Today in Biofuels Opinion: “A 3-6% increase in hydrous ethanol production…will help to increase ethanol sales.”

Brian J. Donovan, Renergie: “Hydrous (or wet) ethanol is the most concentrated grade of ethanol that can be produced by simple distillation, without the further dehydration step necessary to produce anhydrous (or dry) ethanol. Hydrous ethanol (also sometimes known as azeotropic ethanol) typically ranges from 186 proof (93% ethanol, 7% water) to 192 proof (96% ethanol, 4% water).  Initial tests conducted in Europe have confirmed that hydrous ethanol can be blended effectively with gasoline without phase separation or other problems.  A 3-6% increase in hydrous ethanol production accompanied by a decrease in energy costs, plus an increase in fuel efficiency, will help to increase ethanol sales and profit margins for ethanol producers. Existing gasoline pipelines will be able to utilize midlevel hydrous ethanol blends as a much more compatible blendstock. This will dramatically reduce transportation costs by allowing petro-refineries and blenders to leverage existing infrastructures for distribution of hydrous ethanol.”

Biofuels Digest subscriber John Hickman: “Entergy, a large U.S. electric utility, wrote powerfully in their 2008 Annual Report: “Any meaningful approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions must address the single largest  source of those emissions-conventional (new and existing) coal fired power plants. Currently, existing coal plants account for nearly a third of total energy-related CO2 emissions and emissions from those plants are forecast to increase to 60% by 2030.” (p. 21)

“Biofuel production could solve this problem. Conversely, conversion of urban vehicles to hybrid plug-ins or all-electrics by 2030 could greatly aggravate the problem if electricity to charge the lithium ion batteries of these vehicles is produced by coal fired power plants. The coal plants produce more CO2 generating and distributing the electricity for charging the batteries than equivalent sized vehicles would produce if they burned liquid fossil fuel instead! Liquid biofuels are actually being threatened by chargeable electric vehicles indirectly burning the other fossil fuel…solid coal. On 8-5-09, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $2.4 billion in grants for vehicle advanced lithium ion battery development and manufacturing. The threat by 2030 to liquid biofuels is real.

“Algal based biofuels can potentially solve the problem of CO2 emissions from all worldwide coal fired power plants. On 3-4-09, Biofuels Digest published a report on Aurora Biofuels which stated their pilot algae-based biodiesel production system “has been stably functioning since August 2007 and sequesters more than 90% of CO2 fed into the system. The company said its technology is ready for scaling and commercialization ..” Biofuel Digest’s Top Story on 8-4-09 said: “…PetroAlgae is reporting that adding external CO2 increases per-acre yields by 27 per cent.”

“If the CO2 in the flue gas from all the U.S. coal fired power plants was fed to algae for the creation of biofuels, only about half of the U.S. light vehicle fuel demand would be met. Algae can sequester and recycle all the flue gas CO2 produced by U.S. coal plants!

“Foodcrop and forest cellulosic biomass has already pulled CO2 out of the atmosphere to create itself. When this biomass is converted to green gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, no additional CO2 is removed from the air. The non-foodcrop biomass, like algae, does pull additional CO2 out of the air in the process of growing and ultimately creating the biofuel.

“Algae can produce 5,000 to some say 100,000 gallons of biofuel per acre per year, making it the only suitable candidate for sequestering and recycling CO2 emissions from coal fired electric power plants. No other crop can come close to matching this fuel density per acre.

“Algae and microcrop biofuel manufacturers need to identify algae strains and other microcrops that survive and grow robustly when exposed to CO2 laden flue gas from coal fired power plants. I know this research is being done, supposedly successfully, but it will take somebody like yourself to bring this research information to the surface.

“Scrubbed coal plant flue gas can be piped to algae/microcrop biomanufacturing plants just like natural gas is currently piped to ordinary manufacturing plants. Perhaps most algae biomanufacturing plants can be located within say 50 miles of the coal fueled power plant on relatively inexpensive land. Feasibility studies must be done. A carbon tax or cap-and-trade cost estimates must be part of these cost analyses and feasibility studies.

“My brother Bob, a retired chemical engineer, says another option is to feed pure CO2 from the coal fired power plants to the algae/microcrops. He suggests running the flue gas through a scrubbing tower filled with a fairly concentrated sodium hydroxide solution. When the sodium carbonate reaches the desired concentration, take a bleed stream off it and send it by pipeline to the algae biomanufacturing plant. Then start adding hydrochloric acid. As the pH drops, the CO2 is released and a semi-permeable membrane can be used to separate the CO2 from the original stream. The CO2 is thereby supplied to the algae/microcrop in pure form. After the HCl is added and the CO2 is released, you have a solution of NaCl. NaCl is quite stable and be converted back to NaOH and HCl by salt splitting, an electrochemical membrane process. (Membrane processes, e.g. reverse osmosis, are gaining public acceptance because they are at the heart of water purification.)

“CO2 from coal fired power plants delivered to biofuel creating algae, and other microcrops, must remain front and center in our daily thoughts. Every day we need to remind ourselves this may be mankind’s only practical and potentially successful method for preventing run-away CO2 emissions and out-of-control global warming by 2030. It is time to stop talking about moving coal power plant CO2 to algae, and, instead, buckle down, do the engineering and get the job done. This effort should start in the USA and China, where, together, we account for about 40% of pollutants linked to climate change.”

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