When it comes to converting plants into usable energy, biofuels garner the bulk of attention and dollars. But there's a growing number of people using biomass for heating.
One company that's betting on continued growth is New Hampshire-based WoodPellets.com, which on Monday plans to disclose that it has raised $11 million to expand its online home wood pellet delivery service.
Click on this image for a photo gallery of assorted green home retrofits, including a pellet stove.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)With the money, the 3-year-old e-commerce company plans to expand its distribution network to more places in the U.S. (right now, it works mainly in the Northeast) and to develop ways to do bulk shipments of pellets. Investors are venture capital firm 406 Ventures and private equity company Monitor Clipper Partners.
Pellets are made by compressing sawdust into small pellets that look a little bit like pet food for rabbits or guinea pigs. The appeal of heating by burning pellets is that it can be cheaper than heating with oil, it's a domestic fuel source, and it's less polluting, say proponents. There are currently 800,000 Americans that heat all or partially with pellet stoves, according to the Pellet Fuels Institute.
The fuel can be up to half as expensive as heating with oil and the payback on a stove, with small ones starting at about $2,000, can be two to five years, according to WoodPellets.com. (Disclosure: I am a customer.)
On the environmental front, pellet stoves are typically more efficient and burn more cleanly than older wood-burning stoves. The Pellet Fuels Institute claims that burning biomass in efficient stoves or boilers is carbon neutral since the growth of trees will absorb the carbon dioxide emissions from burning the wood.
The environmental picture isn't perfect, though. The level of particulate matter from burning pellets is higher than burning natural gas and oil. But particulars per million BTUs is lower than an EPA-certified wood stove and dramatically lower than burning wood in a fireplace or an uncertified wood stove, according to the EPA.
The source of wood is typically lumber mills, which sell sawdust for different wood products. Although there are well-documented cases of deforestation around the world, Strimling said forests in the U.S. are generally well managed, as landowners and forest management services have an interest in sustainable growth.
On the policy side, biomass heating this year received a significant policy boost--buyers are able to get a 30 percent tax credit on the purchase of stoves.
WoodPellets.com expects it can grow quickly simply by serving existing customers, many of whom buy pellets from big-box retail stores or from stove vendors. To buy pellets online at WoodPellets.com, consumers put their ZIP code in and get options for buying different types of pellets and for scheduling delivery.
The company developed the logistics software to track the availability of pellets for consumers in different regions from several different suppliers and different storage locations--which is "not an easy math problem," said Strimling.
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Right now, pellets are delivered in plastic bags--a stove could burn through a bag a day. WoodPellets.com is looking to develop a system where pellets are delivered in bulk from a truck and stored in a hopper in a basement or garage.
Another issue that has choked growth of biomass heating--and spiked the price of pellets--in the past is availability of fuel, but a number of new mills have come online in the past few years. According to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture study, 1.1 million metric tons of pellets were produced in 2003, 4.2 million tons in 2008, and as much as 6.2 million tons in 2009.
BioSolar has filed a patent application for a new type of backing for photovoltaic cells.
A backsheet is the bottom layer of a photovoltaic cell used by solar manufacturers to protect the cell from moisture, temperature fluctuations, and the elements.
BioSolar's BioBacksheet-A, a new addition to the company's line of backsheets, consists of a sheet of aluminum foil sandwiched between two layers of polymer made from renewable plant sources. The aluminum used in the sheets is also 100 percent recyclable.
The company announced that it was developing plant-based plastics for solar-cell components, which included the use of cotton and castor beans, in August 2008.
BioSolar's biomass backsheets for solar cells will work with existing industrial manufacturing machines.
(Credit: BioSolar)The BioBacksheet-A can meet the requirement of thin-film photovoltaics "to have a water vapor transmissions rate of nearly zero," according to BioSolar.
"BioSolar's goal is to reduce the costs of solar modules and make solar energy greener by replacing petroleum-based module components with bio-based materials made from renewable plant sources," David Lee, CEO of BioSolar, said in a statement.
The company is also trying to make it easy for interested solar manufacturers to make the switch from petroleum-based components. BioSolar's rolls of biomass backsheets can be used with existing industrial machines, according to the company.
LiveFuels lets aquatic life do the work when it comes to converting algae into oil.
