I have only half-jokingly commented before that the ideal microorganism for energy production would consume garbage and excrete gasoline, which would float to the top of a reactor to be skimmed off via a low-energy process. Technically, there isn’t any reason that this shouldn’t be feasible. It’s just a matter of understanding the metabolic pathways, and successfully doing the genetic engineering. But to put that into perspective, it is probably also technically feasible to engineer humans to use photosynthesis for energy, or to engineer a blueberry tree. In other words, technically feasible is often a long way from imminently doable.
But there has been a flurry of stories this week about another venture backed by Vinod Khosla called LS9 which bills itself as the renewable petroleum company and is promising something not too far from what I have described above. A story this week by David Roberts of Gristmill captures the highlights:
LS9 promises ‘renewable petroleum’
The process is the same as making cellulosic ethanol insofar as cellulosic feedstocks are converted into fermentable sugars, and those sugars are placed in a fermentation vat. The difference comes in the microbes doing the fermenting. With ethanol, it’s generally some form of yeast. The researchers at LS9 have engineered their own microbes, lifting genes from other microbes and recombining them into an organism that does just what they want. In this way they can precisely tweak the characteristics of the resulting fuel.
Yeast fermentation produces ethanol, which mixes with water and subsequently has to be extracted via distillation. LS9’s microbes produce — via fatty acid metabolism, in a process I won’t claim to understand — hydrocarbons (the building blocks of petroleum). These hydrocarbons are immiscible, i.e., they don’t mix with water. Instead, they float to the top of the vat, where they can essentially be skimmed off. That allows LS9 to skip the distillation process, which saves a whole boatload of energy. (That’s where most of the claimed 65% energy savings comes from.)
There is certainly no reason to think that this isn’t technically feasible. After all, the human body produces fatty acids that have a chemical structure that involves long-chain hydrocarbons. It is not far-fetched to accept that organisms can be engineered to produce very specific hydrocarbons. And I do think this is a much better approach than producing ethanol that requires an energy intensive distillation to remove the water.
Roberts writes:
Can you be more concise?
Sure. LS9 has genetically engineered microbes that will eat sugar and crap oil.
Naturally, this all piqued my interest. Since several news releases referred to “patents pending”, I went and searched the United States Patent Office for published applications. After an hour of searching, I came up empty. But, that’s not necessarily a negative indicator. I have had patents that took a while to work their way through the process. It just means that it is harder to understand whether there is more hype here than warranted, because the technical details aren’t in the public record. I wrote to LS9, and they responded back immediately and said 1). They read this blog; and 2). No, their applications aren’t yet published.
So, thwarted on that front, I started looking through their web site in search of 1). Advertised job openings; and 2). The specific skill set of the team they have in place. Both of these things can tell you a lot. If they are advertising for a lot of public relations types and are skimpy on looking for scientists and engineers, then my suspicion is raised. Likewise if they are very generic about available openings. But, they did have specific advertised openings for those sorts of technical positions. So I view that as a positive.
On the second item, the background of the team can tell you a lot. In order to have a good chance at success, I would expect that they are putting together a team knowledgeable about specific metabolic pathways for microorganisms. I found that. Again, as soon as their web site is back online, I will be more specific.
At this stage, I see no reason to doubt their claims, but you essentially have to take them at their word. But I give very good odds that even if they don’t pull this off, someone will. I will try to update this story as more information comes out.
A bit of additional reading:
Producing hydrocarbon fuels is more efficient than producing ethanol, del Cardayre adds [Stephen del Carayre, VP for R&D], because the former packs about 30 percent more energy per gallon. And it takes less energy to produce, too. The ethanol produced by yeast needs to be distilled to remove the water, so ethanol production requires 65 percent more energy than hydrocarbon production does.
At least they have their facts in order. Of course all of those who insist that it is more energy efficient to produce ethanol than gasoline aren’t going to like that.
Cellulose to sugar: Is this process worked out yet?
Cellulose to sugar: Is this process worked out yet?
Yes, but it isn’t a piece of cake. Cellulose has evolved to be resistant to attack, so it takes crude methods to break it down. The biomass has to be ground up to expose the cellulose, and then a strong acid, base, or steam explosion to break it down to sugars. As you might guess, this adds to the complexity and energy inputs.
