Betting on a Biofuel - Boibutanol

Biobutanol has several advantages over ethanol. And one big disadvantage.
By ANA CAMPOYJune 30, 2008; Page R14
With ethanol looking less and less like the ideal alternative to fossil fuels, companies are rushing to come up with better options.
Chemicals maker DuPont Co. and oil giant BP PLC have placed a big bet on a biofuel they think will work much better than ethanol. It's called biobutanol. It's less corrosive for car engines than ethanol. It's easier to mix with gasoline and, unlike ethanol, can be transported via pipeline. Its energy content is higher than ethanol's.
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Still, there's one big problem: It costs more to produce than ethanol.
DuPont and BP, as well as a handful of start-up companies and research labs, are in a tight race to find a cheaper way to make biobutanol and bring it to market. The DuPont-BP team says it's confident that it has the technology to do it. "The challenge is how can we make this move faster," says John Ranieri, vice president of biofuels at DuPont, who's heading the company's biofuel efforts.
Butanol already has potential clients eagerly waiting for it to go commercial. Refiners and blenders are under pressure to meet federal biofuel mandates and aren't too keen on ethanol because it needs to be hauled by truck or train, which creates more logistical headaches than a fuel that can be piped. Butanol, which can be blended into gasoline at higher percentages than ethanol, would also help car companies under pressure from federal regulators, politicians and the public to cut the amount of fossil fuels their vehicles consume.
Moritz Brilo
Compressed Development
To get butanol out as quickly as possible, DuPont and BP are cramming all the development phases together. As DuPont scientists work in the lab to develop a more economic way to make butanol, BP is testing the more expensive form of butanol available today.
Meanwhile, plans are under way for a project that will include both a pilot plant and a $400 million commercial plant in Hull, near the east coast of England. The pilot plant will be capable of producing 5,000 gallons of butanol a year, and the commercial plant's capacity will be 110 million gallons a year. The two plants will be built at the same time so that the commercial plant is ready the moment the pilot plant establishes the viability of large-scale biobutanol production. In the meantime, the commercial plant will be put to full use making ethanol. The companies expect commercial production of butanol to hit the market in 2012.
Other companies are anxious to start selling butanol as well. Gevo Inc., a start-up based in Englewood, Colo., recently opened a pilot plant, while Green Biologics Ltd., an English company, said earlier this year it had started up its pilot plant.
The science to produce butanol from plants has been around for decades. Although today butanol is mostly produced from fossil fuels to be used as a solvent, it was first made in the early part of last century by fermenting feedstock such as molasses.
THE NEXT BIG THING?

• The Opening: Ethanol's shortcomings have triggered a search for other alternatives to fossil fuels.
• The Candidate: Biobutanol has several advantages over ethanol but one big disadvantage: It's much more expensive to produce.
• The Race: Several companies are scrambling to find a cheaper way to make biobutanol and bring it to market.
But the traditional fermentation process is too inefficient to make butanol in the large amounts that would be needed for it to be used as a biofuel. That's because aside from butanol, the fermentation also yields two other products: acetone and ethanol. The yeast that's used to transform plant material into ethanol doesn't create any byproducts. That means it takes more feedstock to create a gallon of butanol than it does to create a gallon of ethanol, says Andy Aden, a senior researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility in Golden, Colo.
Additionally, butanol in high concentrations is toxic for the bacteria that make it, so at a certain point, they shut down production. The yeast that produces ethanol is more resistant.
Mr. Aden is conducting a study on the economics of butanol. Although the conclusions won't be ready for a couple of months, he says it's clear that making butanol with existing techniques is considerably more expensive than the $1.75 to $2 it costs to make a gallon of ethanol -- probably about 50% more expensive.
Making Progress
The key to changing those economics is bioengineering a more tolerant bug that transforms plant matter more purely into butanol.
DuPont has been working on the butanol bug since 2004. The company isn't disclosing many details about the new organism, but says that it already yields more butanol than the traditional process.
Meanwhile, BP is testing how gasoline blended with butanol flows through its pipelines, tanks and pumps. Its trials show that the mix behaves more like regular gasoline than the ethanol-laced version, the company says. That's because ethanol, unlike gasoline and other oil-based fuels, mixes easily with water. So if ethanol finds any water residues in transit it can separate from the gasoline it's blended with.
BUTANOL'S BOOSTERS

Butanol currently is more expensive to produce than ethanol but energy companies say it has some major advantages.
• Energy content: Butanol packs 26% more energy per gallon than ethanol.
• Engine compatibility: Butanol can be blended into gasoline at higher concentrations than ethanol without the need for modifying the cars it fuels.
• Water and oil: Ethanol is more likely to mix with water than butanol, making it more difficult to transport and blend.
• Pipes and pumps: Unlike ethanol, gasoline blended with butanol is 100% compatible with existing infrastructure.
Source: DuPont
BP is also running different types of vehicles with its gasoline-butanol mix. It says it has been able to add up to 16% butanol to gasoline without the need to modify their engines. Researchers generally believe higher concentrations than that may be possible. Ethanol content is limited to 10% of a gallon of gasoline because at higher levels it corrodes engine parts.
So far, says Phil New, president of BP's biofuel unit, butanol is "living up to its promise."
Help From Evolution
One major challenge ahead is figuring out how to make butanol out of nonfood feedstocks. Ethanol has recently come under fire because it absorbs large amounts of grain that would otherwise be available as food. Its critics blame increased production of the fuel for contributing to skyrocketing food prices.
At least initially, DuPont and BP will be making butanol out of wheat. Mr. New says there's a surplus of wheat in the U.K. and that at the moment the grain is what's readily available to test their new technology.
"One of the great strengths of butanol is you can make it from any form of sugar," he adds, and sugar comes in many forms.
For example, Green Biologics is testing feedstocks such as paper pulp derivatives and food waste. Lars Angenent, a scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, is experimenting with using corn waste from ethanol plants to make butanol.
The materials Mr. Angenent and Green Biologics are using are forms of cellulose, which is tougher to turn into fuels than grains are, because the sugar content is trapped between fibers. To break those fibers down, Mr. Angenent is relying on bacteria that are already doing the job inside sheep's bellies. "Evolution has done its work already," he says.
Mr. Angenent is using ethanol waste because that's the kind of cellulose that's available to him right now, but his process, if successful, theoretically could be applied to other sources. Like many of the butanol projects, his work is still experimental and it's unclear when, if ever, it will be applied to make large quantities of butanol.
--Ms. Campoy is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's Dallas bureau.
Write to Ana Campoy at ana.campoy@dowjones.com