US Senate passes Farm Bill with more than $800M in mandatory funding for bioenergy programs

The United States Senate passed a five-year farm bill-the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013 (S.954)-containing more than $800 million in mandatory funding for energy programs. The bill also contains funding to grow the renewable chemicals industry.

The Congressional Budget Office CBO estimates that direct spending stemming from the program authorization under the 12 titles in S. 954 would total $955 billion over the 2014-2023 period. That 10-year total reflects the bill's authorization of expiring programs through 2018 and an extension of those authorizations through 2023. The energy title (Title IX) of the bill contains:

• $261 million in mandatory for the Renewable Energy for America Program (REAP), which will provide a streamlined application process for farmers and rural businesses applying for renewable and energy efficient system projects.

• $193 million in mandatory funding for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which provides support for farmers who wish to plant energy crops to produce and use biomass crops for conversion to advanced biofuels or bioenergy. Agricultural producers in BCAP project areas may contract with the Department of Agriculture to receive biomass crop establishment payments up to 50 percent of costs, plus annual payments in amounts determined by the Secretary in subsequent years to help to compensate for lost opportunity costs until crops are established.

  860 growers in 12 states plant 59,000 acres of new energy crops a year with the assistance of Biomass Crop Assistance Program, according to the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO).

• $216 million in mandatory funding for the Biorefinery Assistance Program, which provides loan guarantees for renewable energy projects, expands eligibility to include biobased manufacturing and renewable chemicals.

• $130 million for the Biomass Research and Development Initiative. The bill will reauthorize funding for research on biomass feedstock development for bioenergy and biobased products.

• The bill will reauthorize and modify USDA's BioPreferred Program and the Federal Government Procurement Preference Program. Many of the modifications are adopted from the "Make it Here, Grow it Here" initiative which includes reporting of biobased purchases by the federal agencies, auditing and enforcement of the biobased and education/outreach activities. The program will receive $15 million in mandatory funding.

• Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels. This program provides production payments for advanced bioenergy sources such as methane digesters, advanced biofuels and biopower.

• Community Wood Energy Program. This program provides competitive, cost-share grants for communities to supply public buildings with energy from sustainably-harvested wood from the local area.

The energy title also funds USDA programs that help jumpstart additional biorefinery construction for advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals, dedicated energy crop feedstock development and consumer demand of biobased products-all encouraging further commercialization of the renewable industry.

The House is still working on its version of the Farm Bill (H.R.1947, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013).

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/06/farmbill-20130611.htm

EPA proposes adding renewable diesel and naphtha from landfill biogas and butanol pathways to RFS

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a proposed rulemaking for modifications to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) program. The proposal also includes various changes to the E15 misfueling mitigation regulations (E15 MMR), ultra low sulfur diesel survey requirements as well as other technical amendments.

The proposed rules include various changes related to biogas, including changes related to the revised compressed natural gas (CNG)/liquefied natural gas (LNG) pathway and amendments to various associated registration, recordkeeping, and reporting provisions. It also adds new pathways for renewable diesel, renewable naphtha, and renewable electricity (used in electric vehicles) produced from landfill biogas.

EPA is also proposing to allow butanol that meets the 50% GHG emission reduction threshold to qualify as an advanced biofuel. The rulemaking also proposes a clarification regarding the definition of crop residue to include corn kernel fiber and proposes an approach to approving the volume of cellulosic biofuels produced from various cellulosic feedstocks (the issue here being the percentage of cellulose in the feedstocks).

Renewable electricity, renewable diesel and naphtha produced from landfill biogas. In the final RFS2 rule, EPA established biogas as an advanced biofuel type when derived from landfills, sewage waste treatment plants, and manure digesters. EPA also established cellulosic diesel and cellulosic naphtha as eligible cellulosic biofuels; eligible feedstocks for these biofuels included cellulosic components of separated municipal solid waste but did not include biogas from landfills.

EPA is now proposing to include renewable electricity (when used in transportation) produced from landfill biogas feedstock as well as diesel and naphta produced from landfill biogas via the Fischer-Tropsch process as approved advanced and/or biomass-based fuels.

If the Fischer-Tropsch facilities produce at least 20% of their electricity demand at the facility from certain allowed sources, EPA is proposing that the renewable diesel and naphtha produced would further qualify as cellulosic biofuels.

Renewable CNG/LNG produced from biogas from waste treatment plants and waste digesters is still classified as an advanced biofuel. However, renewable CNG/LNG produced from biogas from landfills would qualify as a cellulosic pathway.

Advanced butanol pathway. EPA is proposing a new pathway that allows butanol made from corn starch using a combination of advanced technologies to meet the 50% GHG emissions reduction needed to qualify as an advanced renewable fuel.

This pathway applies to dry mill fermentation facilities that use natural gas and biogas from an on-site thin stillage anaerobic digester for process energy with combined heat and power (CHP) producing excess electricity of at least 40% of the purchased natural gas energy of the facility (the proposed "advanced butanol pathway").