Robert, here is a very hypothetical question:
Let us suppose that biofuels will be a part of the energy mix as fossil fuels decrease in proportion. But, assuming that biofuels replace just a small percentage of liquid fuels derived from petroleum, how will these fuels be allocated? Can the market handle this or will there need to be some major centralized, top down management by governments to place the fuels where they will do the most good?
How do we start redesigning the infrastructure to prevent the future energy mix from being very expensive and very scarce? Our continuing reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, and alternative “replacements” may not take us in this direction.
Since you brought it up yesterday – why bother with bugs? Just use pyrolysis to make methanol.
Bugs are for whimps. Give me heat, pressure, some catalyst and I can finish the job in a fraction of the time.
Can the market handle this or will there need to be some major centralized, top down management by governments to place the fuels where they will do the most good?
I think everything hinges on just how fast things happen. If we had a near-term oil peak, and then a relatively fast decline, you would need very strong leadership by governments to handle it. If the transition is slow, the markets will handle a lot of it as fossil fuels become more and more expensive.
Since you brought it up yesterday – why bother with bugs? Just use pyrolysis to make methanol.
Let me put my ethanol-producer hat on for a minute. “Methanol! That stuff makes you blind. It has less energy content than ethanol. It would require expensive revamps of the ethanol systems we have in place.” I have already heard these arguments against methanol. Ethanol from corn is entrenched. I know people think it’s a bridge, but it’s more like a permanent dwelling.
Since you are into thought experiments, how about figuring out how much space a biorefinery might take up?
Let’s see. A medium sized refinery might run 100,000 barrels of crude. We’ll assume it make that much in products as well.
Let’s imagine that LS9 comes up with a process that makes 8% fuel in 30 days. That would be pretty good yield. So on day 30 you would have 100,000 barrels of fuel diluted in water at 8%, or 100,000/0.08 = 1,250,000 barrels. Multiply that number by 30 to get the total volume needed for the bio-refinery. That equals 37.5 million barrels of bioslurry. That’s just for 1 refinery!!!
Let’s put that number in perspective. The US only consumes about 21 million barrels of crude per day. The world produces about 80 million barrels per day. So imagine twice the volume of liquid of every ship, or pipeline delivering crude to the US every day. For 1 refinery!
Scaling up from 100,000 barrels per day to 21 million barrels is 37.5 million barrels x 210 = 7.9 x 10^9 barrels or 331 x 10^9 gallons. That works out to be just a little over 1 million acre-feet of water. Or about 1/2 the size of Lake Washington (2.35 million acre-feet) in Seattle. Or for Vinod Khosla, if he reads this, roughly 1/2 the volume of water in San Luis reservoir southeast of San Jose.
That is a huge amount of liquid to deal with. You are talking about putting lake sized volumes in tanks, keeping them warm, drawing off the vent gasses. Now imagine the size of the refinery to purify the fuel. Each refinery would need 12 times as much distillation or liquid extraction equipment.
What might look good in some lab in San Jose doesn’t start to look so good in the real world.
Try this, take every refinery in the US and imagine it expanding to 10 times is present size.
Over the years I have been involved in acquiring land around refineries. We are happy to pick up 5 or 10 acres at a time – that can be a pretty big deal. I’ve done eminent domain proceedings for pipelines. That can be lot’s of fun, sometimes it takes years.
Sure, you can probably find some land in Iowa or Nebraska to convert to biorefineries. But now you have to transport that fuel to California or New Jersey or wherever it is needed. You don’t have enough rail or road capacity to carry it all, and pipelines don’t exist for this material.
What might look good in some lab in San Jose doesn’t start to look so good in the real world.
That’s an incredible frustation with me. Anyone can draw something out on paper, make a few assumptions, and easily solve the world’s problems. Perfect example right here in this blog. This is an example like that from the Rolling Stone article: All we need are hovercars, and the problem is solved. It also reminds me of when Ross Perot was running for president, and he said something like “The GAO estimated that the government wastes $2 billion a year. The first thing I am going to do is eliminate that.” If it were only that easy.
Since you brought it up yesterday – why bother with bugs? Just use pyrolysis to make methanol.
As long as we’re on the topic, why not use pyrolysis to make (fuel-of-choice)?
The reason I ask is this: It occurred to me that algae might in fact be a very workable source of biomass for fuel if you stop worrying about oil content. If you gasify and F/T the algae, rather than just squeeze it for oil, you get to use the entire biomass. Better still, you no longer have to care very much about contamination: as long as your algae culture is a fast-growing variety (or mix of varieties), you don’t care if it is a oil producer or a carbohydrate producer. That means you can grow it in low-cost raceway ponds, and get away from the cost and embodied energy of photobioractors.
