagit County. The plant produced its first power on Aug. 30 and will host Gov. Chris Gregoire at a ceremony next Monday.

The digester accepts the liquid manure in a big holding tank, where it gives off methane gas that is then burned to produce electricity....

Washington already has three conventional poop-to-methane-to-power digesters near Lynden, Monroe and Sunnyside. However, they essentially accept manure from one dairy farm each. The Rexville operation -- built and run by Farm Power -- is different in a couple ways.

It is set up to accept manure from two or more dairy farms -- enabling smaller operations to participate.

And it is designed to accept and extract methane from icky, slop-like wastes from seafood and chicken processing -- as well as other food wastes. Farm Power had to get a bill passed in the Legislature this past spring to make combining the food and cattle wastes easier from a regulatory aspect.

Dairy farms produce huge amounts of manure that can ooze into groundwater and eventually into streams and rivers to cause pollution problems.

Farmers take many measures to deal with this problem, but digesters are a more cost-efficient way to tackle the matter, said Daryl Maas, one of two brothers behind the Rexville operation. _Bioenergy

It takes time for people to learn to think in terms of solving problems profitably and productively. If people spend too much time attending to the mainstream (skank) media, they are more likely to run screaming from problems, in full panic. The same panic mentality applies to many psychological neotenates and academically lobotomised products of government education.

Still, there is hope. No one knows what the end result of new information sources will be, for global societies. People may learn to ignore the petty tyrants of local politics and education, and set their own course.

Efficient On-Site Conversion of Methane to Methanol

CH4 + H2SO4 + SO3 → CH3OSO3H + H2O + SO2 (a)

CH3OSO3H + H2O → CH3OH + H2SO4 (b)

SO2 + ½O2 → SO3 (c)

ΣCH4 + ½O2 → CH3OH (d)

Biomass to methane, via anaerobic digestion, is fairly easy. Now researchers at Max Planck Institute have devised a solid catalyst for efficient conversion of methane to methanol. This development opens the door to small-scale, local and regional biomass to methanol plants.

Methanol is one of the most ideal biofuels for fuel cell use -- better than hydrogen in many ways. It can also be a useful supplement / substitute for gasoline in automobiles, AND is an excellent feedstock for chemical synthesis of longer chain hydrocarbons.

Converting biomass to a denser form of energy, is one of the challenges facing the project to replace fossil fuels with biofuels. Local and regional conversion / densification plants will make the entire enterprise more feasible, and will bring some level of economic prosperity back to the outlands.

Food Waste to Fuels

Humans in modern societies waste more food than they can imagine. But biofuels engineers and entrepreneurs are riding to the rescue, to turn what was once waste into useful fuels and energy.

Four ReFood plants already operating in Germany currently generate energy from food collected from 60,000 points across the country, using 14 logistics centres.

Like the German network, the British version will also use collection points located across the country, supported by the network of AD plants.

Anaerobic digestion involves organic wastes or energy crops being used to feed bacteria, which under controlled conditions generate a biogas that can be put through an internal combustion engine or burned to generate heat and power.

Mr Simpson said the ReFood technology was "very advanced" compared to other AD technologies available in the UK since it was designed around using food waste as a feedstock, rather than an adaptation of technologies using sewage sludge or farm wastes.

"As a result, the ReFood system is able to focus on recycling greater quantities of this type of material," he said.

Franz Bernhard Thier, a member of the board of Saria Bio-Industries, said: "ReFood has been operating on an industrial scale successfully in Germany for a number of years. We're delighted to be teaming up with PDM to bring both our areas of expertise together to create an offering that is really going to support food waste recycling and renewable energy generation in the UK." _bioenergy

While the uninformed debate over "food vs. fuels", more intelligent persons are looking into the future for ways to convert waste from an overabundance of food -- into energy and fuels.

A World Floating In Methane

A recent USGS, US Minerals Management Service, and a group under the management of Chevron have done a survey of methane-rich sand reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico. Brian Westenhaus reports:

...gas hydrate can and does occur at high saturations within reservoir-quality sands in the Gulf of Mexico with highly saturated hydrate-bearing sands discovered in at least in two of three sites drilled. Dr. Collett said, “In addition, we have found gas hydrate in a range of settings, including sand reservoirs, thick sequences of fracture-filling gas hydrates in shales, and potential partially saturated gas hydrates in younger systems. These sites provide a wealth of opportunities for further study and data collection that will enable significant advances in understanding the nature and development of gas hydrate systems.”

The project also featured a number of technical advances, including the use of an advanced suite of logging-while-drilling tools that provided unprecedented three-dimensional images of hydrate-bearing sediments. The wells sited at Walker Ridge, drilled to approximately 3,500 feet below the seafloor, were more than 1,000 feet deeper than any previous gas hydrate research well.

It all looks very good. _NewEnergyandFuel

Methane hydrates -- methane plus water -- have been found under the sea floor and under surface layers around the world. The quantity of methane within the Earth's crust is more than scientists imagined. More methane than oil, coal, conventional gas supplies. No one knows how much more, the exploration has just begun.