Cellulosic volumes from cellulosic feedstock. For purposes of the RFS program, cellulosic biofuel is defined as "renewable fuel derived from any cellulose, hemicellulose, or lignin that is derived from renewable biomass and that has lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, as determined by the Administrator, that are at least 60 percent less than the baseline lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions."

However, EPA points out, no plant matter can ever consist entirely of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin; even feedstocks such as switchgrass, corn stover, and woody materials contain measurable proportions of other types of organic molecules.

Most "cellulosic" feedstocks contain approximately 80-95% cellulose, hemicellulose, or lignin. Corn kernels contain roughly 75% starch and less than 10% fiber (which includes the cellulosic components, as well as other materials), and soybeans are roughly 60% oil and protein and only about 15% fiber.

EPA is proposing allowing 100% of the volume of renewable fuel produced from specific cellulosic feedstock sources-crop residue, switchgrass, miscanthus, other grasses, wood and branches-to generate cellulosic renewable identification numbers (RINs).

EPA cites three justifications for this approach:

1. there can be significant variation in the amount of cellulosic content in any feedstock, which varies within a growing season, across samples, and across sites. Attempting to account for this variability would impose a significant administrative burden on producers and EPA;

2. the amount of the final fuel that is produced from the cellulosic portion of the feedstock is likely to be very high, particularly for fuels produced using a biochemical reaction; and

3. EPA has already made previous determinations in which a single RIN value was assigned to the fuel produced since it came primarily from one source even though it was also produced from incidental amounts of other sources.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) welcomed the opportunity for public comment on the proposed RFS2 amendments and clarifications.

We appreciate EPA moving forward as rapidly as possible with these program amendments. Companies continue to make investments, put steel in the ground, create jobs and develop technologies that reduce dependence on foreign oil and contribute to a cleaner environment. They are preparing to make additional investments with assurance that US policy is committed to energy security and production of biofuels.

Finalization of new pathways will clear the way for companies to bring innovative technologies to the marketplace. Delays can determine whether these companies succeed or fail and whether investors remain confident. We look forward to working with EPA to rapidly finalize these new rules.

-Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO's Industrial & Environmental Section,

Resources

• Proposed rule

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/05/rfs2-20130521.htm

Former president of Shell Oil calls for aggressive action on alternative fuels to break oil monopoly on transportation

John Hofmeister, former President of Shell Oil Company and founder and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy (CFAE), is joining the Fuel Freedom Foundation (FFF) Advisory Board. Fuel Freedom is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to opening the fuel market to allow alternative fuels such as ethanol, methanol, natural gas and electricity fairly to compete with gasoline at the pump. CFAE's mission is to educate citizens and government officials about pragmatic, non-partisan affordable energy solutions.

"The purpose and the focus [of FFF] is exactly in line with what I promoted as president of Shell and subsequently as the founder of CFAE," Hofmeister said to Green Car Congress. "From [these organizations' standpoints], the reason we have to get away from doing nothing is that the public doesn't fully appreciate or understand the situation it faces with respect to fuels' futures."

We exist to better educate the public, to have the conversations that need to be had with government, corporate executives, NGOs, with all sectors of society, on future alternatives.

We have to look at the fuels marketplace from a short-, a medium-, and a long-term perspective. There will not be enough oil to stay on the path we're on globally over the short- and medium-, let alone the long-term. By the time we meet China's needs, India's needs, the developing world's needs, there just is not enough supply to rely 100% on oil as a transportation fuel. It's not going to happen.

-John Hofmeister

In his 2010 book Why We Hate The Oil Companies, Straight talk from an energy insider, Hofmeister suggested that Americans would be facing the beginning of gasoline lines in the 2016-2020 timeframe.

That onset of what he calls the "beginning of the energy abyss" was predicated on normal economic growth, including China's growth, he noted. Since writing the book, economic growth has been "stunted", and China's growth reduced. That, he suggested, might stretch out the beginning timeframe a little further.

It's inevitable. The industry that produces oil can't produce enough, unless the world doesn't grow. It's possible that we will have such expensive oil that we will stymie growth. How many people will suffer? How many poor will become poorer, while rich become richer because we have failed rational tests of creating alternative competitive fuels? We have a choice to condemn ourselves to an energy abyss in the name of the status quo and lack of enlightened leadership, or we can choose to develop alternatives.

Why aren't we more thoughtful about the future? Why don't we begin the journey towards a range of alternatives that delivers increased national security, increased economic security, and multiple choice for consumers?

I think in this regard, we are missing in the whole construct, a meaningful voice of government as an intermediary and an enabler to a better future when it comes to fuel choice. The US has been crippled for 7 years by high-priced fuel; the government has done nothing to speak of to address the issue.