(Credit: LiveFuels)LiveFuels, an algae biofuel start-up, announced a pilot project on Thursday to grow and harvest algae biofuels in open waters with the help of naturally occurring activities in the ecosystem.
The approach is different than other attempts at algae biofuels, in which algae is grown and harvested in a closed environment.
The LiveFuels algae pilot farm, set to cover 45 acres of saltwater ponds in Brownsville, Texas, will consist of algae already native to the region.
Algae is known to bloom in salt water that has been polluted by the lakes, rivers, and streams that feed into it and are tainted with agricultural chemical waste runoff.
Algae blooms, when in excess seen as detrimental to the health of an ecosystem due to the oxygen-depleting "dead zones" they create, will actually be purposely replicated in LiveFuels' 45-acre test area to determine if these commonly occurring blooms from pollution could be harnessed for biofuels.
The company plans to encourage algae growth with the additive of agricultural-waste products. Then, instead of retrieving the algae itself to be converted into biofuels through a mechanical process, it plans to let algae-eating fish do the conversion.
Once the algae-eating fish plump enough, LiveFuels plans to catch them and process them for their oil in the same way people used to harvest whale blubber for oil. Only instead of using the oil for lamps, this harvested oil could fuel cars and trucks, according to LiveFuels.
LiveFuels, which has so far garnered $10 million in funding, has filed 10 patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on its approach to growing and harvesting algae in nature for the purpose of biofuels. The pilot algae farm-fishery will be used to test which breeds of algae-consuming fish work best.
"By harnessing the power of natural systems, we hope to achieve what has eluded the biofuels community for decades: cost-effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability," LiveFuels CEO Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones said in a statement.
If the pilot project works, LiveFuels plans to apply the technique to an area of coastal Louisiana where the Mississippi River is particularly plagued by fertilizer runoff.
By harnessing the agricultural waste currently polluting the river to create algae blooms, the company hopes to both grow their algae and schools of fish for biofuels, and reduce the amount of agricultural-waste pollution that is finding its way into the ocean.
Concerns over food crops are only one issue to overcome when it comes to biofuels. There's also a serious lack of infrastructure that will prevent the fuel alternative from becoming mainstream, according to a new report by Lux Research.
"The problem is that there aren't nearly enough filling stations and cars--nor will there be for decades--that are capable of using the fuel. Without changes downstream in the current distribution infrastructure and end-use, ethanol's growth will soon cease--even if it's given away for free," said Mark Bünger, a research director at Lux Research, who headed up the report "Biofuels After the Fall."
Bünger and his group said that research has been focused on developing more cost-effective production methods and reducing reliance on food crops, and that the industry is poised to produce 10 billion gallons for 2009.
But demand will be stifled until the development of commercial infrastructure giving consumers greater access to biofuels and of more vehicles that can use biofuel blends, according to Lux Research.
The report is "a reality check for biofuel advocates operating under the false assumption that demand will exceed supply as soon as costs are competitive with fossil fuels," the group said in a statement.
Lux Research, which interviewed 35 leading biofuel organizations as part of its study, saw algae-based biofuels, catalysts for fermenting biomass, and lucrative biofuel byproducts as other areas ripe for development and investment.
Earlier this year, a report from Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors said biofuels could be competing with gas by 2030.
SOMERSET, Mass.--When it comes to covering green technologies, the color can sometimes be black as coal.
On Monday I drove to Southern Massachusetts to visit GreatPoint Energy's $37 million Mayflower Clean Energy Center, a demonstration plant for converting coal to natural gas. Built down the road from the state's largest coal plant at the mouth of the Taunton River, the plant started producing natural gas last month and is now gathering data to optimize the operation.
(Credit:
GreatPoint Energy)
As a technology reporter, it's fascinating to see the energy industry's version of "hardware"--a 200-foot-high reactor, silos holding thousands of pounds of feedstock, and all manner of pipes of valves. I also got to wear a hardhat.
Most people associate green tech with renewable energy--sun, wind, biomass, geothermal. In reality, a lot of energy technology is aimed at making conventional fuels cleaner, which is exactly GreatPoint Energy's mission: to convert dirty coal into cleaner-burning natural gas and to bury carbon dioxide emissions underground.
