[Gasification] Re The Range fuels failure. Observations from a lon, long term skeptic

[Viswanathan KS]

Qteros caims the following:

Sophisticated Technology, Streamlined Process

Qteros brings the critical missing factor required for the successful
commercialization of cellulosic ethanol: a highly-integrated, streamlined
and low-cost process.

Combining proprietary science and advanced microbiology with proven process
engineering, Qteros has developed an industry-standard Consolidated
Bioprocessing (CBP) platform that simplifies complex engineering operations,
reduces costly production steps and delivers low-cost cellulosic ethanol
from a broad variety of non-food feedstock sources.
Please read the following:

http://news.indiamart.com/story/praj-industries-qteros-announce-strategic-partnership-129653.html

Is this process commercially feasible to produce ethanol economically?
On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 11:46 AM, <Iemdon at aol.com> wrote:

> ON THE RANGE FUELS FAILURE (FIASCO)
>
> This is my first ever post to the gasification group.   However the Range
> fuels failure was predictable, and is worth a response .  The Range fuels
> failure discussed on gasification listserv brings up the 40-year old
> question of whether cellulosic ethanol by any path can really work
> commercially. I have been working on this for (believe it or not) almost 40
> years.
>
> I have been mostly in biofuels --digestion recently.  Also looking
> (skeptically) at such things as cellulosic ethanol, algal biofuel, and in
> depth (more than possible to detail here) at small-scale gasification to
> produce clean motor fuel.  As an academic credential I have coursework and
> qualifiers and all but dissertation for a Ph. D from MIT (if you want to
> believe that sort of credential) .  I also have over 30 years' experience in
> fieldwork on biofuels, see for example World Bank site presentation at
>
> http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTUSWM/Resources/Angenstein_controlledlandfill.pdf
>
>
> AND
>
> I have looked at cellulosic ethanol in great depth, over the 30+ year time
> span as an employee of Exxon Research and Engineering, the Electric Power
> Research Institute and IEM.  (independently)
>
> SO
>
> From my original analysis along with coworkers' help. I and we *see no way
> that cellulosic ethanol can be commercially feasible.*  I attach a Power
> Point presentation we gave in Vancouver BC in 2006.  The presentation makes
> that  case. I also append below a brief writeup by John Benemann on The Oil
> Drum which makes the same points.  Nothing has changed to the present.  The
> failure of Range fuels, and failure of dozens of other cellulosic ethanol
> projects to come to fruition would vindicate our conclusions.
>
> The problem is that getting the community's attention about problems, when
> enthusiasm abounds and over $10 billion are being thrown at fantasies, is
> extremely hard when you are in the 5% or less minority of naysayers
>
> Don Augenstein
> IEM, Inc. (nonprofit)
> Palo Alto California
>
> *JOHN BENEMANN'S 2006 POST ON "THE OIL DRUM" ENERGY SITE*
>
> *Whither Cellulosic Ethanol?
>
> *Posted by nate hagens on August 16, 2006 - 10:25pm
> Topic: Alternative energy<http://www.theoildrum.com/topic/alternative_energy>
> Tags: cellulosic ethanol<http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/cellulosic_ethanol>,
> ethanol <http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/ethanol>, lignocellulosic<http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/lignocellulosic>,
> vinod khosla <http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/vinod_khosla> [list all tags<http://www.theoildrum.com/special/tag_listing>]
>
>
> *[editor's note, by Prof. Goose]*
>
> This is a guest post from TLS's friend Don Augenstein (Pomona96 on TOD)
>
> This post presents a perspective on ethanol from lignocellulose by my
> friend and co-worker, John Benemann. We have worked on, and been immersed
> in, biofuels and analyses of fuels from biomass processes for over 3
> decades. We are to substantial degrees biotechnologists, as well as chemical
> engineers and have successful processes going today (methane from wastes.
> You can google Don Augenstein). We have worked long and hard on biofuels for
> entities including Exxon (long ago), the Electric Power Research Institute,
> and others. Our carefully considered view, for which we will be happy to
> provide abundant evidence is that severe barriers remain to ethanol from
> lignocellulose. The barriers look as daunting as they did 30 years ago.
> Ethanol from lignocellulose may indeed come to pass. But the odds against
> are so dismal that a hydrocarbon fueled 200 mile per gallon passenger
> automobile would be more likely to be developed. We have been tied up with
> project work and were not able to participate in the interesting, and