-John Hofmeister

There are many options theoretically available, Hofmeister said, includingnatural gas for multiple transportation fuel applications: LNG, CNG, GTL synthetics, methanol for personal vehicles, even gasoline from natural gas. The organizations are also pushing electric vehicles as an important options, whether battery-based or hydrogen-fuel-cell based.

Analysis of the viability or attractiveness of the different options should rely on a mix of cost, resource availability, and carbon footprint, he suggested.

We need a competitor for oil. We need to open the market to replacement fuels like methanol, ethanol and natural gas. Competition will drive transportation fuel prices down, structurally and sustainably. These fuels are well within our reach, we can implement them into our existing system without the need to wait twenty years for fleet turnover. Fuel Freedom's approach to opening the fuels market by breaking the oil monopoly is America's next giant leap forward.

-John Hofmeister

In terms of taking steps forward, Hofmeister suggests that "first and foremost" there should be a serious, twin-path discussion on the future of natural gas as an alternative fuel, with specific focus about what works best for trucking and trains, and on what works best for personal vehicles. "Let's see what the market does to grow both, the industrial side and the consumer side. We haven't had that conversation yet."

Further, Hofmeister suggested, that even though EVs are off to a slow start, the US should continue to enable the infrastructure to be built to enable both types of electric vehicles, battery and hydrogen.

I think hydrogen fuel cell capability in the next 20-30 years will be more than people give it credit for. It's not a fix for tomorrow, it's too soon. But with the work going on and cost reductions already accrued in fuel cells and vehicles...I would hate to be taught by Japan and Germany how to do it, how to develop the infrastructure for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. But that's quite possible.

-John Hofmeister

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/04/hofmeister-20130430.htm

Researchers develop new Fischer-Tropsch catalyst and production method; Total patents both

A team of researchers led by University of Amsterdam (UvA) chemists has developed new Fischer-Tropsch catalysts-consisting of ultra-thin cobalt shells surrounding inexpensive iron oxide cores-that can be used to produce synthetic fuels from natural gas and biomass. The method used to produce the catalysts is based on an approach previously optimized for preparing magnetic tape for audio cassettes in the 1960s.

France-based energy major Total, which was part of the research team, has patented the new catalysts and the method for their preparation, naming the UvA researchers as co-inventors. The research has just been published online as a VIP (very important paper) communication in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

The Fischer-Tropsch process is used for producing fuels from synthesis gas, which in turn is made from natural gas, biomass or coal. Large reserves of shale gas and natural gas currently changing the world energy market have increased interest in F-T technology. However, F-T reactors are huge, and typically use hundreds of tons of catalyst.

Cobalt-based catalysts are the optimal choice for synthesizing middle distillate fuels such as diesel and kerosene with F-T technology. But cobalt is also expensive. In 2009 the Total Gaz & Power company contacted the Heterogeneous Catalysis and Sustainable Chemistry group (Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences) at UvA to develop a new F-T catalyst together.

Roberto Calderone, Raveendran Shiju and Gadi Rothenberg from the group took up the challenge to design a less-expensive catalyst that can be prepared on a very large scale, yet performs at least as well as pure cobalt.

To gain an economic advantage would require engineering of the particles at single-nanometer resolution, yet in a manner that can be scaled up to multi-ton scale. This rules out all chemical procedures that require high sophistication, extreme temperatures, or expensive chemicals.

The UvA team sought to meet these restraints with the surface nucleation of a cobalt phase onto iron oxide colloids. They were inspired by the method that companies such as TDK used in the 1960s for producing magnetic tapes for audio cassettes. The standard recording materials in these cassettes were polymer-based tapes containing cigar-shaped cobalt-doped iron oxide particles.

After two years of hard work they achieved a cheap, reliable, efficient and, most importantly, scalable method for synthesizing spherical core-shell catalyst particles. The particles have an average diameter of 10 nanometer (nm) and consist of a 8 nm magnetite (iron oxide) core with a cobalt oxide shell of only 1 nm.

The new catalysts were then tested in collaboration with research groups in Lille. The catalysts proved to be excellent Fischer-Tropsch catalysts, giving good diesel fractions.

Resources

• V.R. Calderone, N.R. Shiju, D. Curulla Ferr√©, S. Chambrey, A. Khodakov, A. Rose, J. Thiessen, A. Jess and G. Rothenberg. (2013) De novo design of nanostructured iron-cobalt Fischer-Tropsch catalysts. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. doi: 10.1002/anie.201209799

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/03/ft-20130305.htm

MIT team outlines path to low-cost solar-to-fuels devices; the artificial leaf

(A) Block diagram for providing power to an electrochemical cell (EC), using a photovoltaic (PV) device via direct coupling, as well as (B) experimental examples, including an interdigitated contact geometry that minimizes solution resistance. Source: Winkler et al. 2013 Click to enlarge.

A team of researchers at MIT has described a framework for efficiently coupling the power output of a series-connected string of single-band-gap solar cells to an electrochemical process that produces storable fuels. The open access paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), offers a roadmap for direct solar-to-fuels devices.

