suspectnumber961 -- Thank you for this wonderful thread. I have watched their video over and over and took notes. Seriously. This isn't about fuel, it's about Global Poverty.
I've known for some time that the only reasonable Global Mega-Engineering approach to a War on Climate involves Biochar. Cool Planet gets it. Apparently there is a United States Biochar Initiative that just met at Sonoma State University. They were there with vehicles burning the fuel they are currently producing from their 4 acre pilot plot. They have a 100 acre plot in the high desert to receive their soil amendment.
Look at their investors: Google Ventures, GE, BP, Conoco-Philips, NRG
Their close-loop cycle spins off food and fuel as by-product.
That's not the important part. The cycle is actually a virtuous spiral. Every time you go around 4-8 times
you have twice as much farmland.
The company originally spec'd out 2000 first-world plants. Google.org wants 100,000 plants for the third world. That's 100,000 million-gallons-a-year plants that would catapult the locals past 'first-world' standard of living. Google is doing it to promote their Android operating system
With today's yield numbers:
- 1% land area -- Fuel all the world's cars
- 2% land area -- Zero-net carbon Emission by 2030
- 3% land area -- Reduce Global CO2 100ppm in 40 years
and they can convert desert to farmland to get there.
I'm a little skeptical of their Negative Fuel Carbon Cycle slide, though. It's a soil cycle, fuel is a byproduct. The part that goes "Biochar-Processing-Soil Amendment" I think should read "Activated Charcoal-Processing-Biochar".
I don't think this has anything to do with methanol. Their Biomass Fractionator uses sub-nanometer Quantum Wells to get from free-radical hydrocarbons to the finished product. Allegedly.