> extensive Oil Drum discussion regarding Vinod Khosla's views on ethanol from
> lignocellulose. Better late than never. I present John Benemann's statement
> below.
>
> Subj: Vinod Khosla FROM Jbenemann
>
>
> TO THE OIL DRUM - drumbeat I read the presentation of Vinod Khosla and most
> of the responses. I have some experience in this field, about 30 years of
> being in the ring of biofuels technology development, with first-row seats,
> so to speak, on the fights I was not in myself.
>
>
>
>
>
> Re. lignocellulosic ethanol, I am, bluntly, a skeptic. See our abstract,
> copied
>
> below. This is R&D, not something ready for commercial ventures, at least
> not in any time, or with any risk ratio, a typical venture capitalist would
> accept. Perhaps Vinod Khosla is not a typical VC, though I have no basis for
> assuming that. Much more important, this technology is not ready for policy
> decisions. It compares with, for one example only, the near-late-lamented
> Hydrogen Program of the Bush-Cheney Administration. Coming from the same
> source, talk about curing our addiction to Middle East oil by substituting
> for it an addiction to Middle America ethanol, has just as much credibility.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I note that all long-term R&D (is there any other?) for hydrogen is being
> terminated
>
> next month by the Dept. of Energy.
>
>
>
>
>
> Of course, the issue is not whether Vinod Khosla is making a wise
> investment, one
>
> that will make him even richer and his investors too, or the opposite is
> true, or even what the Bush-Cheney administration dictates that our reality
> will be. The issue is, does the technology work now, can it be made to work
> in short order, or can we predict when and if it will work with any
> assurance? One thing I notice from this entire discussion is an absence of
> any arguments based on technology.
>
>
>
>
> I am among other things a biotechnologist, and very familiar with the
> associated
>
> chemical engineering issues. I would have expected at least some mention of
> past and recent experiences, of problems, such as needs for extensive
> feedstock pretreatment or problems with fermentations, about current R&D
> focus, at least a few citations to the web.
>
>
>
>
>
> Nothing. Neither from Vinod Khosla nor the 360 odd Oil Drum respondents.The
>
>
> only information presented is that Vinod Khosla has invested in three
> different technologies. Well, a fair enough investment strategy, but even
> with a one out of three chance, this is a long shot, even in the long term,
> by which I mean over 10 plus years, beyond which there are no crystal balls.
>
>
>
> I strongly support R&D in this field. Money would be better spent on that
> than on
>
> just one commercial plant. Or even a pilot plant. And, let me hasten to
> add, that it is perfectly possible to make ethanol from lignocellulosic
> biomass, it's just extraordinarily inefficient, with EROEI easily determined
> to be about 1:5. The Soviets had some wood-to-ethanol plants running during
> WWII, and kept them going afterwards, with at least one going on until the
> Soviet Union collapsed. Not a pretty technology, without even looking at the
> energy balance (cheap coal or then-cheap Soviet natural gas to expensive
> state subsidized ethanol, an economic model now adopted for corn ethanol in
> the US.)
>
>
> And we, in the U.S., even made butanol from seaweed harvested off San Diego
>
>
> during WWI, in a major industrial enterprise that was set up in a few
> months, a perfect example of necessity as the mother of invention, and
> showing how fast we can do something when we need to, for our survival.
>
>
>
>
> But extrapolating from making explosives for war to transportation
>
> fuels for civilians driving SUVs is more than a bit of a reality stretch. I
> like the analogy of this being the difference between going to the Moon and
> Mars, another Bush-Cheney vision, I must note.
>
>
>
>
> Of course, we still haven't figured out why to go to the Moon, aside from
> the feel-
>
> good factor. Bottom line, making ethanol from lignocellulosics is a
> technical issue, actually many separate technical issues: can we really make
> 60 or 80 or 100 gallons of ethanol per ton of biomass, can we really ferment
> pentoses outside the laboratory, will we have a positive energy balance and
> not run this on fossil fuel as we do corn ethanol?
>
>
>
>
> And, coming to the details, can we really use commercial enzymes, or the
> same
>
> fermentation vessels that are used in the corn ethanol business, or do we
> need to go to very, very expensive contained fermentations. And at the end,
> do we get a high enough ethanol content in the fermentation beer (above 10%)
> to have a reasonable distillation cost? And, finally, can we put it all
> together, starting with the necessary pretreatment of lignocellulose (and