The new analysis follows up on 2011 research that produced a proof of concept of an artificial leaf-a small device that, when placed in a container of water and exposed to sunlight, would produce bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen. (Earlier post.) The new work outlines a research program to improve the efficiency of these systems, and could quickly lead to the production of a practical, inexpensive and commercially viable prototype.

The original demonstration leaf in 2011 had low efficiencies, converting less than 4.7% of sunlight into fuel. The team's new analysis shows that efficiencies of 16% or more should now be possible using single-bandgap semiconductors, such as crystalline silicon, or 18% for gallium arsenide cells.

Such a system would use sunlight to produce a storable fuel, such as hydrogen, instead of electricity for immediate use. This fuel could then be used on demand to generate electricity through a fuel cell or other device. This process would liberate solar energy for use when the sun isn't shining, and open up a host of potential new applications.

This article extends the construction of direct solar-to-fuels devices, such as the artificial leaf based on crystalline silicon. Because a single Si junction has insufficient potential to drive water splitting, it cannot be used for direct solar-to-fuels conversion. This paper performs an equivalent circuit analysis for multiple series-connected devices. The predictive utility of the model is demonstrated in the case of water oxidation at the surface of a Si solar cell, using a cobalt-borate oxygen evolving catalyst. Considering recent cost reductions of Si solar cells, this paper offers a path to the construction of low cost solar-to-fuels devices.

-Winkler et al.

Authors of the paper are MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering Tonio Buonassisi, former MIT professor Daniel Nocera (now at Harvard University), MIT postdoc Mark Winkler (now at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center) and former MIT graduate student Casandra Cox (now at Harvard).

The device combines two technologies: a standard silicon solar cell, which converts sunlight into electricity, and chemical catalysts applied to each side of the cell. Together, these would create an electrochemical device that uses an electric current to split atoms of hydrogen and oxygen from the water molecules surrounding them.

The goal is to produce an inexpensive, self-contained system that could be built from abundant materials. Nocera has long advocated such devices as a means of bringing electricity to billions of people, mostly in the developing world, who now have little or no access to it.

The key to obtaining high solar-to-fuel efficiencies is to combine the right solar cells and catalyst-a matchmaking activity best guided by a roadmap. The approach presented by the team allows for each component of the artificial leaf to be tested individually, then combined.

We have outlined a framework for integrating single-absorber solar cells as power sources for electrochemical processes and understanding the efficiency-limiting elements. The steady-state efficiency of coupled PV-EC systems depends on the individual efficiency of each system, but it also depends critically on the efficiency of coupling the two systems. When coupling the two systems directly, by performing each half-reaction on a terminal of the PV device, the coupling efficiency can be modeled using a steady-state equivalent circuit. Additionally, the efficiency of the coupled PV-EC system can be determined given the behavior of each subsystem. We validate this model by correctly predicting the J-V characteristics of a PV-assisted OER to within <10 mV. A key result of our analysis is that even when using commercially available Si solar cells, SFE over 15% is achievable provided the design yields very low solution resistance. We have proposed strategies for meeting this challenge.

-Winkler et al.

The voltage produced by a standard silicon solar cell, about 0.7 volts, is insufficient to power the water-splitting reaction, which needs more than 1.2 volts. One solution is to pair multiple solar cells in series. While this leads to some losses at the interface between the cells, it is a promising direction for the research, Buonassisi says.

An additional source of inefficiency is the water itself-the pathway that the electrons must traverse to complete the electrical circuit-which has resistance to the electrons, Buonassisi says. So another way to improve efficiency would be to lower that resistance, perhaps by reducing the distance that ions must travel through the liquid.

While the solution resistance is challenging, Cox says, there are "some tricks" that might help to reduce that resistance, such as reducing the distance between the two sides of the reaction by using interleaved plates.

James Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London, who was not connected with this work, says, "It is generally agreed that for an effective technology to emerge, the efficiency of the device must be 10 percent or more." The MIT team's work suggests such devices "can provide efficiencies as high as 15 percent. This level of energy conversion is considered very good and practical."

Barber adds that a next step, demonstrating these improvements in a functioning device, is crucial: "It is very important to construct a working system which has a large surface area and operates with solar energy under open field conditions for a long period of time, as is done with the testing of solar cells." If this can be achieved, he says, "the construction of robust and efficient solar-driven modules which produce hydrogen from water on a large industrial scale would have considerable impact on human society."

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Singapore National Research Foundation through the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, and the Chesonis Family Foundation.

