Cool Planet Takes Big Steps toward Scale for Waste-to-Gasoline, Soil Amendment

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) USDA issues $91M loan guarantee conditional commit to Cool Planet. Obama Administration back building of the company’s first commercial plant in Louisiana, as it opens its first commercial-scale Cool Terra operation in California.
In California, Cool Planet Energy Systems was issued a $91MM conditional commitment from the United States Department of Agriculture for a loan guarantee to support construction of the company’s first commercial manufacturing plant. The facility will be located at the Port of Alexandria, Louisiana.
Last year, Cool Planet Energy Systems CEO Howard Janzen said that the company will build three bio-refineries in Louisiana with a capital investment of $168 million. The projects will consist of modular biomass-to-gasoline refineries in the Port of Alexandria, Natchitoches and a site to be determined. Cool Planet will create 72 new direct jobs, averaging $59,600 per year, plus benefits. Additionally, LED estimates the project will result in 422 new indirect jobs, for a total of 494 new jobs. The company estimates 750 construction jobs will also be created by the project.
Back in February, Cool Planet Energy Systems broke ground on the Alexandria plant, dubbed Project Genesis. Permits have been received to begin earthwork and grading. The site was chosen because of its excellent wood biomass availability, interstate and rail access, and direct barge access to more than nine refineries.
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Cool Planet will utilize wood waste and forest byproducts to make gasoline at its initial commercial-scale facilities in Louisiana. Each bio-refinery will be capable of producing 10 million gallons of high-octane, low-vapor pressure gasoline for strategic distribution through existing market channels and for blending at Louisiana refineries.
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It’s a variation on low, lower and lowest. Low scale-up risk and infrastructure requirements for the fuel, lower operating cost per gallon of fuel, and lowest (which is to say, negative) carbon emissions.
The Bottom Line
The timelines have moved back — possibly related to financing. Originally the company was discussing a completion of construction on the first commercial in 2014 — now the word is late 2015 with start-up in 2016.
At the same time, the volume is ramping up more cautiously. The company continues to guide that the first commercial will have 10 million gallons in capacity, but the initial deployment will be in the 1M gallons range. READ MORE / MORE and MORE (Ethanol Producer Magazine)

Excerpt from October 21 Biofuels Digest: In fast pyrolysis, there generally are three streams — a gas stream that can be burned for power, a liquid bio-oil, and a residual black carbon-rich product generally known as bio-char. Elsewhere in the Digets today we look at the challenges and opportunities with bio-oil — but one of the applications that has been tried for years with biochar is as a soil amendment, given that it is somewhat related to terra prete, a charcoal-like product used by natives for years to add carbon to the poor soils of the Amazon region.
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”Biochar is what we start with, CoolTerra is what we produce,” he (Rick Wilson, who is heading up Cool Planet’s CoolTerra business) said, with the helpful tones of a teacher pointing out the difference between corn and ethanol.
The process. “It’s organic. We are filing for patents, so I don’t want to say too much, but there is water and vinegar in the process process. We fix the pH problem that biochar has, and get rid of the toxins. Plus, we have developed application processes. The overall impact dramatically improves the performance.”
CoolPlanet describes CoolTerra as a “highly porous soil enhancer engineered to retain water and fertilizer for improving soil health and productivity. For farmers and growers in the Western U.S. and elsewhere, the commercially available amendment gives them the ability to maintain or improve their crop yield. Reducing fertilizer use also mitigates water pollution from farm runoff.