Alternative Fuels

As yesterdays's Wall Street Journal points out in the article, Cramped on Land, Big Oil Bets at Sea, oil companies have to look in increasingly difficult places to find energy.

As energy producers look beyond oil and gas for other energy sources, alternative fuels have been playing a growing role. Right before the holidays, Emerson's Al Novak, director of the alternative fuels team organized an Alternative Fuels regional summit in Houston, Texas. The Texas Gulf Coast accounts for nearly a quarter of the United States refining capacity. This locale helped shaped some of the summit's focus on using refining leftovers like petroleum coke or coal in alternative fuel gasification.

The summit brought together people from academia, process manufacturing, process automation, engineering, procurement & construction, capital investment, and government to share ideas and practices on production processes, stages of deployment, market conditions, and legislative landscape.

The local newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, interviewed Al and published the article, Q&A Making the alternative fuels push EMERSON: Fuel from coal draws attention. Al addressed how climate change legislation might impact projects using coal and petroleum coke (a.k.a. pet coke):

If carbon emissions are capped or taxed, they currently don't have any mechanism for capturing CO2 at a cost effective rate. The positive for things like coal gasification is it provides a real concentrated CO2 stream. In the event capture is required, there is at least a means to capture it in a fairly cost-effective manner. Climate change legislation could actually drive some of these plants forward because they provide a means to do the capture.

On fuels derived from coal or pet coke qualifying as renewable fuels under U.S. federal energy laws, Al noted:

DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] has been pushing advanced coal gasification facilities for a very long time. The loan guarantees that are coming out right now were actually authorized under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Under the American Recovery Act, I believe it was an additional $2 billion that was approved for CO2 capture demonstration projects. Gasification qualifies under those monies.

A final point Al made about the environmental concerns with using coal for transportation-related fuel was:

The biggest, in terms of environmental, is the CO2. Again, it provides a means for capture. It is a cleaner process than, say, burning coal in a power plant, because the nature of gasification allows you to take all the mercury, the sulfur, the other noxious chemicals you get if you burn it outright. It allows you to clean the fuel up much more efficiently.

You might find the full Q&A beneficial if you are involved in the research, funding, design, engineering, or production related to alternative forms of energy.

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Finding alternative sources of energy remains a large, global topic. A quick check of Google News returns almost 8,000 news items in the past month alone. The Emerson Alternative Fuels team, led by director Al Novak, is holding a fourth regional summit on December 16 in Houston, Texas. The Alternative Fuels Summit has as its focus the successful commercialization of alternative fuels and coal gasification technologies.

These summits bring together industry leaders, investors, academia, and other experts to discuss the technologies, feedstock issues, and best practice developed to date. The goal is to find ways to reduce risks, lower the costs of production, and find commercial viability for the many types of alternative fuels. Some examples of these alternative fuels include wood waste to ethanol, animal fats to clean diesel fuel, and coal gasification.

The speakers at the Houston event include:

• Phil Amick, commercialization director, gasification, Conoco-Phillips, on feedstock conversion technologies
• John Derbyshire, senior vice president, KBR, on feedstock conversion technologies
• Matt Whitaker, senior vice president, Synthesis Energy Systems, on process commercialization of a new technology
• James Childress, executive director, Gasification Technologies Council, on the legislative landscape
• James Stanley, manager for alternative fuels for Emerson, on reducing project risk, costs and scheduling - on blueprint to production

I caught up with James Stanley and asked him about some of the key points he planned to discuss. He noted that synfuels from coal, pet coke, and other non-traditional feedstocks would be imperative to the U.S. energy portfolio. Whether a company is retrofitting a brownfield site or building a greenfield site, following processes such as Independent Project Analysis and PEpC are key to success. James also pointed to the trend of increasing process complexity and increasing safety instrumented system (SIS) requirements for gasification projects. Partnering early with a main automation contractor can help reduce risk during project execution, commissioning, and start-up.

