A replacement for ethanol?
 

Cool Planet Energy Systems First Company to Develop Carbon Negative Fuel at Projected Cost of Less Than $1.50 Per Gallon | Business Wire


By running on a 5% Cool Planet carbon negative fuel blended with 95% regular gasoline, the test car blend met California’s 2020 Low Carbon Fuel Standard – eight years ahead of schedule.1 The control car used 100% regular gasoline. The test car successfully passed 5 smog checks with no significant difference between cars.

...

Cool Planet’s proprietary two-step thermal processing technology takes non-food biomass such as wood chips, agricultural waste like corn stover, or energy crops including giant miscanthus, and switch grass and converts it into useful hydrocarbons. A catalytic conversion is then utilized to complete the production. The end result is high-octane gasoline that is fully compatible with today’s standard automobiles and existing conventional fuel distribution systems.

“Unlike many other biofuel companies, Cool Planet’s carbon negative gasoline is price competitive because of the ingenuity behind our innovation. By mass producing mobile, pre-fabricated micro-refineries that are easily transportable to the biomass source, we significantly reduce costs of feedstock transportation, which maximizes our overall capital efficiency,” said Howard Janzen, President and CEO at Cool Planet Energy Systems. “Each micro-refinery is one hundred times smaller than a typical oil refinery and can produce 10 million gallons of fuel per year; this puts us in the running to compete with oil at $50 a barrel without any government mandates or subsidies.”

A byproduct of producing biofuel is the activated carbon, or biochar, which can be used as a soil enhancer increasing land fertility while isolating the carbon captured from the atmosphere. This comprehensive carbon negative process results in up to a 150% carbon footprint reduction2, far more than any other biomass-to-fuel method.

Cool!

I mean, I have absolutely zero confidence whatsoever that we will ever hear another peep from this company or ever, ever, ever see this fuel or that price, ever. Ever.

But it's cool to have yet another vaporware solution to our energy needs dangled in our faces.

They just discribed Methanol.

5% can be added to gasoline, can be made from wood chips, "two-step thermal processing", byproduct is activated carbon, $50/bbl....
Methanol can be sold for a profit as low as $1/gal when made from natural gas.
The only thing proprietary about it is they wont tell you what the fuel its self is.
Sounds like they are trying to pass off 50+ year old technology as new to scam the govenment. I see this more often than you would think, people trying to pass something old off as "new green technology".

One of our greatest allies, Isreal is about to start testing the addition of methanol to fuel on their countries gas only fleet, a mix of modern vehicles from everywhere and everyone waiting to see what happens there before making any moves elsewhere.
I know Brazil has been using methanol for years but there vehicles are designed for methanol/gasoline mixtures.

Werd. I've just seen countless promises to deliver the next generation in energy production or energy use and... nope. Never.

I remember reading about some Japanese guy who figured out solar panels that were 70+% efficient.... never happened.

Some Arizona biologist bred bacteria that grew "shells" which happened to be suitable as electrical substrates in batteries, due to the ungodly surface area it was to mean 30-amp-hour, ultra-high-current recharging/discharging AA batteries.

Everyone and their dog has promised some magical improvement to the internal combustion engine, or some game changing means of locomotion.

Well, we're still driving around in gasoline-powered internal combustion piston engined cars, same as dad, same as grandpa. :rolleyes:

Don't promise me anything technology anymore, IDGAF. Until it's in my hands it doesn't exist.

Except this:
Business Wire, February 22, 2012

-mort

Don't get me wrong, cheap methanol sounds good to me.
My diesel is set up to run water/methanol injection now and I have no problem running 5-10% methanol in the gas burners. I'm just waiting for the rest of the world to cach up.

If it sounds too good to be true it is.
Something doesn't add up. Some where between it being so cheap, simple and portable.
My engineer likes to say "all the easy stuff has been done already".

More info plus videos.

Cool Planet | Home

>

...sounds more like a P.T.Barnum barker yelling: "...our 'new' snake-oil is better than all the previous snakeoils because we use only genuine 'artificial' snakes and man-made oil..."

Some of the magical improvements seem to actually improve on certain aspects of engine performance, but the moment you read their claims all credibility goes out the window...

"We doubled the efficiency of the engine!" The latest crop of direct injected engines is over 38% thermal efficiency, doubling that would be 76%, which is total bull****. The most efficient stationary engines equipped with multiple stage waste heat recovery cannot hit 76%. Perhaps they doubled efficiency at 10% load at 7000rpm with beltless accessories :rolleyes:

"We cut friction by 70%!" Possible knowing that 2 strokes essentially cut friction in half, but I have trouble seeing how one can decrease friction from seals enough to hit that. "Power goes up 50%! Efficiency goes up 70%! Far better energy density than turbocharged 4 strokes!" Okay, you're full of crap.

It's so frustrating :/

I agree, mostly. It sounds very much pie in the sky. But this bio-based gasoline isn't cheap. In the test they got the cellulose free. They say $1.50 for the conversion per gallon. Refinery costs are about $0.20 per gallon of fossil gasoline. So it is a breakthrough at being only 7.5 times more expensive than fossil gasoline to "refine", but the equivalent cost of cellulose stock is about $50 per barrel of crude oil, which is $86 today.

-mort

Holy crap cellulose stock is that expensive?

Is municipal organic and paper/wood waste cheaper?

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.

....... i want to believe, but it all seems far too convenient.

Yes it is cheaper but there is not nearly enough to meet demand.
Start to give you an idea how much they will need. A pound of wood holds about 10,000 BTUs of heat.
A gallon of gas packs at least 120,000 BTUs.

The process isn't 100% efficient and the process appears to leave a good portion of energy behind as "active charcoal" waste.

I'm thinking they would need at least 20 pounds of wood to produce each gallon of gasoline.

'"active charcoal" waste' + microorganisms + 2 weeks = a reversal of desertification.

The 109-octane fuel you get to enjoy is as byproduct. They blend it with dinosaur juice to introduce it into the fueling infrastructure.

They appear to have a very capable team.

Cool Planet | Team and Investors

>

It would be helpful to use similar units when making BTU comparisons between wood and gasoline. A gallon of gasoline weighs roughly 6lbs, so according to your figures, it has twice the energy density of wood at 20,000 BTU per pound.

EDIT: from How Stuff Works

Opps I was thinking of coal.

The more I read the happier I get.

Ohio *beep*ing Scientific

Wasn't the original gasoline was a byproduct of kerosene production?

It would be great to see it actually happen.

regards
Mech

Cautiously optimistic, given who's involved.

Business models are the most common stumbling block.
 

Most of the technologies are based on good science and engineering. The problem is in delivering the product or service to market. That is where most failures occur.

This technology works, but it will be seen how successful they will be in delivering. The high cost of oil helps in this regard. However, any long term dip in crude prices kills most alternative's ability to penetrate the market and sustain growth. Maybe we should tax energy to the level of many EU countries. Or maybe we should continue to subsidize like we do in this country with greater extension. Something to help alternatives find a foothold.

Also, too many people use the "there won't be enough of X to supplant all the oil needed" argument. That is what we are all about here on Ecomodder - to use less so that what we do get goes further. Use electricity as propulsion for local commutes and transport. Use natural gas for medium range routes. Liquid hydro-carbons provide long range fuels for aircraft and such. Do it as efficiently as possible and sustainability becomes plausible.

Are you sure Israel is gonna blend methanol in the gasoline? BTW methanol was also not widespread in Brazil, altough during early 90's some American methanol was imported as an alternative to keep dedicated-ethanol Brazilian cars running due to an ethanol crisis...