Posted on 11/13/2011 6:10:43 PM PST by Titus-Maximus
Joule Unlimited ready to start construction on biofuels demonstration plant in Hobbs, New Mexico, that will convert sunlight, CO2 waste into up to 75 million gallons of biodiesel, 125 million gallons of ethanol per year
Nov 11, 2011 – as
Headlines are rewritten for editorial clarity. The original story and headline begin below.
Original Headline: Construction to begin on NM biofuels plant
HOBBS, New Mexico, November 11, 2011 (as) – A Massachusetts company is ready to start construction on a biofuels demonstration plant in New Mexico.
Joule Unlimited Inc. plans to convert sunlight and carbon dioxide waste into biofuel at the planned facility in Hobbs. The plant is expected to begin operations in 2012.
Joule officials gathered in Hobbs on Thursday to make the announcement.
The plant is expected to generate 20 permanent jobs in addition to construction jobs.
State officials say Joule has the potential to expand its operations to create 500 new jobs in Hobbs by producing up to 75 million gallons of renewable diesel and 125 million gallons of ethanol per year.
Lea County officials say Joule will fit into their so-called EnergyPlex. The county has been working to attract both traditional and renewable energy-related businesses to southeastern New Mexico.
I think I remember reading that Japan was doing this....40 years ago.
Could you provide a general rundown (in layman's terms please) of the problems you see with it?
I volunteer to test a couple of thousand gallons/yr for FREE!
Making alcohol on the micro scale would get the BATF&E&FF (fast and furious) involved and they would say no dice.
Size of the plant to collect enough solar energy.
Viable microbes to do the job.
Infrastructure to keep the microbes alive.
Doing it all in a cost effective manor.
Fractional condensation processes, apparatuses and systems also looks interesting.
Just common sense. Pilot or demo plants are normally a fraction of the size of production facilities. Why go full scale? These plants usually have an underlying product or technology that the company is already selling. What do these guys sell now?
They’re called pilots or demos because no one ever expects them to make money. Many times the ‘end product’ isn’t actually finished and useable the way a commercial product would be. No sense spending money on something everyone knows how to do, and the additional expense might not justify the return.
The big breakthrough, when it comes - and it WILL come - is going to be far simpler and more elegant.
“Water, theoretically.. And i AM a chemist . . ..”
The first question to present itself to me upon reading this item was: Is not water the basis of the liquid physical state of those millions of gallons of biofuel?
Second question: Is not this project to be based in a desert?
Third question: WTF?
...and without subsidies? How does it compare with petroleum based fuels before all the taxes are added to them?
1. Here’s a link to a description of a catalytic process to synthesize ethanol from carbon dioxide and hydrogen .
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167299198808124
2. During prohibition ethanol was distilled from a mash of sugar-water catalyzed by yeast (white lightning). The price of gasoline probably would have to run up pretty high for that to be economical for use in your car.
Energy from sunlight is the critical or limitting factor. You can pipe in water from another state, you can’t pipe in sunlight.
I think they are looking for a location with maximum cloud free days.
“You can pipe in water from another state . . ..”
This is true, in a physical sense. But I would be hard pressed to name a state in the southwest willing and able to export water. But, I could be wrong, and not for the first time.
Wow. That is an interesting patent. Keep in mind here that this is primarily a biochemistry topic and my training is NOT in biochem.
Regular photsynthesis takes CO2 and water and light to synthesize sugars and poly-sugars (cellulose) to make plants grow.
Their patent claims that they can engineer microbes that will take CO2 and water and light and synthesize whatever they want them to. The microbe thing is “magic” to me, so I can’t say whether they can or not. But look at common yeast that can produce ethanol from sugar. Magic. It would be quite difficult do do that reaction without the biochem reactor that is the yeast.
The patent includes a very LONG list of possible end products that these microbes might produce. This may be just a patent thing to make their claims as broad as possible. It’s not clear that they have demonstrated the ability to produce any or all of these products.
They’re also claiming a microbe process to produce sugars (just like photosynthesis) and then a photo-fermentation process - probably a lot like the yeast thing - to produce ethanol.
[quote]
Accordingly, the invention provides cells which produce metabolic sugars, e.g., glucose, through photosynthesis using light, water and CO 2 , subsequently converting the sugars into carbon-based products of interest in an efficient, sustainable yield.
[/quote]
They mention ethanol a lot, so this may be the most likely product from their engineered microbes. Still a good deal if the only inputs are CO2, light, and water.
On the water thing... they only mention water a few times in the patent. Thing is, in order to make a hydrocarbon, you need both hydro(gen) and carbon. Water is the easiest source of hydrogen and is what is used in regular photosynthesis.
I’m thinking that the ethanol produced here will ‘still’ require distillation, so that will require some energy. The key here is to produce more chemical energy in the ethanol than the heat energy required to distill the ethanol.
Bottom line, it depends on their ability to mess with these microbes enough to get the products that they want. Sadly, that is beyond my ability to judge.
Still, an interesting idea. Ethanol is C2H6O, so three molecules of water are required for each molecule of CO2. Oxygen may be a by-product of the reaction.
That patent is amazing, huh? I don’t think I’ve seen one that length or detail before. The growth medium for the microbes includes water, too. They also mention required nutrients (eg, vitamin B12) to get the bugs to grow, but they mention that it is not possible to produce the necessary vitamins at the scale needed.
Their systems patent had quite a few designs for bioreactors with feedstock, heat, flowrate information, fractionators, etc. The gaseous feedstock included (IIRC) about 6% water together with a lot of N2.
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>just Co2 and sunlight and the genetically manipulated organisms give off diesel.
So then, if we build a big brewery right next door...
(Carbon Dioxide is the *other* byproduct of the fermenting.)
>The first question to present itself to me upon reading this item was: Is not water the basis of the liquid physical state of those millions of gallons of biofuel?
No. Water in your diesel is a Bad Thing.
I’m quite sure that the production of “biofuels,” which are ethanol, requires water. For example, Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, etc.
>I’m quite sure that the production of “biofuels,” which are ethanol, requires water. For example, Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, etc.
I’m not sure if there was a step requiring water in biodiesel production. The hydrocarbons in biodeiesel, IIRC, come straight from the fats.
Obama and Hillary aide John Podesta of the Center for American Progress is on its board of diectors, if that answers your question.
IMHO, when companies need political hacks to be on their board instead of experts, they are after taxpayer’s money, not consumer’s money.
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