New "100% renewable" diesel fuel

[SpaceBus]

Dickinson plant produces 184 million gallons of 100% renewable diesel

Marathon's production of renewable diesel offers a more efficient and environmentally friendly alternative fuel option

www.agweek.com

Not sure if I buy it. The article goes into detail about how ethanol is more carbon intensive than gasoline due to land use changes, but somehow other crops don't have this issue when you make diesel 🤔

Sounds like wishful thinking to me, but I do hope it is true.

 

[DAKSY]

Too bad there won’t be any diesel engines left to burn it , since the auto manufacturers are tooling up for EVs…

 

[peakbagger]

The Germans were making synthetic fuel both gasoline and diesel in WW2. They were using coal as feedstock but any plant will do the same. Note, there is no mention of cost. BTW, this tech does not even need crops. Ensyn can make a diesel precursor that needs additional refining (like mentioned in the article) its a "drop in for #4. http://www.ensyn.com/. I converted the North Conway Memorial Hospital to run on it several years ago. It was the first commercial use in the US and they basically guaranteed that the hospital would always pay less than #4 fuel oil. Where the money is made is selling RINS as every producer of fossil fuels either makes renewable fuel or has to buy RINS.

 

[SpaceBus]

I don't doubt that they can make synthetic fuels from any hydrocarbon stocks, I just doubt the renewable or carbon neutral aspects of the fuel.

 

[peakbagger]

The Ensyn process was self fueled, it effectively "burned" the cellulose in the wood and gases to separate the lignin which was further processed for fuel. Left over heat was recyled back to the sand bed where the initial fast pyrolysis of the chips got its start. The key to it and almost any wood gas type engine is they have to start with bone dry chips that generally required lots of fuel or time to dry and fuel to chip. That is the detail that most folks skip when they are showing off their wood gas engine (like Curtis on the Mountain Men reruns) and rapid pyrolysis plants in general, the fuel needs drying and preprocessing. Ensyn's plant in Quebec gets waste wood from a sawmill so its presumably kiln dried and processed into chips as part of the sawmill process. I think their Brazilian plants also used a dried waste product of another industry. The Ensyn product was effectively "crude oil" that would then need be further processed in a refinery and my guess is that is net energy user.

On occasion you may have seen folks making their own biodiesel and how they run their truck for "free". In most cases its free because they were getting the used fryer oil for free and didnt count the methanol, caustic and electricity required to de-esterfy the waste cooking oil into biodiesel, Go to most restaurants today and they have locked tanks or a locked barrel that is pumped out periodically and are paid for their oil. Folks get busted stealing waste frying oil as its recycled into biodiesel elsewhere. It is also made out of Palm Oil imported in great quantities from Indonesia where its grown in non sustainable conditions by a labor force that are treated like slaves. Europe bans import of Indonesian Palm oil due to non sustainability and labor treatment.

 

[SpaceBus]

More or less what I expected, very generous definitions of sustainable or carbon neutral. A few years ago I really thought biofuels could be a sustainable and practical substitute for fossil fuels, but the longer time goes on the more I feel this is a fantasy.

 

[peakbagger]

I am not as pessimistic of some biofuel contributions to carbon reduction but crop based biofuels like ethanol are in my opinion far more of farm subsidy than an actual carbon reduction policy. The only path that makes sense to me is using crop residuals or waste products that would have been grown and processed for some other reason like sawmill or waste wood from forestry activities, bagasse from sugar cane operations waste cooking oil or even dairy operations.

I do find it interesting that the big oil companies hyping growing algae for fuel have quietly been exiting that field of research. They found out that algae need sun to grow, and the efficiency of the process is much lower than erecting solar panels in place of the ponds.

 

[woodgeek]

Then there are folks pushing CO2 into the ground for EOR (enhanced oil recovery) and doing the math to say that the resulting oil is carbon negative! I haven't looked into that one yet.

 

[stoveliker]

I am not as pessimistic of some biofuel contributions to carbon reduction but crop based biofuels like ethanol are in my opinion far more of farm subsidy than an actual carbon reduction policy. The only path that makes sense to me is using crop residuals or waste products that would have been grown and processed for some other reason like sawmill or waste wood from forestry activities, bagasse from sugar cane operations waste cooking oil or even dairy operations.

I do find it interesting that the big oil companies hyping growing algae for fuel have quietly been exiting that field of research. They found out that algae need sun to grow, and the efficiency of the process is much lower than erecting solar panels in place of the ponds.

Bummer. I had hoped this (algae) would have been a viable way to harvest carbon. Makes sense that it doesn't work if one can only use the top layer of the water (b/c darker below). Moreover, if grown in flooded land (artificial water scape), evaporation will be non-negligigle, which may be a problem too in the future.