by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In recent days, we’ve had 10 stories that shook the world. The players are so big, the technologies so ambitious, the scale so huge and the risks in some cases so high — we’ve grouped them together into one Big Story. These are ‘Quakers, as in earthquakes.
1. ExxonMobil expands interest in biofuels, acquires stake in Biojet AS.
In the past 24 hours, we hear that ExxonMobil is expanding its interests in biofuels, acquiring a 49.9% stake in Biojet AS, a Norwegian biofuels company that plans to convert forestry and wood-based construction waste into lower-emissions biofuels and biofuel components. This, on the heels of an announce that ExxonMobil Neste will distribute of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel at the largest airports in France, in preparation of the 1 percent SAF mandate introduced by the French government and effective on Jan 1, 2022.
2. KLM goes to 0.5% SAF per flight, passenger option to add more
In the Netherlands, KLM will start adding 0.5% Sustainable Aviation Fuel for flights departing from Amsterdam.
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3. UGI backs Vertimass in the race for Alcohol-to-jet
In Pennsylvania, UGI has entered into a 15-year agreement with California-based technology developer, Vertimass, to utilize their catalytic technology to produce renewable fuels from renewable-ethanol in the U.S. and Europe.
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Of huge interest, for two reasons, First, it’s a big step forward for another alcohol-to-fuels competitor. Second, Vertimass gets a very high conversion efficiency and seems to avoid the NLACM problem that you can’t get enough price or volume out of the jet fuel to justify the cost of the ethanol.
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Vertimass topped the news with another announce that it inked a letter of intent with European Energy to integrate technologies for capturing carbon dioxide and converting it into hydrocarbon products. This combination takes advantage of European Energy’s expertise in capturing carbon dioxide from waste sources to produce methanol, as well as Vertimass’ technology to convert that methanol into jet, diesel, and gasoline fuels and chemicals.
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4. Major player alert: JM’s foray into SAF technology
Johnson Matthey has launched its HyCOgen tech – designed to help convert captured carbon dioxide and green hydrogen into sustainable aviation fuel. By combining HyCOgen with FT CANS Fischer Tropsch technology (developed in collaboration with bp), Johnson Matthey offers an integrated, scalable solution for use in the efficient and cost-effective production of renewable power based SAF.
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5. Methane into methanol at room temperature
A team of researchers from Stanford University and the University of Leuven in Belgium have come up with a process to convert methane into methanol at room temp. Their experiments to date have found that as methane is infused into porous iron zeolites, methanol is rapidly produced at room temperature with no additional heat or energy required. By comparison, the conventional industrial process for making methanol from methane requires temperatures of 1000°C and extreme high pressure.
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Amazing advance. Scaling this is quite another thing. A sign that times have changed but the scale-up work from this point forward may well be a sign that things haven’t yet changed enough.
6. Watts in the Ocean?
In Israel, researchers from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed a new method that harvests an electrical current directly from seaweed. Certain bacteria have the ability to transfer electrons to electrochemical cells to produce electrical current. The bacteria need to be constantly fed and some of them are pathogenic.
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The research looks at the use of living organisms as the source of electrical currents in microbial fuel cells (MFC). The source of electrons can be from photosynthetic bacteria, especially cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae). In the new study, the researchers from the Technion and IOLR decided to try to solve this issue using a new photosynthetic source for the current – macroalgae.
7. Amyris, ImmunityBio form JV accelerate next-generation COVID-19 vaccine
Hard to believe that, 12 months after the first generation of vaccines came on the market and had great success and astounding global take-up, now we need a next-generation of vaccines. Using RNA gives the major players a shot at developing super-fast responses to new variants.
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8. Origin Materials, Mitsui to industrialize carbon-negative chemicals and materials
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9. Tesla sales rocking
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10. Monolith lands conditional $1B loan guarantee for turquoise hydrogen
Monolith has received conditional approval for a $1.04 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. Established via the Title XVII Innovative Energy Loan Guarantee Program, the loan will allow Monolith to expand its clean hydrogen and carbon black production facilities in Hallam, Nebraska, U.S.A.
Monolith is targeting hydrogen, ammonia and carbon black with its methane pyrolysis process.
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Monolith expects to use much of the clean hydrogen produced from its Olive Creek expansion for the production of ammonia distributed in the U.S. Corn belt. READ MORE
