Domestic Fuel

Presenting his new “cornucopia biorefinery” model to produce food, fertilizer and fuel from corn, SynGest, Inc. CEO Jack Oswald led attendees in chants of “Till Baby Till” as he delivered the keynote address at the 2010 International Biomass Conference in Minneapolis last week.

“Our integrated biorefinery model will put an end to the ‘food versus fuel’ debate,” Oswald said. “Now you can have your fuel and eat it too.”

According to Oswald, the Cornucopia process can yield an impressive slate of end products, including anhydrous ammonia, food grade corn oil, high protein food for human consumption, stillage for animal feed, butanol for liquid transportation fuel, and biochar for conditioning and maintaining soil.

“We intend to use each and every component in an ear of corn,” said Oswald. “The cob and bran are gasified into hydrogen for ammonia synthesis, while leaving biochar as residue. The germ is separated into food grade oil and protein, and the endosperm/starch is converted into butanol and animal feed.” Oswald notes that his integrated biorefinery concept “represents a true intersection between agriculture and energy interests, a formula that sets SynGest apart from others who are just making fuel, power or singular bioproducts.”

The concept has already produced one new product – “Till, Baby, Till” t-shirts – available for $19.99 in short sleeve or $24.99 in long sleeve models.

A nasty little beetle is destroying millions of acres of lodgepole pine trees across the western United States and so far, no one has been able to stop it.

But, in the tradition of making lemonade from lemons, the biofuels industry has been working on ways to use the dead trees for energy – and one company is now claiming success.

Cobalt Technologies of California is claiming to be the first to produce biobutanol from beetle-killed lodgepole pine feedstock. To evaluate the fuel’s viability for commercial vehicles, the company has signed a fuel testing partnership with Colorado State University.

“With this breakthrough, we’ve been able to turn a problem into an opportunity,” said Rick Wilson, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Cobalt Technologies. “Harvesting beetle-killed trees could produce low-carbon fuels and chemicals, establish a foundation for a sustainable biorefinery industry and create jobs, particularly in rural areas. If we use only half of the 2.3 million acres currently affected in Colorado alone, we could produce over two billion gallons of biobutanol — enough to blend into all the gasoline used in Colorado for six years.”

“Clearly, this is a significant achievement and a major step forward toward the production of cellulosic biofuels. Converting beetle-killed pine for biofuels is an extremely difficult process,” said Ken Reardon, professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Colorado State University. “If Cobalt can convert beetle-killed wood, it’s likely that the company can make biofuel from almost any cellulosic feedstock.”

Cobalt Technologies has partnered with Colorado State University to perform engine testing with a gasoline-butanol blend made with the biobutanol from beetle-killed wood. The fuel testing will be performed at Colorado State University’s renowned Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory under the auspices of the University’s Sustainable Bioenergy Development Center.

A new biofuel mix will be making its debut in the American Le Mans Series this weekend – isobutanol and ethanol.

The “Global Leader of Green Racing” announced earlier this week that Dyson Racing, with cooperation from partners BP and Mazda, will campaign its Mazda-powered Lola B09/86 LMP2 coupe on isobutanol for the full 2010 season. Chris Dyson, Guy Smith and Andy Meyrick will drive Dyson Racing’s Lola-Mazda coupe with isobutanol power at the season-opening 58th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida on Saturday, March 20.

The isobutanol fuel component is of particular interest to BP and its development partner DuPont who, through their Butamax™ Advanced Biofuels joint venture, are developing commercial facilities to manufacture isobutanol for mainstream use.

Biobutanol got a boost from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Tuesday at the launching of a Cobalt Technologies pilot plant in his state,

Schwarzenegger said biobutanol will meet California’s Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS), which was approved this week by the state’s Office of Administrative Law. “It is great companies like Cobalt that will help California meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets under AB 32 and our Low Carbon Fuel Standard,” said Governor Schwarzenegger, who used the occasion to promote his proposed sales tax exemption for clean tech companies. “Cobalt shows us that what is good for the environment can also be good for the economy. In fact, within the next few years, Cobalt has plans to build an even larger plant that will create 1,300 permanent jobs. I want that plant and those jobs right here in California.”

