This story in the International Herald Tribune (essentially, the international version of the New York Times) looks at some companies that are applying chemistry, rather than biology, in hopes of turning plant matter into ethanol or other biofuels.
For years, scientists have known that the building blocks in plant matter - not just corn kernels, but also corn stalks, wood chips and even some household garbage - constituted an immense potential resource that could, in theory, fill the U.S. gasoline tanks.
Mostly, they have focused on biology as a way to do it, tinkering with bacteria or fungi that could digest the plant material, known as biomass, and extract sugar that could be fermented into ethanol. But now, nipping at the heels of various companies using biological methods, is a new group of entrepreneurs … who favor chemistry.
They believe that techniques borrowed from oil refining and other chemical industries will allow them to crack open big biological molecules, transforming them into ethanol or, even more interestingly, into diesel fuel and gasoline. The latter could be transported in existing pipelines and burned in existing engines without fuss. Advocates say the chemical methods may be flexible enough to go beyond traditional biomass, converting old tires or even human waste into clean transport fuel.
The story highlights four companies: Range Fuels, based in Denver; Virent, based in Madison, Wisconsin; Honeywell subsidiary OUP in Chicago, and BlueFire of Irvine, Calif.
Range Fuels is a cellulosic ethanol company turning wood chips into ethanol. It is well-funded by Silicon Valley venture capital money from Khosla Ventures.
Virent Energy Systems aims to turn sugar into gasoline, diesel, kerosene and jet fuel - and has a long-run plan to get the sugars from biomass. It’s website says Virent was founded in 2002 to commercialize an “Aqueous Phase Reforming” process developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Early research on the technology focused on generating hydrogen from sugar, but Virent has evolved the process, now called BioForming, to enable the production of renewable liquid fuels, fuel gases, and other chemicals. Virent recently raised $21 million in venture capital in a second round of venture financing, led by Stark Investments and Venture Investors LLC. Cargill Ventures and Advantage Capital Partners are also invested in Virent.
OUP, says the IHT article, “is cooking various forms of biomass, what a scientist there calls ‘the recalcitrant stuff,’ into a synthetic oil that can be refined, much like oil from the ground.”
BlueFire Ethanol is using acid to break down organic material to convert to fuel. It claims its patented technology positions BlueFire “as the only viable, world-wide cellulose-to-ethanol company with demonstrated production experience with ethanol from wood wastes, urban trash, rice and wheat straws and other agricultural residues.” The company is public and recently landed a $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
