Biofuels and the Problem of Tropical Islands, Part II of II

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...It used to be that the outskirts of Honolulu had the dual scent of diesel and pineapple processing — but now, all you really smell is the diesel. Sugarcane and pineapple are every year less and less in evidence — and petroleum is dominant, right down to generation of the state’s electricity.

If fossil energy dependency wasn’t unpalatable enough simply on cost and price volatility grounds — and for reasons of climate-change mitigation which are more immediately worrisome to islands — there is the problem of Pearl Harbor.

It is not a satisfactory state of affairs, US war planners have determined, to have the central focal point for projecting US naval power in the Pacific dependent on a single, interruptible fuel source.

Accordingly, there are a host of reasons for Hawaii to find itself on the front lines of the effort to add a strong renewables component to the fuel and power mix.

Due to the intense nature of Hawaiian Naval demand, it is widely expected that the first commercial-scale biofuels refinery built under the Defense Production Act’s Title III authority will focus on supplying Hawaii.

Three hot algae projects

Last month, Phycal was awarded a $27.1m grant from the Department of Energy to produce biofuel from microalgae cultivated with CO2. Development partners for the project include General Electric’s Global Research Group and Seambiotic, among others. The group is currently operating a pilot cassava and algae farm in Hawaii. The DOE grant will come in two phases: $3m in the first phase, and $24.2m in a second phase.

Last July, Cellana announced the launch of its ReNew brand and ReNew Omega-3 line of algae-based products at the GOED (Global Organization for EPA and DHA) conference being held this week in Boston, Massachusetts. The ReNew brand was developed to meet the growing demand for more sustainable Omega-3 human health products, animal nutrition products, and biofuel feedstocks.

A year ago, Ensyn and Honeywell’s UOP announced that their pyrolysis process is capable of producing RTP fuel at scale, a crude oil competitor for a price of $45 per barrel (of oil equivalent). Even more startling, the RTP fuel can be upgraded at the refinery – using a modified (but apparently standard refinery equipment – UOP and Ensyn are being cagey about the exact piece of refinery equipment, but our understanding is that is is widely used, particularly in the US).

(T)hey said they would test waste agriculture products, pulp, paper, woody biomass, algae and dedicated energy crops like switchgrass and high-biomass sorghum.

That’s the good news, here’s the bad news. In January, Tesoro announced that it will close its refining operations in Hawaii in April and the site will become a fuel terminal. A silver lining? We understand that the Envergent project is quietly moving to the Shell refinery, the last fossil fuels refinery in Hawaii.

Last June, the University of Hawaii has received a $6m federal grant to research the conversion of grass into biofuel. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye said in a press release that such sustainable energy projects are “vital to the health of our environment and our economy.”

...This project will optimize the production of grasses in Hawaii, including napier grass, energycane, sugarcane, and sweet sorghum. Harvest and preprocessing will be optimized to be compatible with the biochemical conversion to jet fuel and diesel.

...It will also develop ways to assess the sustainability of renewable energy production in Hawai‘i, focusing on investigating the development of a rural-based decentralized pre-processing system. READ MORE