The single step CADO process is capable of converting vapor of wet ethanol into hydrocarbon blendstocks competitively priced at $2/gigajoule that can be blended with gasoline, diesel, or jet fuels to diminish emissions of greenhouse gases.
The conversion procedure of fuel uses zeolite, a kind of catalyst, to create actual loner chains of hydrocarbons from ethanol (alcohol). The process substitutes the traditional multi-step processes and uses less energy.
(Source: ORNL, PR, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
Daily Facts & Trends, 29 Mar., 2020) Contact: US DOE Office of Science, www.energy.gov/science; ORNL Center for Bioenergy Innovation, Brian Davison, Chief Science Officer, 865-576-7658, www.ornl.gov; Vertimass LLC, John Hannon, CEO, www.vertimass.com
More Low-Carbon Energy News Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Alternative Fuel, Sustainable Fuel,
Harvestone Group, and its affiliated companies, is a global commodity merchant focused in the biofuels sector. By designing innovative service offerings and investing in strategic infrastructure, the company help build bridges and cement alliances between producers and end users, ultimately driving the supply chain to operate more efficiently, according to the company's website.
(Source: Harvestone, Biofuel Int. 8 Jan, 2019) Contact: Harvestone Group, www.harvestonegroup.com: Corn LP, Brady Hess, 515-825-3933, www.cornlp.com
More Low-Carbon Energy News Corn, Corn Ethanol, Ethanol, Harvestone Group,
"The US has not come here in good faith. They continue to block the world's efforts to help people whose lives have been turned upside down by climate change."
"Developing countries came to this climate conference with the expectation that the people who have lost their crops to drought, or who have lost their homes to cyclones, will finally get help from the UN system. Instead, they have faced bullying, arm-twisting and blackmail. Rich countries most responsible for the crisis have refused to provide a single penny of new money to support communities to recover from the devastation caused by increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters." -- Harjeet Singh, ActionAid Climate Lead
"Major players who needed to deliver in Madrid did not live up to expectations. But thanks to a progressive alliance of small island states, European, African and Latin American countries, we obtained the best possible outcome, against the will of big polluters." -- Laurence Tubiana, European Climate Foundation, CEO, France's Top Climate Negotiator and Architect of the Paris Agreement.
"The only thing more disastrous than the state of UN climate negotiations at COP 25 is the state of the global climate. This is nothing less than a breakdown in the Paris Agreement. This is not climate leadership, this is a betrayal of humanity and future generations," -- Eric Holthaus, Meteorologist
"What's happening today at COP 25 is a clear and present threat to civilization itself. The Trump administration and its fossil fuel allies around the world have sabotaged the Paris Agreement -- the only global treaty we have to fight climate change. This is a betrayal of humanity.
"For so many people gripped by devastating floods, fires, and storms, time is up. And instead of helping them, rich countries hold on to your dollars and hold up loss and damage. Public mobilizations are swamping the streets. The status quo you are working so stubbornly to protect is not working for people or the planet." -- Catherine Abreu, Climate Action Network Canada
(Source: COP25 Wrap-Up, Various Media, 15 Dec. 2019)
More Low-Carbon Energy News COP25, Climate Change,
ORNL worked with technology licensee Vertimass and researchers at 10 other institutions on a technoeconomic and a life cycle sustainability analysis of the process -- single-step catalytic conversion of ethanol into hydrocarbon blendstocks that can be added to jet, diesel, or gasoline fuels to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. This new technology is called Consolidated Dehydration and Oligomerization (CADO).CADO.
The analysis, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that this single-step process for converting wet ethanol vapor could produce blend-stocks at $2/gigajoule (GJ) today and $1.44/GJ in the future as the process is refined, including operating and annualized capital costs. Thus, the blend-stock would be competitive with conventional jet fuel produced from oil at historically high prices of about $100/barrel. At $60/barrel oil, the use of existing renewable fuel incentives result in price parity, the analysis found.
The conversion makes use of a type of catalyst called a zeolite, which directly produces longer hydrocarbon chains from the original alcohol, in this case ethanol, replacing a traditional multi-step process with one that uses less energy and is highly efficient. The conversion operation could be integrated into new biofuels plants or installed as bolt-on technology to existing ethanol plants with minimal new capital investment, the researchers noted.
