Range Fuels: Biogass to Ethanol

I came across an article I thought worth sharing. Two points of interest. The initial article was found at BusinessGreen.com and is worth reading.

One - Range Fuels, a biofuel startup, got a significant amount of direct investment. This to support its efforts in turning woody biomass into liquid fuel which are about to be commercially scaled in their first plant in Georgia under construction now. This round of funding came on the heels of another $76 million awarded by the US DOE to also support their technology.

Two - The process explained of how they will make their cellulosic ethanol. The article called it a "thermo-chemical" technique of turning wood into liquid fuel.

From my guessing this is a fancy way of saying they burn the wood, pull off the exhaust gas (now technically referred to as "biogas) and introduce the biogas to an environment that includes a catalyst. The catalyst in turn would create certain or pull out molecule chains that would then be further refined into liquid fuel (i.e. cleaned up).

Interesting stuff. I hope to have time to put up more on this technology process. I've read a little about it and seen presentations at conferences. Either way I need to learn more about it. Something in my gut says this is going to be the next big focus. Primarily because the combined heat and power potential probably fits extremely well with existing corn based ethanol and therefore could be readily adopted as a plant expansion for existing ethanol producers.

My thoughts are that we will be hearing increasingly more about Range Fuels going forward if for no other reason than they have the money to push for earned media coverage and must justify the cash they've recently pulled down.

NOTE: This blog first mentioned Range Fuels after they recieved a large investment from Vinod Kholsla. See the previous DieselGeek Post on the subject.

Range Fuel CEO Interview

Cleantech.com has an interview with Range Fuels' Mitch Mandrich about the first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plant going forward. The planned plant being backed by Kholsa Ventures and billed at 100 million gallons a year at completion with a initial volume of 20 million gallons.



Its always fun to read first hand accounts and opinions from those pushing the initial biofuels business model boulder up that steep hill of cutting edge business attempts. I especially love reading the thoughts of those I.T. and Dot.Com refugees who are making a go in biofuels.

The interview is worth the read. Several mentions of note from the interview:

Range Fuels technology is modular (hence the initial 20 million gallon number with a permitted target of 100 million gallons).

Ultimate goal for Range Fuels would be "a billion gallons really as fast as [they] can."

They want to deploy their modular technology throughout the world (hence its a fairly large scale distributive technology).

Range Fuels technology is multi-feedstock and Mandrich makes mention of it's potential for municipal solid waste.

Range Fuels' funding situation is "fine" according to Mandrich. I guess $50 million in seed funding from the US DOE goes along way.

Range Fuels Moves Forward with Commercial Scale Cellulosic Ethanol

Saw it at Forbes.com.

Range Fuels is moving forward with the world's first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plant. Range is being backed by Khosla Ventures with an undisclosed sum of funding.

How does their process work you ask?

Add $76 million from the US Department of Energy, millions of tons of wood waste from a nearby Georgia timber farming industry, mix wood chips with heat, pressure and steam for 15 minutes, and then turn a syngas into ethanol with a proprietary catalyst which throws off ethanol. Poof, American made cellulosic ethanol (see a nifty interactive diagram of their process here).

The only catch at that point in the process. How much ethanol does the process throw off by volume?

The big issue, as with all energy technologies, isn't if we can do it. It's what cost can we do "it" at. "It" being any technology from hydrogen, to nuke, to cellulosic ethanol.

From what I've been told by more than one company with a "proprietary" cellulosic ethanol concept is that they can make ethanol. Its easy. The issue isn't cellulosic ethanol. Its the volume of alcohol in the beer product produced. "Beer" being the first round of alcohol production which turns fructose into alcohol via yeast.

The production of alcohol prior to distillation into road grade ethanol from cellulose is roughly half of what corn ethanol gets per batch. Additionally there are more steps involved in the process of making cellulosic ethanol over corn/sugar based product. And then there is the productivity of the yeast in a cellulosic plant. Cellulosic ethanol processes get around 3% - 8% alcohol by volume as opposed to the low teens for corn based ethanol.

This lower volume or lower productivity of alcohol raises the energy needs of any plant and slow down the productivity. Even if the feedstock is free the cost of several other steps to get the wood product into a usable form, the lower productivity of the yeast making alcohol, and the additional distillation rounds to get cellulosic ethanol to a 200 proof break the bank.

Good luck to Range Fuels and Vinod Khosla. It's exciting to see this project go forward.