From a business perspective, GreatPoint Energy is one of many green-tech start-ups taking those first steps from labs to commercialization--a precarious transition that few have been able to make. The project itself is a test case for some potentially significant energy technologies--gasification and underground storage of carbon dioxide.
Gasification, which appears to be undergoing a quiet resurgence in energy, is being used to turn many different feedstocks--coal, biomass, and even municipal trash--into a gas that can later be burned for heat or electricity. Whether gasification technologies qualify for "clean energy" government incentives is still unclear, but backers say that it's a cleaner process than burning.
Successful storage of carbon dioxide, meanwhile, is one of the keys to making coal less polluting. The idea of so-called clean coal is to make electricity with coal, while removing pollutants and storing carbon dioxide underground at a power generation plant.
Chemistry class
GreatPoint Energy's hydromethanization process treats coal with steam, mixes it with a catalyst, and then puts that mixture into a gasifier--essentially a 200-foot-tall metal tube under high heat and pressure.
Inside the gasifier, the feedstock breaks down into different gases and the solid material collects at the bottom. GreatPoint Energy engineers are tuning the process to generate and separate methane, the primary component of natural gas, and carbon dioxide.
The natural gas can be shipped in existing pipelines and used for heating or to make electricity.
What about the carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas? GreatPoint Energy's plans call for building plants in areas, such as Wyoming, where there are both coal and existing oil and gas wells. Injecting CO2 into these wells lets drillers extract more from wells, while keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere. Otherwise, company executives envision using underground geological formations like salt caverns to store the CO2.
Using existing scrubbing equipment, GreatPoint can remove other pollutants, including mercury, nitrogen, and sulfur. An important facet to its test facility is finding methods for recuperating the catalyst and those pollutants, which can be sold for other uses such as ammonia fertilizer.
Steel in the ground: the feedstock-handling equipment at GreatPoint Energy's coal-to-natural gas demo plant.
(Credit: GreatPoint Energy)The company's analysis found that it can produce natural gas with a lower carbon footprint than extracting natural gas from the ground, assuming a carbon storage site can be found. Its financial target is making gas at between $4 and $5 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), which is in the range of today's prices but lower than natural gas prices before the global recession hit.
At the facility on a piece of land called Brayton Point, the company plans to spend the next several months fine-tuning the process to produce the desired gases and to deal with different qualities of coal, which vary greatly.
Next stop: China
As a company, GreatPoint Energy has gotten a fair amount of attention. It attracted renowned venture capital company Kleiner Perkins as one of its first investors, and a $115 million investment from a collection of energy corporation companies was the largest green-tech investment in 2007.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick played a key role in getting its demonstration facility sited and quickly approved. It took just 18 months to build and get its plant online.
Its next project is to open a larger pilot facility in China at a coal-fired power plant with Datang Huanyin Electric Power, one of the biggest polluters on the planet. "If we can show (Datang) that they can make more money being clean rather than dirty, then we can make a real impact," says GreatPoint Energy CEO Andrew Perlman.
These facilities aren't cheap: the pilot plant in China will cost between $100 million and $200 million, financed primarily by Datang. A full-scale operation would cost $1 billion to build, a reminder of how vital it is for start-ups to get access to large amounts of capital, either through equity partnerships with large corporations or government loans.
Back home in Massachusetts, the company is seeking to build expertise in the core technologies behind its process--carbon capture, gasification, and mineralization, through a partnership with the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, said Chief Financial Officer Daniel Goldman.
"The concept is to create a 'green line,' a research and development corridor down here," Goldman said. "There's been a lot of research in these fields but very little commercialization."
Manmade coal produced by Carbonscape's Black Phantom machine.
(Credit: Carbonscape)A new machine dubbed the "Black Phantom" can turn biomass into manmade coal.
Carbonscape, a New Zealand-based start-up, describes its invention as an industrial-sized microwave that can cook plant waste, wood waste, and "even sewage" into coal.
Carbonscape also claims that the machine captures and stores more carbon than the amount of carbon generated by the electricity needed to power it for the process.
Why would anyone want to make more coal when humans are desperately trying to get out from under the carbon dioxide mess we've been making since the Industrial Revolution?
The invention combines two popular environmental efforts: using biochar for carbon capture and storage (CCS), and developing alternative fuel sources from biomass.