The project was supported by the Center for Bioenergy Innovation at ORNL, which in turn is supported by the DOE Office of Science. Scale-up R&D were supported in part by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and by Vertimass. (Source: ORNL, PR, NewsWise, Nov., 2019) Contact: US DOE Office of Science, www.energy.gov/science; DOE Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI) at ORNL , Brian Davison, Chief Science Officer,
Vertimass LLC, John Hannon, CEO, www.vertimass.com; DOE EERE Bioenergy Technologies Office, www.energy.gov › eere › bioenergy
More Low-Carbon Energy News ORNL, Biofuel, Ethanol, Vertimass,
The initiative is a DOE-wide effort comprising EERE, the Office of Fossil Energy (FE), the Office of Science, and the National Laboratories. The initiative helps to leverage the National Laboratories' high performance computing capabilities to address challenges in manufacturing and materials through state-of-the-art modeling, simulation, and data analysis. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) leads the HPC4EI program along with partner laboratories Argonne, Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest and Sandia National Laboratories, as well as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and National Energy Technology Laboratory. Funded projects include:
Within the High Performance Computing for Materials (HPC4Mtls) Program, EERE's Vehicle Technologies Office has selected two projects:
The rice-to-biofuel (R2B) project will produce biogas for energy and fertilizer using anaerobic digestion reactors with biomethane upgrading equipment. The activities of the "village scale" pilot facility and the development of the associated business models are supported by academic lab work and analysis from the UK research partners. (Source: Supergen Bioenergy Hub, June, 2019) Contact: Supergen Bioenergy Hub, European Bioenergy Research Institute (EBRI), Aston University, Prof. Patricia Thornley, Dir., p.thornleyWaston.ac.uk; Straw Innovations, www.strawinnovations.com
More Low-Carbon Energy News anaerobic digestion, bioenergy, Biogas, Rice Biogas,
One project, led by Dr Jin Xuan, a Senior Lecturer in Low Carbon Processes, will examine the role of e-biofuel in reducing emissions and increasing the sustainability of the road transport sector while enhancing renewable energy security. The research will examine the feasibility of a novel electrochemical process to produce biofuels while reusing the captured CO2.
The project will develop a new concept of e-biofuel which combines the advantages of both e-fuel (produced from renewable electricity and CO2) and biofuel (produced from biomass) to intensively decarbonise the road transport sector. It also provides Loughborough researchers with a new link to the Supergen Bioenergy Hub and the Department of Transport.
A second project led by Dr Tanja Radu, a Lecturer in Water Engineering, will research algae-based biomethane fuel purification and carbon sequestration. The project aims to develop and assess an innovative process for the simultaneous production of high-purity biomethane as a potential natural gas vehicle fuel, together with the sequestration of remaining biomass and biogas carbon into algal co-product and biochar.
The Supergen Bioenergy Hub at Aston University aims to bring together industry, academia and other stakeholders to focus on the research and knowledge challenges associated with increasing the contribution of UK bioenergy to meet strategic environmental targets in a coherent, sustainable and cost-effective manner.
(Source: DfT, Loughborough University, East Midlands Business Link, 8 May, 2019) Contact: Loughborough University, www.lboro.ac.uk;
Supergen Bioenergy Hub, Professor Patricia Thornley, Dir., p.thornley@aston.ac.uk, www.supergen-bioenergy.net
More Low-Carbon Energy News Bioenergy news, Biofuel news, CCS news, Biogas news,
Christiana Figueres Olsen is a Costa Rican diplomat with 35 years of experience in high level national and international policy and multilateral negotiations. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in July 2010, six months after the failed COP15 in Copenhagen, according to Wikipedia. Contact: Christiana Figueres, http://christianafigueres.com
More Low-Carbon Energy News Christiana Figueres, GHG Emissions, Climate Change,
Analysis of up to seven years of production data suggests an estimated billon-tpy could be available annually by 2030.
Field trial results and yield projections for herbaceous crops, including switchgrass, energycane, mixed perennial grasses on Conservation Reserve Program land, giant miscanthus and sorghum, as well as the woody feedstocks poplar and shrub willow, are available online in the January issue of GCB Bioenergy.
The raw data from the field trials will be available for public use and can be accessed at Knowledge Discovery Framework at the U.S. DOE website. Among the herbaceous energy crops, field-scale trials using traditional agricultural equipment were conducted for switchgrass and mixed perennial grasses suitable for use on CRP land, while smaller individual plots were utilized for energycane and giant miscanthus due to a lack of vegetative planting materials for these species.
South Dakota State University was the lead institution for the more than $20 million project which was funded by the U.S. DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and involved researchers from the U.S. DOE and USDA, 35 land-grant universities, Heidelberg University, INL, ORNL, ANL and several industry partners.