I’m sure there’s a problem with this scheme, but I’m not sure what it is. Any idea?
I’m sure there’s a problem with this scheme, but I’m not sure what it is. Any idea?
Funny you mention that, because I was kicking that around in my head a few days ago. I finally convinced myself that harvesting and drying the algae on a continuous basis could be a problem. You would want to dry naturally, but I am not sure how you do that on a very large scale. And you definitely want to dry, because you don’t want water soaking up all your heat.
Did you reverse ethanol and gas in the last sentence here?
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Producing hydrocarbon fuels is more efficient than producing ethanol, del Cardayre adds [Stephen del Carayre, VP for R&D], because the former packs about 30 percent more energy per gallon. And it takes less energy to produce, too. The ethanol produced by yeast needs to be distilled to remove the water, so ethanol production requires 65 percent more energy than hydrocarbon production does.
At least they have their facts in order. Of course all of those who insist that it is more energy efficient to produce gasoline than ethanol aren’t going to like that.
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ol”The bugs eat sugar and crap oil” What a great line. Remember Rocky I? “You gotta eat lightning and crap thunder.”
I still want RR to talk about dimethylfuran.
You know, ultimately, you cannot create energy (except in nukes, sort of, on a practical level, but not physical). There is energy in biomass, which can be converted.
I am beginning to wonder if we should just have plantations of the fastest growing plants possible, and we cut them down and burn them to turn steam turbines.
If we switch to PHEVs, our demand for liquid fuels would be radically reduced, extending the life of fossil oil fields for generations.
I am beginning to wonder if we should just have plantations of the fastest growing plants possible, and we cut them down and burn them to turn steam turbines.
Yes, this would provide one of the best returns on energy from biomass. The problem is that it has to compete with cheap coal. But this is another reason I favor electric infrastructure. We can phase out coal over time in favor of biomass; supplement that with wind, solar, and nuclear, and perhaps tomorrow looks a bit brighter. But I think a lot of what we are doing is just a diversion from what we should be doing. Waste of time and resources.
Did you reverse ethanol and gas in the last sentence here?
Yes. That’s the problem with this stream of consciousness writing style of mine. I often just dump it out there, and clean it up later. Thanks.
Then there is this from the LA Times:
Oil firm’s buybacks pump up criticism
I guess we don’t spend enough on crappy technology research that has no hope of commercial success. Felmy’s comment is priceless.
Robert,
I’d be curious to hear your views on other “bio-reforming” technologies that may exist. I’ve read a lot of skepticism about the true value of ethanol (both “conventional” and “cellulosic”) and algae-based biofuels. What other processes/technologies are out there that may have promise?
Here in Madison, Wisconsin we see news now and then about a local start-up called Virent (www.virent.com) that is pushing development of “aqueous phase reforming” to convert bio-feedstocks into various fuels and other commercial chemical products. Virent’s web site goes out of its way to note that it’s process does not rely on “fragile creatures”
Like all start-ups, the success of their process at a commercial scales has yet to be proven. But they apparently have attracted some big name investors/partners (Cargill, Honda, Shell Hydrogen). And the founders of the company have published their research in reputable journals.
Just curious about your thoughts on other “bio-reforming” technologies that might be promising…
LA times is asking for a login, which was in memory until my Vista fiasco. Can you post the Felmy quote?
Here is an excerpt:
By Elizabeth Douglass, Times Staff Writer
August 1, 2007
The oil business has rarely been so good. Crude prices closed at a new high Tuesday and gasoline-refining profits are more than double what they were a few years ago.
It was no surprise, then, that last week’s earnings reports showed that the cash had been rolling in at Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and overseas giants BP and Royal Dutch Shell.
To some, the surprise is where that cash has been going. With the world thirsty for more oil and cleaner fuels, Exxon Mobil and other oil firms have been spending billions to buy back their shares.
The top four oil companies booked a combined $57.5 billion in profits in the first half of the year and devoted $22.9 billion — 40% of their total earnings — to share repurchasing.
Industry critics have pounced on the buybacks as proof that Big Oil isn’t interested in upsetting the lucrative status quo by greatly expanding production or refining capacity or in exploring alternative energy projects.
