Argonne's Futuristic Combustion Engine

Like it or not, whether we find ourselves driving purely electric cars, hydrogen cars, or nuclear-powered cars like in Back-to-The-Future, we will undoubtedly have residual contact with the conventional gas-burning engine for quite some time in the future. It might be in the form of cars driven in developing countries or it could simply be that other alternatives in the future here in the United States are simply too expensive for the regular driver to pick up the tab on the new technologies. For this reason, improving traditional engines to run on a mixture of fuels such as gasoline, ethanol, or butanol, would allow for a technology that improves the environment and domestic fuel supplies to become more mainstream in a faster time.
Argonne National Laboratories has announced plans to work diligently to create an engine that would be able to burn efficiently using any blend of gasoline, ethanol, or butanol, and do it in a way that optimizes mpg's and reduces emissions. To do this Argonne Labs proposes an improved sensor inside the fuel cylinder that will be able to monitor the oxygen-contents of the fuel and time the injection properly to optimizes the burning of the fuel in the engine. Remember, ethanol and butanol are different than gasoline in that they contain an OH (oxygen and hydrogen) group at one end of the molecule. The extra oxygen is what provides a better burn in ethanol and butanol and sustains higher octane ratings for the fuel. However, in conventional engines made today that are not flex-fuel, the computer can not distinguish the extra oxygen in the fuel and ends up injecting too much ethanol into the cylinder, resulting in fuel waste and lower miles-per-gallon.
The beauty of Argonne's idea is that if an engine such as this could be created in the near future, it could allow all new cars to be produced in what would essentially be a "flex-fuel" category but allow for all fuels to function equally well. Since such a technology would be cheap to implement, it could potentially go a long way in providing an alternative solution to conventional gasoline to people that might not be otherwise able to participate in this revolution.

Ford Continues March Toward Next-Gen Vehicle

In previous posts I have mentioned Ford's Escape Hybrid as being the vehicle to take us into the next generation of vehicles with a mpg rating higher than most cars and the capability of combining flex-fuel and hybrid into the same package. Today Ford announced improvements to come out in its line of Ford Escape Hybrids for the 2009 model year. Although none of the 25,000 vehicles they plan to produce in 2009 are planned to contain a flex-fuel advantage, they still hold several benefits over other vehicles.

What Ford did was to improve the timing of the fuel injection and increase the speed at which the car's hybrid battery carries engine performance up to 40 miles per hour. This means that until the small sized SUV tops 40 miles per hour, the battery will be in control of the engine. Amazingly, Ford was able to do this without increasing the engine's need to charge the battery more. They did this by improving the breaking efficiency and convert that saved energy into the battery for greater storage.

With these combined technologies, Ford can offer an Escape Hybrid that gets 34 mpg's in the city and 31 mpg's on the highway -- almost as good as the most efficient four-door cars on the road. However, the price tag will probably be around $27,000. If flex-fuel studies on the Ford Escape/Hybrid come to flurishen, this could be a great vehicle for the future, particularly in the prices for the battery and hybrid system can come down.

For original article, go to:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/06/ford-gives-2009.html#more

New Additions to the Cellulosic Ethanol Stage

Although thermochemical and biochemical methods for the production of ethanol are the most practical and widely used methods to produce ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, electrochemical methods are another option. Thermochemical methods pertain mainly to burning the cellulose in a controlled fashion to produce a gas stream. This is usually combined with a biochemical catalyst (most likely a bacterium), where the gas stream is converted into ethanol. This combination of thermochemical and biochemical methods are what GM and Coskata are backing in their hopes to pioneer efficient ethanol production from cellulose.

However, Mitsubishi and RedOx Biofuels have agreed to work together on an electrochemical approach to producing ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks. With gas prices soaring and the price of corn skyrocketing due to the flooding in the Midwest, there has been an even greater push towards the creation and implementation of an efficient process to produce cellulosic ethanol. Electrochemical methods, such as those used by Mitsubishi, uses electricity and acid/base hydrolysis to break the bonds in cellulosic ethanol so that the sugars can be accessible to the bacteria that can convert them into ethanol.

The problem with Mitsubishi's method is that unless they develop a way to use electricity in a highly efficient manner to break the bonds in cellulose I can almost guarantee to you that the process will use more energy than it produces. Thermochemical methods have the potential of working because the burning process can be self-sustaining once the material begins to burn (requiring only a portion of the feedstock to continue the process). So my reasoning is that although Mitsubishi is trying something new, it doesn't seem like they will be able to get very far with this process. Their proposed target is only 800 liters of ethanol produced next year, which is pitifully small even for a pilot-plant.

The facts are that fuel molecules, such as ethanol and certain furfural compounds that can mimic gasoline can be produced using electrochemical methods. The problem is that they can only produce a small amount of product and it takes an immense amount of energy using current procedures to make the process work. If nothing else works, these methods would be fine.... but I think we can do much better.

Here is a schematic diagram of what Mitsubishi envisions for their process:

New Ford Flex-Fuel Hybrid

Finally got a few seconds to make a quick post on Ford's new concept vehicle. It is a Ford Escape PHEV with flex-fuel capabilities. In other words, the compact-SUV is plugged in at night and can run approximately 30 miles on the charged battery (not great but not too bad for city driving). Once the battery is run down, the flex-fuel engine runs on 85% ethanol with a hybrid system to save energy during stop and go driving. This is exactly what I have been e-mailing Ford and other car companies about -- we need to integrate technologies in order to build a car that will operate in the future.