While there are issues to be worked out on carbon capture and storage (CSS), it's seen by energy utilities and governments as a possible tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Biochar is coal made from biomass that can be buried in soil as a carbon sink or for use in farming, rather than letting decaying plants release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
Biomass--agricultural and wood byproducts that can be used to make ethanol, or electricity directly--is considered by the EU, the U.S. and others as a possible answer to reducing oil dependence while providing a cleaner and more efficient way to produce and consume energy.
As reported by the Financial Times, Carbonscape's machine turns biomass into a kind of biochar to be stored underground.
Though it's unclear just how clean it would burn, Carbonscape's biochar can also be burned as fuel.
Whether or not the invention is scalable remains to be seen, but judging from who is involved Carbonscape's claims seem legit.
The company's board includes Nick Gerritsen, the director of Aquaflow Bionomic, one of the companies developing algae biodiesel; and Tim Flannery, former Harvard University professor and environmental activist known for his books "The Future Eaters" and "The Weather Makers."
The renewable energy industry hits the fan Tuesday in California.
Pacific Gas & Electric and BioEnergy Solutions plans to open a pipeline Tuesday that will deliver methane to the utility from a manure-to-gas facility at a Fresno-area farm. Some farms in California, such as cheese maker Joseph Gallo Farms, and a number in Europe already generate gas from manure, but they also consume it to run their operations. This marks the first time that manure-generated gas will get sold across pipelines in the state.
BioEnergy Solutions owns and operates the digester (the thing that converts the manure into gas), which is located on the 5,000-cow farm, called Vintage Dairy. The company says it will soon build digesters at other nearby farms. The Vintage Dairy facility is expected to provide enough gas for 1,200 homes. Ultimately, BioEnergy will deliver 3 billion cubic feet of gas to PG&E a year, enough gas for 50,000 homes.
Although BioEnergy and PG&E talk about how many homes the gas could serve, the utility will actually use the gas to run electrical power plants. PG&E has set a goal of generating 20 percent of its
A single cow is probably good for 100 watts of power after the conversions are calculated, according to some estimates. Cows crank out about 120 pounds of manure a day. Just in case you were wondering.
PG&E wouldn't say what it is paying for the gas, but contends that the prices are competitive. Manure won't be the only source of renewable gas in the future. Other companies such as Ze-Gen and Onsite Power Systems are working on converting other types of trash into power.
BioEnergy uses the storage pond method for converting manure. In a nutshell, the manure is placed in a big pond with microbes, which break down the manure. The gas from the digester--which ordinarily would float into atmosphere and contribute to greenhouse gas levels--then goes to an upgrade facility that separates the methane from other gases conjured up by the manure. The digester will prevent approximately 1,500 tons of methane, one of the more harmful greenhouse gases, getting into the atmosphere from the Vintage farm alone.
The pond at the Vintage facility can hold around 37 million gallons of water and manure, which will no doubt make for great discussions on any Cub Scout field trip. Other companies, such as Microgy, have turned to thermophilic digesters, which use a combination of heat and microbes.
The gas from BioEnergy's Vintage digester will be piped to the nearby upgrade facility, which then connects to commercial natural gas pipelines. Other farms will also pipe gas to the facility.
Besides serving as a source for natural gas, these digesters serve other environmental functions. Manure storage facilities are a source of groundwater pollution as well as greenhouse gases, so the more that's digested, the better.
Normally, getting rid of manure is a regulatory and financial headache for farmers. With digesters, however, they typically no longer have to pay disposal fees, or can even get a small fee from the operator of the digester, depending on the contract.
Two Australian firms have established a joint venture that intends to use emissions from coal power plants to grow algae that can be used as fuel.
Linc Energy and Bio Clean Coal announced the creation of the company last week and said they would spend $1 million over the next year to build a prototype bioreactor.
The bioreactor will be designed to grow algae, using the carbon dioxide produced from processing coal for electricity as "food." That process should dramatically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, the company said.
The dried algae could be burned for power generation, turned into biodiesel or fertilizer, the company told GreenTech Media.
Cambridge, Mass.-based GreenFuel Technologies has also developed a bioreactor that uses power plant pollution to grow algae. The company had to suspend its pilot project with an Arizona utility earlier this year because it grew more algae than it could harvest.
Several other companies are looking to grow algae to make biodiesel, although none have come up with a commercial scale process.
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