Report details are HERE
(Source: South Dakota State University, Jan., 2018)
Contact: South Dakota State Univ. North Central Regional Sun Grant Center, Vance Owens, Dir., (605) 688-5476, www.sdstate.edu/north-central-regional-sun-grant-center
More Low-Carbon Energy News Biofuel Feedstock,
ORNL developed the cloning system to aid studies of drought-resistant plants that rely on a water-saving form of photosynthesis, a system that has already brought about a 50 pct increase in production.
ORNL and SimPath will continue to partner on the cloning tool, using feedback from SimPath's customers to enhance the system and fine-tune characteristics such as shelf-life, which determines the viability of live products. (Source: SimPath, ORNL, Bio-based World News, 23 Oct., 2017) Contact: SimPath,
Robert Moseley, Pres., info@ simpathinnovations.com, http://simpathinnovations.com
More Low-Carbon Energy News Biofuel, ORNL,
The center's work will identify the enzymes and computationally predict biosynthetic pathways within clostridia that are necessary to produce biofuels, develop a technology platform for accelerating testing and pinpoint which iterations produce the highest yields, then demonstrate a Biosystems design approach to engineer clostridia for improved production of next-generation biofuels and bioproducts. (Source: Northwestern University Center for Synthetic Biology, Oct., 2017) Contact:
Northwestern Center for Synthetic Biology, syntheticbiology.northwestern.edu;
LanzaTech, Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO, (630) 439-3050, jennifer@lanzatech.com, www.lanzatech.com; ORNL Center for Bioenergy Innovation, (865) 576-8141, www.ornl.gov
More Low-Carbon Energy News Biofuel, Biochemical, LanzaTech, ORNL, ,
According to project director Tom Richard, NEWBio made tremendous progress building robust, scalable and sustainable value chains for bio-based energy, chemicals and materials across the Northeastern region.
Among its goals, NEWBio aimed to identify options where bioenergy crops could improve environmental outcomes without competing with food production. One was floodplains and buffers along streams where these crops can improve water quality. A second goal was to utilize abandoned and marginal lands using patented high-yielding willow and various warm-season grasses.
The NEWBio consortium includes the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Cornell University, Ohio State University, Delaware State University, Rutgers University, Drexel University, University of Vermont, SUNY-ESF, West Virginia University, Idaho National Laboratory, USDA-ARS, University of Maine and Stony Brook University. (Source: NEWBio, Penn State Univ., 8 Sept., 2017) Contact: Penn State Univ., Tom Richard, Project Director, 0291, trichard@psu.edu; NEWBio, (814) 863-0291, www.newbio.psu.edu
More Low-Carbon Energy News Woody Biomass, Biomass Energy, Sustainable Biomass, Bioenergy Crops, Willow, Woody Biomass,
This years Building Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT) awards include novel materials exploration that will lead to more efficient insulation and windows, more accurate sensors, exploration and validation of both electric- and fuel-driven hybrid vapor compression technologies for more efficient heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R), as well as advanced control algorithms, modeling, and analytics for reducing power consumption of miscellaneous electric loads.
The HVAC&R recipients include:
Stone Mountain Technologies Inc.; University of Maryland; Arkema Inc.; Xergy; United Technologies Research Center; Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL);
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL); University of California, Berkeley;
Fraunhofer CSE (Boston); Stanford University, and others. (Source: DOE BETO, 3 Aug., 2017) Contact: US DOE BETO, www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/bioenergy-technologies-office
More Low-Carbon Energy News DOE Building Technologies Office, BETO, ,
CBI will focus on the creation of high-yielding biofuel feedstock plants, using genetic studies to accelerate the domestication of perennial plants. CBI will create biocatalytic methods for high-yield production of advanced biofuels that can be blended with existing transportation fuels. The Center will also study ways to develop valuable byproducts from lignin left over after biomass processing.
CBI will work with partners from the University of Georgia, NREL, Dartmouth College, GreenWood Resources, MIT, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, University of California-Riverside, University of Colorado-Boulder, Penn State and others. (Source: US DOE, ORNL, 17 July, 2017)
Contact: ORNL Center for Bioenergy Innovation, Gerald Tuskan, (865) 576-8141, tuskanga@ornl.gov, www.ornl.gov; US DOE Office of Science, http://science.energy.gov
More Low-Carbon Energy News ORNL, Biofuel Feedstock,