Biofuel Update With Emerson Process Management

Industry watch

• BP and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Verenium have formed a 50/50 joint partnership, with BP contributing $22.5 million, to develop and build commercial-scale biofuel plants throughout the United Sates.
• Royal Dutch Shell and Canadian biofuel firm Iogens have recently expanded a partnership began in 2002. Shell has increased its partnership in Iogens Energy Corp., a technology development subsidiary of Iogens, from 26.3 to 50%.
• Even love-to-hate oil giant Exxon/Mobil us investing up to $1 billion annually in alternative, non-food based biofuel.

Future watch

I asked Novak how he thought the biofuels landscape would look in ten year’s time: “The gasoline you put in your car in ten years will be indistinguishable from the gas you’re putting in today. Except it will be made from biomass.”

Drop-in fuels – what some are terming “3rd generation” biofuels – are bio-gasoline, bio-diesel, and bio Jet-A fuels that can be used without modification to current engine technology or distribution infrastructure. For Novak and many others, drop-in fuels are one of the most promising developments coming over the horizon. As Novak told me, “you won’t know the difference” when filling your tank with biofuel engineered as a drop-in fuel – same gas station, same gas tank, same engine as the one you’re using today. Several companies are developing processes for refining drop-in fuels, with Virent Energy Systems chief among them through a process called “bioforming.”  With bioforming, a variety of feedstocks can be converted into the “fuels and chemicals now made from fossil fuels,” including non-food and home-grown energy sources,

Peak Oil

Ask 10 different “experts” when peak oil will be upon us, and you’re likely to get 10 different answers, from already here and gone, to still several years or even decades in the future. That peak oil is coming, and likely near, is the common thread.

With current crude oil production of around 72 million barrels-per-day, down from an all time high just shy of 75 million b.p.d. in July of 2008, Novak feels that instead of peak oil, a better concept to consider is peak rate of production. It’s likely that daily production may be just about at its peak, and probably won’t  exceed 80 million b.p.d., according to Novak. By 2030 global energy demands will require 110 million barrels-per-day. Well beyond our ability to produce if no alternative is brought to commercial production, whether the oil is in the ground or not.

It is thus urgent that an alternative be found.

The Work Continue Apace

Emerson plans on expanding its efforts to work with emerging companies and technologies, with a BioEnergy Summit planned for Houston later this summer, and initial groundwork laid for one in Europe, perhaps by the end of the year.  As more and more innovative people and companies bring new ideas to the fore with potential solutions to the coming shortage of fossil-based fuels, Novak and his colleagues at Emerson will continue to help bridge the gap between the promise of bioenergy and its potential fully realized. The promise is certainly there, and the work on realizing its potential continues apace.

Stay tuned.

Image credit: iStockPhoto and jurvetson via Flickr, under Creative Commons license.

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