Resources

• Mark T. Winkler, Casandra R. Cox, Daniel G. Nocera, and Tonio Buonassisi (2013) Modeling integrated photovoltaic-electrochemical devices using steady-state equivalent circuits. PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1301532110

• Steven Y. Reece, Jonathan A. Hamel, Kimberly Sung, Thomas D. Jarvi, Arthur J. Esswein, Joep J. H. Pijpers, and Daniel G. Nocera (2011) Wireless Solar Water Splitting Using Silicon-Based Semiconductors and Earth-Abundant Catalysts. Science doi: 10.1126/science.1209816

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/03/winkler-20130305.htm

California ARB proposing amendments to Clean Fuels Outlet regulation to ensure adequate hydrogen fueling infrastructure

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) will conduct a public hearing in June to consider adopting amendments to the Clean Fuels Outlet (CFO) Regulation with the intention of ensuring an adequate hydrogen refueling infrastructure to support the introduction and growth of hydrogen-fueled vehicles.

In January 2012, the Board adopted the Advanced Clean Cars (ACC) regulatory package adopted in January 2012 (earlier post)-a combination of the Low Emission Vehicle (LEV) regulations (for criteria pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions) and the technology-forcing Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) that pushes manufacturers to produce ZEVs and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the 2018 through 2025 model years. In addition, the ACC program included amendments to Clean Fuels Outlet (CFO) requirements that will assure that ultra-clean fuels such as hydrogen are available to meet vehicle demands brought on by amendments to the ZEV regulation.

Although the LEV and ZEV regulations were approved by the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) on 7 August 2012, and filed with the Secretary of State, ARB did not submit the amended CFO regulation to OAL by the 7 December 2012 statutory deadline.

ARB notes that there are proposals unders consideration in the state legislature that would extend incentive funding programs that could provide for a non-regulatory avenue for alternative fuel stations in general and targeted funding for hydrogen stations specifically. Should the legislation pass, ARB would no longer need this rulemaking amending the CFO regulation as the provisions of the legislation would meet the objective of ensuring adequate hydrogen fueling infrastructure to support the introduction and growth of ZEVs.

The proposed rulemaking, however, is an attempt to preserve a regulatory backstop should the legislation fail to pass. Should the legislation pass, the proposal would be rescinded.

The amendments to the CFO regulation are being proposed to address the gap in hydrogen fueling infrastructure that may occur when government-funded and other hydrogen stations are not adequate to meet fuel demands of growing numbers FCVs that automakers are producing to comply with the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate. The proposed amendments to CFO would:

• Apply only to ZEVs and ZEV fuels. Staff is proposing to change the types of AFVs subject to the regulation from all AFVs certified as low emission vehicles to only those certified as ZEVs when operating on the designated clean fuel.

• Add a regulatory review for plug-in electric vehicles. Electricity is currently excluded from the definition of a designated clean fuel in the regulation. Staff is proposing to add regulatory language that requires ARB to evaluate the development and usage of workplace and public charging infrastructure, and make recommendations for further actions two years following adoption of the regulation.

• Change the regulated party to be the major producer/importers of gasoline. In 2010, California's 7 major petroleum companies supplied 93% of the gasoline consumed in California, while owning only 13% of the retail gasoline outlets. Changing the regulated party from owner/lessors of retail gasoline outlets to "major refiner/importers of gasoline," evenly applies the requirement to build CFOs among the parties that continue to benefit financially from California's use of gasoline.

• Modify calculations for determining the number of new CFOs and allocating responsibility among the regulated parties. Staff is proposing to modify how the number of required CFOs is calculated to account for the fuel requirements of hydrogen and FCVs. When determining how many CFOs each regulated party is responsible for, the proposed changes include allocating stations among each regulated party based on their share of the gasoline market, rather than the number of gasoline outlets each owns.

• Add a year to both fuel cell vehicle reporting requirements and the compliance timeframe. Staff is proposing to modify the AFV reporting requirements to make auto manufacturers report FCV production plans three model years into the future (the current requirement is two) and provide FCV placement numbers by air basin. This provides regulated parties with an additional year to locate, permit, and build CFOs.

• Add language that would allow the Executive Officer to adjust the required number of new CFOs downward if warranted by more recent vehicle projections. Increasing the time available to locate, permit and build CFOs also provides the opportunity to review auto manufacturer projections submitted the following year. If those projections indicate a decrease in vehicle numbers for a specific compliance year such that fewer CFOs would be required, this proposed amendment allows for making such an adjustment 19 months before stations are required to be operational.

• Add a lower regional activation trigger. Staff is proposing to add a 10,000 vehicle activation trigger that would apply to an air basin before the statewide trigger of 20,000 is reached. The lower trigger complements auto manufacturers' early commercialization plans to market FCVs in regional clusters.

• Streamline the compliance requirements. The proposed amendments include modifying the compliance requirements to be less prescriptive and more like performance standards, giving the regulated party the flexibility to determine how best to meet the minimum requirements. Hydrogen infrastructure can be placed at an existing gasoline station or at a freestanding site.

• Lower the regulation sunset provision. Under the current regulation, the requirement to build CFOs ceases when the total number outlets offering a particular clean fuel equals ten percent of the total number of retail gasoline outlets. Staff is proposing to reduce this provision to five percent based on findings that hydrogen fueling infrastructure can achieve commercial viability at five percent saturation and, therefore, a mandate would no longer be necessary.

