Advanced BioFuels USA

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) It’s a simple idea, using renewable electricity to induce carbon dioxide and hydrogen to form a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons, you know, the stuff we burn as liquid fuel and from which we make plastics, fabrics, flavors, fragrances, resins, coatings, etcetera. If you are what you wear, as the New York Times once famously opined, you are the barrel of petroleum you are trying to get rid of.

Since combusting a hydrocarbon fuel produces carbon dioxide and water, it’s been fashionable to describe these “electrofuels” as a form of “reverse combustion” and, goes the thinking, why not solve the climate problem and our thirst for mobility, at the same time? Elsewhere, electrofuels are known as a subset of PTL, which does not, as it turns out, simply stand for Praise The Lord but refers also to Power-To-Liquids. Also known as PTX, CO2 fuels, and probably someone calls them “AirHooch” when no-one from DOE is looking.

Great idea. So, where are the gallons?

Good news, Vattenfall, SAS, Shell and LanzaTech signed an R&D deal to investigate production of the world’s first synthetic sustainable aviation fuel using fossil free electricity, recycled carbon dioxide from district heating and the LanzaJet ATJ technology in Sweden.

Think, initially, 15 million gallons per year. Long term, say the 2030s, think 25 percent of SAS’ entire sustainable aviation fuels buy.

Why this technology?

LanzaTech’s microbe can convert CO2 in the presence of H2 and the first commercial plant to show this, is currently being built by Indian Oil. In that specific gas stream, 50% of the C in the ethanol will come from the CO2 in the gas stream. Since there is H2 in the stream, no additional H2 is added.

Successful conversion of CO2 in single streams will require abundant, sustainable H2; either blue or green. Production of H2 is now increasingly being incentivized by governments, including the U.S. which is emphasizing the growth of the green hydrogen industry.

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But wait, there’s 3 more projects in the LanzaTech hopper

Why have just one PtL project in the pipeline?! LanzaTech has three others, fragrantly named:

1. Project Orchid: The pilot at Freedom Pines which will focus on optimizing CO2 + H2 to ethanol.

2. Project Lotus: The small commercial project with SkyNRG which will use added H2 to convert the CO2 in a raw biogas stream to ethanol enabling conversion of the methane (via syn gas) and the CO2.

3. Project AtmosFuel: A feasibility study in partnership with Carbon Engineering to evaluate directly capturing CO2 from the air and converting it to sustainable aviation fuel.

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One of these days, we’ll get used to calling the company Twelve instead of Opus-12, its former moniker.

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 Twelve has produced the first fossil-free jet fuel called E-Jet from carbon dioxide (CO2) electrolysis, demonstrating a scalable, energy-efficient path to the de-fossilization of global aviation. This project was supported through funding from the U.S. Air Force and produced fuel globally applicable for both commercial and military aviation.

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Researchers at ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) have developed the process technology that can produce carbon-neutral transportation fuels from sunlight and air. For the past two years, researchers led by Aldo Steinfeld, Professor of Renewable Energy Carriers at ETH Zurich, have been operating a solar mini- refinery on the roof of the Machine Laboratory in the centre of Zurich.

Here’s an article from Nature on the work to date, in which they’ve demonstrated the stable and reliable operation of the solar mini-refinery under real on-sun conditions. They also show a way to introduce solar fuels to the market without additional carbon taxes.

Here’s a video animation explaining the process.  READ MORE

Twelve Produces First Batch of E-Jet® Fuel from Carbon Dioxide Through Partnership with the U.S. Air Force (Twelve/Business Wire; includes VIDEO)

A New Jet Fuel Made From ‘Electrified CO2’ Is Emissions-Free: Carbon-capture technology is growing up. (Interesting Engineering)

Renewable Fuel For The Supersonic Air Force One Of The Future (Clean Technica)

EFT’s Platforms to Turn Excess Gases into Liquid Fuels (Waste 360)