The session kicks off with a keynote presentation by Michael Williams, the commissioner for the Railroad Commission of Texas. Beyond its initial charter to regulate railroad charges and tariffs, the commission now regulates all energy in the state of Texas.

If you're involved in the research, funding, design, engineering, or production related to alternative forms of energy, you may want to visit the alternative fuels website and register for one of the 50 slots.

MP3 | iTunes

Austin Texas is home to lots of discrete manufacturing businesses with companies such as Dell, IBM, Samsung, Freescale, Advanced Micro Devices, etc. to name a few. It's not historically known for process manufacturing, which I shorthand describe as "stuff flowing through pipes."

Home to the Process Systems and Solutions business, which provides systems and services to process manufacturers, it's not common to see coverage of our business in the local newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman.

Given this background, a lot of folks around here were excited to see the article, Austin company part of new fat-fuel project--Emerson's systems will run plant that will make synthetic diesel out of animal fat in last Friday's business section. The article describes the project:

A company called Dynamic Fuels is building a $138 million factory in Louisiana that will turn animal fat into high-grade synthetic diesel and potentially even jet fuel. The company says it is the first commercial-scale synthetic diesel plant in North America.

The plant is designed to produce 75 million gallons of:

...very-low-emission synthetic diesel from chicken, beef, and pork fats...

Emerson's Al Novak, whom you may recall from earlier posts, was quoted:

The plants are oftentimes part refinery, chemical plant, pharmaceutical facility and brewery... The amount of automation and controls in a pilot-scale biofuels plant may be 10 times greater (per amount of production) than a conventional large-scale chemical plant or refinery.

The first generation of biodiesel plants was largely based on soybean oil as the feedstock. These next-generation plants based on animal fat feedstocks are said to have lower production costs and

...be nearly free of sulfur and other impurities found in petroleum-based diesel.

The basic process was described in the article as starting with the triglycerides and fatty acids from the animal fat, removing contaminants, stripping oxygen from the fat using hydrogen, creating diesel and other fuels by rearranging the atoms inside the molecule (isomerization), and finally distilling the components into separate fuels.

For those planning on going to the September 28-October 2, 2009 Emerson Exchange conference in Orlando, Al along with Secure Energy co-founder, Jack Kenny, and Mike McAdams, president of the Advanced BioFuels Association will host an Alternative Fuels and Energy industry forum. The panel will discuss some of the legislative background, challenges with the production process, and the trials of commercializing an advanced fuel or energy project.

Make sure to read the article, attend this industry forum, or see a video of Al describing alternative fuel production if you have interest in this growing area of process manufacturing.

MP3 | iTunes

For those in the United States who caught the President's address to a joint session of Congress last night, you know that alternative energy is a big part of the new administration's agenda. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, there seems to be recognition that more diverse energy sources are a good thing. The arguments tend to be about the role the federal government should play or not play in the path forward.

I mention all this because process manufacturers play a large role in the development and production of alternative energy sources--both here in the U.S. and globally. As a supplier of process automation equipment and expertise to these manufacturers, Emerson also plays a large role.

Our alternative energy industry team, led by director, Al Novak, is holding three Alternative Fuels / BioRefinery Summits over the next few months. The first one will be held March 19^th in Denver, Colorado, with a reception on the evening of the 18^th.

The purpose of the summit is to bring together manufacturers engaged in the development and production of alternative fuels, investors, academia, policy makers, and the Emerson alternative energy industry team in conversation to discuss the technical, commercial and legislative challenges facing these producers. The summit's focus is to address the:

...challenge of translating alternative fuels technology into large-scale production of renewable and eco-friendly transportation fuels or energy for refineries, chemical plants, pulp mills, and other industries.