The proposal also no longer includes an auto manufacturer penalty for delivering fewer vehicles than projected because it was determined that the circumstances under which it could be proved that an automaker knowingly provided false information would be extremely difficult to substantiate.

Resources

• ARB staff report: Initial Statement of Reasons (ISOR)

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/02/cfo-20130219.htm

UDRI researchers conclude that an algal renewable jet fuel strategy that maximizes the highest liquid fuel yield should focus on renewable diesel

Researchers at the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) investigating the conversion of algal triglycerides to renewable diesel and HEFA (hydrotreated esters and fatty acids) renewable jet fuel have concluded that a renewable aviation turbine fuel strategy that preserves the overall highest liquid fuel yield from the renewable feedstocks would target the production of primarily diesel fuel.

Renewable aviation fuel would be recovered from the cracked fraction that naturally accompanies the hydroisomerization of the original n-alkanes derived from the algal triglycerides to the extent required for meeting an appropriate diesel fuel pour point specification. Such an approach would limit the loss of algal alkane fuel value to less than 10%, according to their paper published in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels.

To convert renewable triglycerides to liquid transportation fuels, either diesel or HEFA (hydrotreated esters and fatty acids) jet, a number of chemical transformations must be undertaken. First, the triglycerides must be converted to normal alkanes. This can be accomplished by catalytic deoxygenation of (1) triglycerides; (2) free fatty acids derived from triglycerides; or (3) secondary esters produced by the transesterification of triglycerides with an inexpensive alcohol. Next, the normal alkanes must be catalytically isomerized and hydrocracked to a distribution of alkane isomers and the fractions appropriate for diesel and HEFA jet recovered.

Hydrocracking is required for producing HEFA jet because the naturally occurring distribution of fatty acid chain lengths found in the triglycerides yields alkanes with boiling points near or above the high temperature limit of the boiling point distribution in both commercial and military aviation fuels. Similarly, when considering the low temperature requirements for these fuels, any remaining normal alkanes in a very highly isomerized mixture of the initial alkane distribution will have a freezing point considerably higher than the −40 °C required by the Jet-A commercial specification and further still from the −47 °C required for military JP-8.

On the other hand, the native distribution of fatty acid chain lengths yields alkanes that are quite suitable for use as a diesel fuel. To improve cold flow properties, the normal paraffins would require only a relatively mild hydroisomerization treatment. Consequently, productionof diesel fuel would result in a much higher yield to a commercial product. However, the European renewable fuels initiative has set targets for renewable fuel use by energy consuming sector. Consequently, it will be necessary to produce aviation fuel from renewable sources.

...While much effort has been focused on the production of alkanes from the triglycerides, much less has been published with regard to the further conversion of these alkanes to actual fuel compositions.

-Robota et al.

In their study, the UDRI team converted algae-derived triglycerides to a mixture of normal alkanes using a 3% Pd/carbon catalyst in a hydrogen stream with an approximate H₂/triglyceride molar feed ratio of 30. The starting triglyceride was composed of 10.5% C₁₆ and 85.2% C₁₈ fatty acids. Rather than targeting complete conversion to alkanes in a single reactor pass, they selected operating conditions which gave a product alkane content between 70 and 85 mass percent. The alkane yield increased as the run progressed with an increasing fraction of the even-numbered alkanes.

These first pass alkanes were concentrated by distillation into a composite in which the alkane concentration was nearly 95%. The remaining high boiling liquids were then converted in a second catalytic pass to produce additional alkanes, which were again concentrated by distillation and aggregated with the first pass alkanes for further conversion into fuel compositions.

They then examined three different bifunctional catalytic cracking strategies for producing HEFA jet using a composite of first and second pass normal alkanes. In the first hydrocracking approach, the single pass conversion is higher than that used for mildly isomerizing the feed alkanes to a diesel-type of composition, with net cracking targeted near 50%.

The feed n-alkanes become substantially isomerized and can be separated from the jet fraction and used directly as a diesel fuel composition. This heavier fraction could also be recombined with fresh feed in a recycle to extinction strategy and eventually wholly converted to jet and naphtha fractions. Under these mildest of cracking conditions, the cracked product distribution would remain unchanged by further, secondary cracking of the initial product distribution, the team found.

The second strategy was designed such that secondary cracking of products could just be clearly detected. Again, the heavier-than-jet fraction could be separated and either used directly as diesel or recycled to extinction.

The third strategy, the most aggressive, resulted in near 100% cracking of the feed alkanes in a single reactor pass; only a negligible portion of the composition heavier than jet remained. This would result in no diesel and require only the separation of the naphtha fraction from the jet fraction.

The three conditions result in about 43%, 59%, and 93% net cracking at temperatures of 268 °C, 272 °C, and 278 °C, respectively.