Oil companies are “making minuscule investments in new clean energy while making major investments in buying back their stock, which only enriches the top CEOs and shareholders,” said Daniel J. Weiss, a senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress in Washington.
John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, said he was “stunned at the criticism” and called it “utter nonsense.”
Sorry, I cut off the money quote:
“The critics seem to completely miss the point that the companies are not owned by space aliens,” he said.
“Joe and Martha own these companies” and buybacks are what companies do “to stimulate the value of the shares of the owners.”
You would want to dry naturally, but I am not sure how you do that on a very large scale. And you definitely want to dry, because you don’t want water soaking up all your heat.
Shooting from the hip here: skim it, centrifuge it to remove most of the water. Then crush it and ‘fuge it again. Do the final dry with some combination of concentrated solar and process waste heat.
Let me know when you want to set up and LLC and we can pursue this further. 🙂
I was thinking about the same thing when the algae reactor ideas came up.
Shooting from the hip here: skim it, centrifuge it to remove most of the water.
Or just let the water evaporate ad scrape up the dried algae.
Someone had suggested tallgrass and then using glyphosphate to kill the grass. Let it dry, harvest and feed it to an E-gas plant. I would go someplace with cheap farm land. I’d remove all the roads and plant maybe 5 or 10 mile rows with an electrified rail system for collecting the biomass. The idea would be like a mine-mouth coal plant only connected to a massive biofuel farm.
“Joe and Martha own these companies” and buybacks are what companies do “to stimulate the value of the shares of the owners.”
… in the short term, when they can’t think of any other way to improve the stock price.
Too me, the mass repurchase of stock is a sign that a company lacks the insight or the balls to increase shareholder value any other way. (There are exceptions, of course, like when a company chooses to take themselves private again, or become employee-owned. But I don’t think that’s what is happening here.)
Or just let the water evaporate ad scrape up the dried algae.
Process time and throughput will be critical to profitability/viability. Natural evaporation probably takes too long and/or requires to much space.
All these efforts are doomed. There are some other more important points…
Bugs are for whimps. Give me heat, pressure, some catalyst and I can finish the job in a fraction of the time.
Amen to that!
Shooting from the hip here: skim it, centrifuge it to remove most of the water. Then crush it and ‘fuge it again. Do the final dry with some combination of concentrated solar and process waste heat.
What would be the point of the crush and second centrifuge? That’s way to much energy. I would propose:
1. Use Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) to thicken the algae.
2. Feed the paste directly into the first thermal stage. You are never going to get this stuff very dry, this way you convert the cellular water into steam and get good even heat distribution. Steam can be flashed off and the latent heat recovered to heat the feed paste (as TDP does).
I’m sure there’s a problem with this scheme, but I’m not sure what it is. Any idea?
That idea actually has been kicked around on this very blog. Main problem: a pond that is big enough to make a dent (and therefore located in a desert) will loose a ton of water to evaporation!
Here in Madison, Wisconsin we see news now and then about a local start-up called Virent (www.virent.com) that is pushing development of “aqueous phase reforming” to convert bio-feedstocks into various fuels and other commercial chemical products. Virent’s web site goes out of its way to note that it’s process does not rely on “fragile creatures”.
I have come accross this before and was duly impressed by their efforts. Main limitation IMHO: all their work so far has been done on pure sugar solutions. In the real world, converting cellulose to pure glucose will cost way too much. Yields would also be low. You need a process that can work on the mixture of a number of sugars and other things that you would get from a fairly crude hydrolysis step. Not to say that the Virent technology can’t work in that, but AFAIK it has not been tested on real cellulose substrates.
I still thing the one fermentation step that could work would be anaerobic digestion: it can zap pretty much any substrate and the fuel separates from the broth as biogas.
Back to the original topic: The main problem I see with LS9’s oil crapping bugs is that they have to compete with wild type bugs (the normal anaerobic digester crowd, that wants to convert the substrate to biogas). To keep these guys out you would need to sterilize the feedstock, which would require as much energy as distillation.
I would also add that the utter lack of technical information from these guys has me just a mite suspicious…
I would go someplace with cheap farm land. I’d remove all the roads and plant maybe 5 or 10 mile rows
Was checking my old hometown newspaper. They did a story on Kansas farmland prices. Dry cropland is going for $1,600/acre, pasture/grassland sells for $900 – pretty cheap.