From the event flyer, the topics covered will include:

• Government perspective on the importance of bioenergy
• Feedstock availability/sustainability
• Process and feedstock research methodologies
• Pilot plant to production scale up
• Governmental and legislative support for alternative fuels development
• Best practices in project implementation
• Role of automation technologies in risk mitigation and schedule optimization

In addition to Al, some of the speakers at the Denver summit include:

• T. Randall Fortenbery, director of the RENK Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who will discuss feedstock challenges for advanced biorefineries
• Daniel P. Goldman, executive vice president and chief financial officer for GreatPoint Energy, Inc., who will share a case study on process commercialization of new technologies
• Michael McAdams, director of the Advanced Biofuels Coalition, who will address legislative impacts on second-generation biorefinery development

I wanted to pass this information along (registration here), in case you are part of this industry sector and want to join this conversation, as the U.S. and other nations move down the path of increased alternative fuels production.

MP3 | iTunes

Update: I just received word that there's a great post on the gas2.0 blog, Emerson Process Management's Alan Novak Sets Optimistic Tone for Advanced Biofuels Industry that gives more of Al's thoughts on assembling great minds from many perspectives around advanced biofuels.

At the recent ARC Advisory Group's Winning Strategies and Best Practices for Global Manufacturers forum in Orlando, Emerson's Al Novak, director of Alternative Fuels along with Chief Strategic Officer, Peter Zornio and Fisher Controllers Marketing Director, Jack Tan, presented Alternative Fuels--We Are Ready.

ARC's Larry O'Brien and Control Magazine's Editor in Chief and Sound Off! blog's Walt Boyes summarized this presentation very, so make sure to see their accounts.

As the global energy demand continues to grow, so does the need to find alternatives to coal, petroleum, and natural-gas-based energy. The presentation references a Natural Resources and Energy, Japan outlook study (chart) that shows a growth in nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewable energy from 3% in the early 1970's to a peak forecast of 13% in the coming decades. Although the percentages remain fairly constant, the overall demand for energy grows from just over 4000 to more than 14,000 million tons of crude oil equivalent by 2030.

This growth not only challenges the energy producers, but the automation suppliers who serve them. Al discussed drivers view for the alternative fuels market. As prices of oil and gas continue to rise, so too does the economic viability of alternatives increase. Global concern for carbon dioxide emissions is a second factor. Third is the notion that oil may be approaching "peak production" in the coming decades. And finally, for many countries including the U.S., energy security is a consideration given its central role in the economy.

This presentation discussed some of the types of biofuels including fermentation-based bioethanol, vegetable oil-based biodiesel, cellulose-based ethanol, biomass-to-liquid, synthetic fuels like what is being produced in the Canadian Oil Sands region. Some of these synthetic fuels include integrated gasification combined cycle, coals to liquid fuels, coal to chemical, and coal to gas (natural gas and hydrogen.)

This presentation covered a number of ways Emerson's automation technologies are helping. It's worth mentioning that automation has played a very important role for all process manufacturers in reducing their energy needs and increasing overall efficiency. One example is advanced control technologies like model predictive control becoming available at the automation controller level, down from a host computer-level application. Once, this technology because of its cost was available only to large-scale refining and petrochemical manufacturers. Now, units within most any production facility can run more efficiently, since these units are controlled as units and not as a collection of interacting loops, which must be constantly adjusted based on changing process conditions.

Examples specific to alternative fuel projects include synthetic fuel gasification and Fisher C1 Series controllers and transmitters that reduce methane emissions Rosemount Sapphire temperature sensor tubes are another technology which prevent emissions releases that occur when traditional sensor tubes break.

Ovation systems, Fisher valves, and Rosemount instrumentation play large roles in nuclear energy facilities and Ovation systems help manage wind energy/wind farm networks. The latest Rosemount Analytical O2 analyzers improve boiler and furnace efficiency while helping to reduce emissions.

The point as I see it is that there are technologies from Emerson and other suppliers at the sensing, control and automation, and final control which are not only helping these emerging alternative fuel sources, but also the efficiency and reduced emissions of existing process manufacturers.