Only under the most aggressive single pass conditions are the heaviest molecules sufficiently reduced in abundance that no recycle of the insufficiently converted fraction would be needed in a continuous conversion process. Under the least aggressive conditions, it is doubtful that the amount of remaining n-C₁₄ and n-C₁₅ is low enough that the HEFA jet fraction would meet the ‚àí47 ¬∞C freezing point requirement under MIL-DTL-83133G for JP-8. Under these three conditions, losses to the C8‚àínaphtha fraction when normalized to the C₉‚àíC₁₅ fraction comprise 41%, 44%, and 75%, respectively.

Because of these high losses, a renewable aviation turbine fuel strategy that preserves the overall highest liquid fuel yield would target the production of primarily diesel fuel. The aviation fuel would then be recovered from the cracked fraction that naturally accompanies the hydroisomerization of the original n-alkanes to the extent required for meeting an appropriate diesel fuel pour point specification. Such an approach would limit the loss of algal alkane fuel value to less than 10%.

-Robota et al.

Resources

• Heinz J. Robota, Jhoanna C. Alger, and Linda Shafer (2013) Converting Algal Triglycerides to Diesel and HEFA Jet Fuel Fractions. Energy & Fuels doi: 10.1021/ef301977b

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/02/udri-20130208.htm

UDRI and Air Force researchers ramping up production of new renewable fuel formula for aviation

University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and Air Force researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base have ramped up production of a new research fuel formula and a fuel derived from seed oils, and now have enough fuel to move from lab testing to testing in engines and auxiliary power systems.

The ACS journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research published an article about the work on the fuel formula-a research jet fuel composition comprising methyl-branched tetradecane isomers-led by Heinz Robota, Ohio Research Scholar in alternative fuels and the Research Institute's alternative fuels synthesis group leader.

As the military and commercial aviation community certify the 50/50 blends of petroleum-derived and synthetic jet fuels for everyday use, decades of experience with the petroleum-derived specifications provide a foundation upon which to base performance expectations. However, for blends with higher synthetic content, potentially approaching 100%, the empirical foundation of current specifications no longer applies. Consequently, identifying the relationships between composition and specific properties relating to the full spectrum of fit for purpose specifications grows in importance. For example, the role played by alkyl aromatic compounds in ensuring seal swell is well-documented.

Conventional petroleum-derived fuel is composed of thousands of individual components that vary considerably in proportion from one lot of fuel to another. Therefore, separating such a mixture into its constituent parts is simply not a viable approach to developing a new specification. Furthermore, petroleum-derived fuels may contain constituent classes, such as aromatics and molecules containing saturated rings, not contained by every synthetic fuel composition. As a path forward, an approach where specific classes of constituents can be prepared and the functional performance of these individual classes better understood appears to be preferable.

-Robota and Alger

The objective of the work described in the paper was to produce a distribution of C₁₄ alkane isomers that also meet the ‚àí47 ¬∞C freezing point specification of JP-8.

The group's goal is not to invent commercial fuels or ways of making them, according to Robota, but rather to develop fuel samples with certain properties the Air Force can use to broaden its understanding of the composition of alternative fuels and how different compositions influence their practical in-use properties.

My goals are to supply the Air Force with ready-to-test fuel compositions developed in our lab that are unlike commercial fuels; understand the chemistry and chemical engineering issues related to production of these fuels; and be able to provide further assistance as the Air Force tests the samples.

-Heinz Robota

In addition to making research fuels, Robota's group is working with the Air Force to further advance alternative fuels by working with commercial partners to make testable quantities of fuel using the Air Force Research Laboratory's Assured Aerospace Fuels Research Facility Sample Preparation Unit.

Robota's group is currently in the middle of such an undertaking with a commercial partner, converting 1,750 gallons of a renewable crude to roughly 500 gallons of what is expected to be a true renewable fuel. When completed, the fuel will be delivered to a major engine manufacturer for testing on a full-scale engine stand.

After initial rounds of engine testing, further tests will examine burn rate, emissions, how the fuel interacts with engine parts and how the fuel performs at high altitudes.

Resources

• Heinz J. Robota and Jhoanna C. Alger (2012) Preparation of a Research Jet Fuel Composition Comprised of Nearly Exclusively Methyl-Branched Tetradecane Isomers Having a Freezing Point below ‚àí47 ¬∞C. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 51 (31), pp 10313-10319 doi: 10.1021/ie301041c

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/01/udri-20130123.htm

New metabolic engineering tool for microbial cell factories for chemicals, fuels and materials

A South Korean research team led by Sang Yup Lee at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has developed a new metabolic engineering tool to construct efficiently microbial cell factories producing desired chemicals, fuels and materials. The new tool allows fine control of gene expression level by employing synthetic small regulatory RNAs; a paper on the work is published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Biotechnologists have been working to develop sustainable processes for the production of chemicals, fuels and materials from renewable non-food biomass. One promising technology is the use of microbial cell factories for the efficient production of desired chemicals and materials.