> what kind at what cost?).
>
>
>
>
> Actually, some applications for particular, minor, biomass waste resources,
> could
>
> make ethanol now at food processing plants, breweries and such, but this is
> not what Bush-Cheney or Gates-Khosla are promoting, to bring up another
> "venture" investor's name.
>
>
>
> Not that Vinod Khosla lacks information - his semi-public presentations on
> the
>
> topic earlier this year (I saw one of the power point presentations)
> provide some technology background, which, perhaps not too surprisingly, was
> almost exactly what was presented just before (or even on) January 31st in
> the briefing papers for White House, to support the "oil addiction" talk in
> the State of the Union speech.
>
>
> Another great example of sales of good sounding policy first, supporting
> facts to be
>
> provided later, a well used modus operandI. And now the Bush-Cheney
> administration has reshaped the federal government funding priorities for
> biomass R&D, to support their ethanol from lignocellulosics visions.
>
>
>
>
> However, these visions of tens of billions of gallons ethanol per year from
> biomass
>
> must, by all reasonable analysis, be considered a distant possibility not
> an imminent accomplishment, as is being portrayed. That is the bottom line.
>
>
>
>
> Of course, reasonable researchers will argue about where exactly we are and
> when
>
> and how can we could get there. As one close colleague told me, all the
> technical problems I talk about (see attached abstract) are actually viewed
> as "opportunities" by the R&D community. I agree, but there is now the
> belief that with current high ethanol prices, we have the means to this end
> at hand. After all, if for the past 25 years we were almost there, according
> to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and others working on this. It
> stands to reason that with ethanol prices two or three times that high we
> must now be in clover.
>
>
>
>
> Right? Well that is the rub of it. Wrong. We aren't any more "there" or in
> clover
>
> than before. Yes, we can shave down some of the assumed costs to reach such
> low, low costs, but the assumptions are still there, only slightly closer to
> reality.
>
>
>
>
> Need I point out that there is only one pilot plant operating, Iogen in
> Canada, at a
>
> quarter of initially announced capacity? That is all we really can, and
> actually need, say about the commercial status of this technology. Thus
> jumping on this bandwagon and joining in the suspension of disbelief, which
> seems to pervade public discourse, outside some participants of this
> esteemed Peak Oil blog, is premature.
>
>
>
>
> There is more to this argument, however, than just the issue of whether
> there is
>
> real technology (real could be defined, loosely and very charitably as less
> than $10/gallon of ethanol, or about a $100/mmBtu liquid fuel). The most
> important question is: what is a better way to use our billion plus ton per
> year potential biomass resource (and I stress potential, also not real,
> maybe one or two hundred million tons are real): conversion to ethanol or
> use for other purposes? Would it not be better to use surplus and waste
> wood, crop residues, or energy crops (another whole subject) to heat our
> homes, using wood pellets or even gasification to make heating oils?
>
>
>
>
> And if we really want ethanol from crops, and I would favor some, 10%, to
> 20%, of
>
> our use if ethanol is economically or energetically feasible, would it not
> be better to grow high starch crops (requiring lower fertilizer inputs than
> corn)? Then we can make ethanol the way we know how, while using part of the
> crop residues for the process heat, rather than coal or natural gas. That
> should be an improvement what we are doing now, the corn to ethanol fiasco.
>
>
>
>
> Well Vinod Khosla is probably correct, as I read him, that there is nothing
> that can
>
> be done about the world as we find it, and the function and reward of
> capital is to serve the system as is, not as it should be. And when I ask,
> do we want to drive our SUVs or freeze in our homes, that is rhetorical, as
> I do realize that the question is becoming irrelevant, the "we" will include
> only those who can do both, and they won't really care, any more than any
> other ruling class has, about those that can't heat their houses or drive
> their cars.
>
>
>
>
> And a final question, should we, including our venture capitalists, foist
> on to other
>
> countries, let me give India as an example I know of personally, our
> simultaneously myopic energy policy and visionary technology focus? The
> answers to this and the prior questions are apparent, they hardly need to be
> answered, but they are not being sufficiently asked.
>
>
>
> So I sincerely wish Vinod Khosla all the success in his enterprises. I hope