Biobutanol can be used as a standalone fuel or blended with gasoline, diesel or ethanol. It can also be converted into jet fuel or plastics, or sold as is for use in paints and coatings. It is similar to ethanol and can be produced from non-food feedstock, such as forest waste and mill residue. However, while the new state LCFS would virtually eliminate corn ethanol, the company says a 12 percent blend of Cobalt biobutanol with gasoline complies with the standard. The drawback is that biobutanol is not yet commercially available. The ethanol industry has filed suit in federal district court in Fresno, California, challenging the LCFS on the grounds it violates both the Supremacy and Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

A major oil producer is looking to get into the biofuels business.

This story from Reuters says BP could start ethanol and biobutanol operations next year:

BP could launch commercial production of grass-based ethanol in the United States in 2010 with partner Verenium, which already has a demonstration cellulosic ethanol facility, Philip New, Chief Executive of BP Biofuels, said.

The oil company is building a wheat-based ethanol plant near Hull in eastern England in partnership with British Sugar and chemicals group Dupont that is due to come online next year, and plans subsequently to retrofit the facility to convert it to biobutanol output.

The article goes on to say that the plant in England is part of a $200 million BP-Dupont joint research venture.

A Colorado-based company is working to develop a fleet of biorefineries based on retrofitting existing ethanol plants to produce biobutanol.

Last week, Gevo, Inc. announced the start up of the first biobutanol demonstration plant designed from retrofitting an existing demonstration scale ethanol plant in St. Joseph, Missouri. The company is using the plant to demonstrate the viability of its technology for retrofitting existing ethanol plants to make biobutanol, which can be blended directly into gasoline and be used to make renewable hydrocarbons (“green gasoline”), diesel and jet fuel, chemical intermediates and biobased plastics.

This is the first time that an existing ethanol operation has been successfully retrofitted to produce biobutanol instead of ethanol. ICM’s pilot plant at St. Joseph has been designed and constructed as a reduced scale replica of a dry-milled ethanol production process. Additionally, Gevo’s biobutanol has higher energy content than ethanol and a lower Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) – which means lower volatility and evaporative emissions. Importantly, standard automobile and small engines can run on biobutanol blended into gasoline at any ratio.

The retrofit of the pilot plant was completed in less than three months and the company says it also represents the first step along the route to produce cellulosic biobutanol which will be possible once biomass conversion technology becomes commercially available.

Guardian News & Media recently announced their Global Cleantech 100 presented by the Guardian. Although this was the first year the list was created, more than 3,500 nominations were submitted. On this year’s list were 55 American based companies including Mountain View, California based Cobalt Biofuels. The list includes companies that are on the forefront of cleantech innovation. Cobalt Biofuels was recognized on the basis of its innovative technology for the production of biobutanol from non-food lignocellulosic material.

“It is a high honor to be included in the Global Cleantech 100 as it recognizes the rapid progress we have made toward our goal of commercializing biobutanol and the tremendous promise that biobutanol offers as a next generation biofuel,” said Rick Wilson, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Cobalt Biofuels.

The 2009 list represents the collective opinion of hundreds of experts from cleantech innovation and venture capital companies in EMEA, North America, India and China, combined with the specific input of an expert panel of 35.

“The first ever Global Cleantech 100 shines a spotlight on which companies and which technology areas the global innovation community is most excited about from a commercial standpoint,” said Richard Youngman, managing partner at Cleantech Group.

A DuPont executive says plans to bring advanced biofuels programs to market are on track and making significant technical progress toward the commercialization of biobutanol and the conversion of cellulosic feedstocks economically into biofuels.

“Biobutanol and cellulosic ethanol have the ability to transform the biofuels industry,” Vice President & General Manager John Ranieri told an investor conference last week. “Our flexible business models allow us to penetrate different geographies with the ability to convert various feedstocks to meet the significant global demand for biofuels.”

DuPont is developing and commercializing an upstream biofuel technology to produce cellulosic ethanol that will use non-food energy feedstocks such as corn cob and switchgrass, and a downstream biofuel technology to produce biobutanol, a high-performance biofuel that can be delivered through existing gasoline distribution channels.

In May, DuPont announced a joint venture with Danisco to deliver low cost, sustainable cellulosic ethanol technology. In July, the DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC joint venture announced a partnership with the University of Tennessee to build a pilot and demonstration facility for the cellulosic ethanol technology, groundbreaking scheduled later this month. DuPont is jointly developing biobutanol with BP in a partnership first announced in 2006.