The beauty of this Ford Escape? It gets 88 miles per gallon in the city and 50mpg in highway driving! And, with the use of the batteries and ethanol additives, CO2 emissions from the vehicle are cut 60% over conventional gasoline vehicles -- 90% if the ethanol is made from cellulosic feedstocks. We need this car right now and if it were on the market, I'm sure it would be a hot seller. Unfortunately, Ford only has one produced and has given it to the Department of Energy for testing. If you are interested in this technology I strongly suggest doing what I have done and e-mail Ford directly, telling them you want to see this type of vehicle come on line as soon as possible.

Soggy Midwest Weather May Dampen Corn Crop

While dragging through a rough winter here in Iowa we were reminded of one thing -- that when spring and summer rolled around the weather would be back on our side. And even though the forecasters were pretty united in their call that Iowa and the Midwest would be in for unusually dry (drought) weather, neither seems to be coming true. This has been an exceptionally wet spring that has some Iowans talking about the last major flooding disaster to occur in the state back in 1993. On top of these dismal weather days, the rain couldn't have come at a worst time -- right when farmers are trying to get out into the fields to plant corn and soybeans that seem to be in ever increasing demand in a world full of food and biofuels. The problem is that wet weather not only prevents farmers from getting into fields for fear of getting their tractors bogged down, but capped mud can also prevent a germinating seed from being able to punch through the soil to get the sunlight needed to survive. Also, small plants only a few inches tall can not survive in standing water that might be up to a foot deep or more in some places.
The wet weather comes in a year when corn supplies may already be tight and the USDA estimates that farmers will plant more soybeans and less corn this year. The bottom line is that the more days that farmers are prevented from getting the crop started, the lower the potential yields become. Even though perennial crop investor and adviser service DTN has tried to dampen concern by saying that much of the news has already been priced into the cost of nearly $6.00 per bushel corn, it looks as though things might only get worse before getting better. With more wet weather in the 7 day forecast for central Iowa, it could be tough to match the corn output that was seen last year in a particularly tight season.
Hopefully we can get a more balanced weather pattern in the next week or two.

Coskata Joined in Race for Cellulosic Ethanol

Although Coskata may be getting the most amount of press and attention these days for their work towards mass producing cellulosic ethanol, they definitely are not the only ones working on the problem. Louisiana based Verenium Corporation has announced plans to enter the cellulosic ethanol race with a pilot-scale plant of their own in Jennings, Louisiana. The company plans to have a scaled up commercial plant capable of producing 30 million gallons of ethanol per year by 2010, which would put it approximately on schedule with Coskata.

However, there are some major differences that give Verenium the advantage in terms of hurrying production along and disadvantages. Verenium produces cellulosic derived ethanol using an enzyme pretreatment and then genetically engineered e. coli stains that possess the genes to convert 5-carbon sugars, such as xylose, into ethanol. This is an improvement over yeast, which are only able to convert 6-carbon sugars, such as glucose, into ethanol. With the e. coli stain possessing an additional pathway that is abundant in cellulosic ethanol, it allows the plant to move forward quickly with relatively novice technology. In other words, existing corn-ethanol plants could easily be retrofitted with this new bacteria and would become cellulosic ethanol plants. However, the downside is that the technology does not escape many of the problems that currently plague corn-based ethanol. Sure, the feedstock would be more flexible, owing to the company's claim that they will be able to produce ethanol forl around $1.84 per gallon including their debt responsibilities. But they don't escape the massive amounts of energy needed in the pretreatment step, which Coskata gets around by gasifying the biomass, and it doesn't seem as though Verenium has improved any of the downstream applications, such as separation of ethanol and water after the fermentation step.

The bottom line is that Verenium is going to be a fast mover towards cellulosic ethanol, much like South Dakota based Poet. However, in the long run, Coskata will have a definite advantage over these two players as its holistic approach towards cellulosic ethanol production that seeks to address many if not all of the problems found in corn-based ethanol, will eventually prove to be the winner.

Below are graphics provided by Verenium on their process stream and on their calculated costs to produce a gallon of ethanol.

GM & Coskata

Coskata held a media day over the weekend to update the press and public about its ongoing efforts to produce cellulosic ethanol using a gasification followed by fermentation process. The event released some interesting results, indicating that although Coskata has yet to delve into the realm of reengineering their clostridia species to produce different types of fuel besides ethanol, they have been effective in their screening methods in producing larger amounts of ethanol from their bacteria. Their graphic, which is shown below, indicates that Coskata has improved their system a great deal in the past few months and managed to produce moderate amounts of ethanol from their system.

The development allows Coskata and GM to move forward in their goals to get a pilot plant up and running in Pennsylvania by the start of next year and a 50million gallon per year ethanol plant running by 2011. Coskata believes that by using multiple gasifiers, they will be able to process between 1,500 and 3,000 tons of biomass per day. Their business plan also estimates that by using and reinvesting these profits, Coskata will be able to expand to establish 20 biorefineries per year by 2015, which would allow for the widescale production of ethanol from cellulosic wastes and allow up to 35% of gasoline fuel demand to be offset by ethanol.

This is all good news but highly hypothetical, of course. Although I'm sure they are aware of the difficulties, Coskata mentions the goal of engineering their bacteria to produce bio-butanol, a fuel that would have an energy density much closer to that of gasoline. However, butanol is highly toxic to bacteria, even at relatively low levels, so it remains to be seen whether this idea will pan out or not.