> they
>
> work for him and his investors, and for all of us. However, I am not
> enthusiastic about the free enterprise tail enabling -- or even able to
> enable -- this preordained policy dog to wag. Bluntly, we should not put our
> trust and future in ethanol from biomass saving the day. No more than in to
> that prior canard that H2 would save the day after tomorrow (remember those
> GM ads so long ago, was it last year, saying that todays' toddlers would get
> their H2 cars for high school graduation?). And remember all the venture
> capital that went into those hydrogen companies? Anyone into financial
> forensics? But that is not our problem.OK, as I said, reasonable people can
> argue the merits of this case, but these merits, particularly the technical
> nitty gritty, have not been argued to the extent necessary in this forum,
> neither by Vinod Khosla nor the many who responded to this blog. I hope to
> add to knowledge, in a minor way, by pointing this out, and some of the
> technical issues, and suggesting that ethanol from lignocellulosics is not
> something we should count on, any more than most of the other 1970s ideas
> and technologies being re-floated (biodiesel from algae being a personal
> favorite of mine). Yes, biofuels are and will be very important, we are
> already doing some things, and need to do much more. Much work is required,
> in many areas, from anaerobic digestion to crop production, and including
> R&D on lignocellulosics to ethanol. Maybe we will get the proverbial
> breakthroughs. But multiple barriers must be overcome, and betting the farm
> on just this one ticket, on only ethanol from switchgrass and such, is
> foolish in the extreme. And that is, what I am afraid, the Bush-Cheneys are
> now attempting and the Gates-Khoslas accomplishing. This single rathole
> could easily consume most biofuels funding and, most likely, nothing real
> will be accomplished.Another victory for the fossil-nuclear energy
> companies?
>
>
> John Benemann
>
>
>
>
> The following abstract is to be presented August 29th at the Conference on
> Biofuels and Bioenergy: Challenges and Opportunities, Univ. British
> Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (see www.task39.org).ETHANOL FROM
> LIGNOCELLULOSIC BIOMASS - A TECHNO-ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT John R.
> Benemann1*,Don C. Augenstein1, Don J. Wilhelm2 and Dale R. Simbeck2
>
> 1.  Institute for Environmental Management, Inc. 4277 Pomona Ave., Palo
> Alto, CA 94306 *Presenter and contact, jbenemann at aol.com
>
> 2.  SFA Pacific, Inc, 444 Castro St., Suite 720, Mountain View, CA 94041
>
> Proposed lignocellulosic-to-ethanol processes envision a pre-treatment
> step, to liberate cellulose and hemicelluloses from lignin, followed by a
> hydrolysis step, to convert the carbohydrates to simpler sugars, and then a
> yeast or bacterial fermentation step, to yield ethanol, followed by ethanol
> recovery (distillation, drying). Some steps might be combined, such as in
> acid hydrolysis (combining pre-treatment and saccharification) or in a
> simultaneous saccharification-fermentation process. After five decades of
> intensive R&D, currently only a single pilot plant (Iogen Corp. in Canada)
> is operating, reportedly producing about one million liters of ethanol per
> year, though well below its planned capacity.An independent analysis
> identified many problems with the currently proposed processes, including
> the relatively high costs of biomass delivered to commercial-scale plants
> (which would need to be 200 million liters per year output, or greater, for
> economics of scale), the problems with pretreatment, the low rates and
> yields of sugars from enzymatic cellulose hydrolysis, the resulting low
> sugar and ethanol concentrations, and the overall high energy consumption of
> the overall process. In addition to not tolerating high ethanol
> concentrations, genetically engineered organisms developed for combined
> hexose-pentose fermentations are subject to contamination, which will
> require prohibitively expensive containment systems.Even ignoring, as most
> studies do, such major problems, and using available corn stover and
> enzymatic hydrolysis, the currently favored biomass resource and process,
> our techno-economic analysis estimated a cost of ethanol twice as high as
> that of ethanol from corn. Forest residues and wastes, biomass crops, and
> municipal wastes are even less promising. The conclusions of this assessment
> are that none of the existing processes are ready for commercial
> applications in any foreseeable time frame and that continuing fundamental
> and applied R&D is required. Some opportunities may exist for near-term
> applications of cellulose conversion technologies to some specific,
> modest-scale, agricultural wastes.
>
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