Besides methanol, methane is another near-ideal fuel for the coming age of fuel cells.

Methane to Liquid Fuels for Efficient Transport

Methane is a relatively clean fuel, but is often less practical to transport longer distances than liquid fuels, such as methanol. The University of Virginia is to develop a new center to develop technologies for converting methane gas and other hydrocarbon and fossil resources into methanol and other readily transportable and higher-value liquid fuels. Methanol figures to become important due to its multifunctionality in various types of fuel cells, combustion engines, and in flex-fuel engines.

Natural gas, which is largely made up of methane, is an extremely abundant energy resource in the world, but many of the largest fields are located in remote areas, such as Alaska's North Slope, making access extremely difficult and expensive. The only feasible way to transport this energy resource would be to convert it from a gas to a liquid, thereby condensing the energy into transportable units. Transporting methane as a gas would require a substantial build-up of infrastructure and cost tens of billions of dollars for new pipelines.

"If we can find new technologies that will allow the large-scale utilization of methane, particularly in the transportation sector, the U.S. could very quickly supplant our use of petroleum and greatly reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum," Gunnoe said.

Methanol, if produced in massive quantities, could be mixed with gasoline like current ethanol/gasoline formulas, and therefore would not require changes to the way motor vehicle engines are designed. And current "flex fuel" engines that run on 85 percent ethanol with 15 percent gasoline still could run on an 85/15 mix of methanol/gasoline. _biofueldaily

Converting CO2 to Methane With Nanotubes

Penn State U. researchers have devised arrays of titania nanotubes to convert atmospheric CO2 to CH4 and other hydrocarbons using sunlight.

The rate of carbon dioxide (CO2) conversion using this method is 20 times higher than that of previously published research. The work is described in the January 27, 2009, online edition of Nano Letters.

....This type of solar-based conversion process only works if a photocatalyst—a material that reacts with light—is used to convert the CO2 into hydrocarbons. A photocatalyst that utilizes the most solar energy possible is the best option.

One popular photocatalyst candidate for the job has been titanium dioxide, also called titania, because it can powerfully react with oxygen. But so far, researchers haven't been able to make titania perform adequately despite experimenting with a variety of forms, such as nanoparticles, pellets, and multi-layer films.

Grimes and his colleagues used arrays of titania nanotubes. They created the nanotubes using a technique that incorporates nitrogen into the nanotubes' structures, which the researchers initially thought would help increase the conversion rate (this turned out to be true only in a very limited capacity).

The process also yields a high total surface area compared to other forms of the material, a property that aids in the conversion. To further boost the process, the group scattered an ultra-thin layer of platinum and/or copper "cocatalyst" nanoparticles on the surface of the array. _PO

Not only will this method produce useful hydrocarbon fuels, but if the global climate cools much further, such nano-arrays could be distributed across the globe to boost atmospheric methane levels -- to trap more of the suns heat, and stave off excessive global cooling. We would need to be careful not to allow methane concentrations to reach explosive levels, however. ;-)

Gas to Liquids to Tap into Huge Gas Reserves

It is estimated that 3,000 tcf, approximately half of all worldwide natural gas resources, are considered remote or stranded in so called abandoned wells or wells with reserves that are not economically accessible to markets by either pipelines or LNG. Energix believes that much of this gas could be utilized if there were an economical or easily moveable GTL production facility such as the one it is currently developing. NanoNow

Natural gas, primarily methane, is both a fossil fuel and a sustainable biofuel. While the production of fossil fuel methane is a relatively slow process, the production of bio-methane is beginning to bloom. By utilising agricultural, forestry, and municipal wastes, biogas production can be ramped up without affecting cropland productivity. The gas can then be converted into liquid fuels, electricity, or used in conventional combustors.

Converting gas in abandoned gas fields into liquid fuels to be piped out, allows access to large quantities of gas otherwise essentially inaccessible.

Getting to Oil Shales, Oil Sands, Heavy Oils, More

Extracting the energy from deposits of shale oil, oil sands, and heavy oil can be expensive. More than half of the oil in a conventional oil well is never recovered, due to expense. Various ingenious ways have been developed to get at that oil, but here is a new one that might get the biggest chunk of that energy out: seed the "exhausted" wells with micro-organisms that convert oil to natural gas.

The OU researchers found that they can use their organisms to convert hydrocarbons in oil reservoirs to natural gas. "Because two-thirds of U.S. oil is still in place, we can use these organisms to convert residual hydrocarbons into natural gas and create a new source of domestic energy. The concept of anaerobic metabolism is an innovative process and the OU initiative is the only one of its kind in the United States at the present time. We are also experimenting with shales and other unconventional reservoirs." _Bioenergy

Micro-organisms can also convert coal, oil shale, and oil sands to natural gas. That is extremely important for where the deposits are difficult to get to by conventional mining methods.

Natural gas can be converted to liquid fuels, to plastics, or to any other organic materials. Or the gas can be used to produce electricity, to drive transportation vehicles, or to cook your lunch.