When microorganisms are isolated from nature, their performance in producing desired products is rather poor. Metabolic engineering is performed to improve the metabolic and cellular characteristics to achieve enhanced production of desired product at high yield and productivity. Since the performance of microbial cell factory is very important in lowering the overall production cost of the bioprocess, many different strategies and tools have been developed for the metabolic engineering of microorganisms.

One of the big challenges in metabolic engineering is to find the best platform organism and to find those genes to be engineered so as to maximize the production efficiency of the desired chemical. Even Escherichia coli, the most widely utilized simple microorganism, has thousands of genes, the expression of which is highly regulated and interconnected to finely control cellular and metabolic activities. Thus, the complexity of cellular genetic interactions is beyond our intuition and thus it is very difficult to find effective target genes to engineer.

Together with gene amplification strategy, gene knockout strategy has been an essential tool in metabolic engineering to redirect the pathway fluxes toward our desired product formation. However, experimenting to engineer many genes can be rather difficult due to the time and effort required; for example, a gene deletion experiment can take a few weeks depending on the microorganisms.

Furthermore, as certain genes are essential or play important roles for the survival of a microorganism, gene knockout experiments cannot be performed. Moreover, there are many different microbial strains one can employ. There are more than 50 different E. coli strains that metabolic engineers can consider. Since gene knockout experiments are hard-coded (that is, one should repeat the gene knockout experiments for each strain), the result cannot be easily transferred from one strain to another.

The paper addresses this issue and suggests a new strategy for identifying gene targets to be knocked out or knocked down through the use of synthetic small RNA. Professor Lee's team reported that synthetic small RNA can be employed for finely controlling the expression levels of multiple genes at the translation level. Already well-known for their systems metabolic engineering strategies, Professor Lee's team added one more strategy to efficiently develop microbial cell factories for the production of chemicals and materials.

Here, we report the development of a general strategy for modulating gene expression at the translation stage using synthetic sRNAs that are rationally designed (rather than randomly screened), and we provide proof-of-concept applications to metabolic engineering by increasing the production of tyrosine and cadaverine in E. coli. The synthetic sRNA-based strategy reported here is advantageous over conventional gene-knockout strategies and other large-scale target identification strategies because of its easy implementation and because it does not rely on pre-constructed strain libraries.

-Na et al.

Gene expression works like this: the hard-coded blueprint (DNA) is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), and the coding information in mRNA is read to produce protein by ribosomes. Conventional genetic engineering approaches have often targeted modification of the blueprint itself (DNA) to alter organism's physiological characteristics. Again, engineering the blueprint itself takes much time and effort, and in addition, the results obtained cannot be transferred to another organism without repeating the whole set of experiments.

Professor Lee and his colleagues aimed at controlling the gene expression level at the translation stage through the use of synthetic small RNA. They created novel RNAs that can regulate the translation of multiple messenger RNAs (mRNA), and consequently varying the expression levels of multiple genes at the same time. Briefly, synthetic regulatory RNAs interrupt gene expression process from DNA to protein by destroying the messenger RNAs to different yet controllable extents. The advantages of taking this strategy of employing synthetic small regulatory RNAs include simple, easy and high-throughput identification of gene knockout or knockdown targets, fine control of gene expression levels, transferability to many different host strains, and possibility of identifying those gene targets that are essential.

As proof-of-concept demonstration of the usefulness of this strategy, Professor Lee and his colleagues applied it to develop engineered E. coli strains capable of producing an aromatic amino acid tyrosine, which is used for stress symptom relief, food supplements, and precursor for many drugs. They examined a large number of genes in multiple E. coli strains, and developed a highly efficient tyrosine producer. Also, they were able to show that this strategy can be employed to an already metabolically engineered E. coli strain for further improvement by demonstrating the development of highly efficient producer of cadaverine, an important platform chemical for nylon in the chemical industry.

The design principles and the engineering strategy using synthetic sRNAs reported here are generalizable to other bacteria and applicable in developing superior producer strains. The ability to fine-tune target genes with designed sRNAs provides substantial advantages over gene-knockout strategies and other large-scale target identification strategies owing to its easy implementation, ability to modulate chromosomal gene expression without modifying those genes and because it does not require construction of strain libraries.

-Na et al.

This new strategy, being simple yet very powerful for systems metabolic engineering, could facilitate the efficient development of microbial cell factories capable of producing chemicals, fuels and materials from renewable biomass.

This work was supported by the Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Changes on Systems Metabolic Engineering for Biorefineries (NRF-2012-C1AAA001-2012M1A2A2026556) and the Intelligent Synthetic Biology Center through the Global Frontier Project (2011-0031963) of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) through the National Research Foundation of Korea.

Resources

• Dokyun Na, Seung Min Yoo, Hannah Chung, Hyegwon Park, Jin Hwan Park, and Sang Yup Lee (2013) Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli using synthetic small regulatory RNAs. Nature Biotechnology doi: 10.1038/nbt.2461

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/01/na-20130122.htm