Methane-To-Methanol -- A Halloween Treat For Pennsylvania And Texas-- October 31, 2021

In a long note there will be content and typographical errors, but there are plenty of links to the original sources.

A reader alerted me to this story. Several links. 

We start with this one: Nacero to build a $6 billion "gas to gasoline" plant in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. 

For those of us in North Dakota, I had to look it up: northeast Pennsyvania, the largest city is Wilkes-Barre. I had forgotten all about this but years ago when our older daughter's family was moving from South Carolina to Boston, to avoid the Washington-Baltimore corridor, we swung to the west, traveling north on I-81, and staying overnight in the Wilkes-Barre area on the last leg to Boston. Wow, what a beautiful area of the country. There just is not enough time in one's life to enjoy everything this wonderful country has to offer.

But I digress.

Back to Houston-based Nacero, Inc. Data points:

• site of a former coal mine;
• $6 billion project;
• 3,500 construction jobs;
• 450 permanent high-tech jobs paying $85,000 / year
• methane to zero sulfure, 100% domestic, low- and net zero-carbon gasoline in existing ICEs without modification;

And, then look at this: Nacero will also build, what appears to be an identical Pennsylvania unit near Odessa, TX.

• announced April 22, 2021
• $6.5 - $7.5 billion Penwell GTG (see Pennsylvania story above)
• Penwell, Ector County, TX: Penwell is seventeen miles southeast of Odessa
  
• would be the first in the US to produce gasoline from natural gas, as well as the first in the world to incorporate CCS;

Nacero has let a contract to Haldor Topsoe AS to license the necessary technology to utilize more than just natural gas for its Penwell/Odessa project. Data points:

• contractor: Haldor Topsoe AS
• GTG (gas-to-gasoline)
• Topsoe Improved Gasoline Synthesis (Tigas) GTG technology
• will use a feedstock of low-cost natural gasoline, biomethane captured from farms and landfills, and mitigated flared natural gas from the Permian basin to produce 100,000 b/d of finished gasoline;
• that finished gasoline component will be ready for blending to US commercial grades
• much more at the link

More on Topsoe's TIGAS technology: link here.

Nacero has done this before: proven results in an identical unit of scale operating since 2019 at state-owned Turkmengaz's GTG complex at Ovadan-Depe near Ashgabad, Turkmenistan.

Other links:

• Motortrend, September 8, 2021, with graphics.
• Advanced Biofuels USA, June 1, 2021.
• Methane-to-Methanol, University of Michigan ties in with ARPA-E. Project term, January, 2014 - March, 2017. Also, Penn State, same project.
• And, of course, wiki.

If it works, could we see such a plant in the Eagle Ford or the Bakken?

Making America Great Again -- 25 Small Refiners Given New Lease On Life -- April 4, 2018

Link here at ArgusMedia:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has so far granted 25 small US refiners exemptions from federal fuel blending mandates for 2017, dragging down the market for compliance credits and infuriating biofuels groups.

EPA did not comment on the associated number of renewable identification numbers (RINs) associated with small refinery exemptions to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The number of approved waivers — more than double the previous year and all but four of the applications received for 2017 — surged after Congress and federal courts told the agency last year it had overstepped its authority by limiting the number of waivers.

"It appears the agency has initiated a fire sale on RFS demand," Renewable Fuels Association chief executive Bob Dinneen said. [Yup, that is how it appears. LOL.]

RFS requires refiners, importers and other companies to each year ensure minimum volumes of renewables blend into the fuel they add to the US transportation supply.

Companies acquire RINs needed to prove compliance by blending approved renewable and conventional fuels. Obligated parties that lack infrastructure for that activity purchase RINs from blenders.

Congress created a hardship waiver for refineries with less than 75,000 b/d of capacity. Facilities must convince the Department of Energy and EPA that compliance creates an economic hardship. The waivers apply to individual facilities, rather than an overall company.

EPA does not adjust a year's minimum volume after waiving a small facility's obligation. Such waivers instead effectively reduce obligations for all obligated parties and increase the supply of available RINs, cutting costs.

Much more at the link.

And from Platts: RINs crash.

Prices for Renewable Identification Numbers tumbled to their lowest level since 2015 in early trading Wednesday on worries that the US Environmental Protection Agency will grant more Renewable Fuels Standard waiver credits to refiners.

Ethanol RINs for 2018 compliance were last heard trading at 30 cents/RIN Wednesday, their lowest level since September 2015. S&P Global Platts assessed them Tuesday at 40 cents/RIN.

Biodiesel RINs for 2018 compliance hit their lowest level since October of 2015, after they were last heard trading at 54 cents/RIN after Platts assessed them Tuesday at 62 cents/RIN.

Trump Doubling Down On Refuting Climate Change As A National Security Threat For The US -- December 15, 2017

Updates

December 26, 2017: Exposed: How World Leaders Were Duped Into Investing BillionsOver Manipulated Global Warming Data, The [London] Daily Mail.

Original Post 

From What's Up With That:

The Trump administration will reverse course from previous Obama administration policy, eliminating climate change from a list of national security threats. The National Security Strategy to be released on Monday will emphasize the importance of balancing energy security with economic development and environmental protection, according to a source who has seen the document and shared excerpts of a late draft.

“Climate policies will continue to shape the global energy system,” a draft of the National Security Strategy slated to be released on Monday said.

“U.S. leadership is indispensable to countering an anti-growth, energy agenda that is detrimental to U.S. economic and energy security interests. Given future global energy demand, much of the developing world will require fossil fuels, as well as other forms of energy, to power their economies and lift their people out of poverty.”

Finally, some clear thinking and adult leadership.

And just a reminder: bitcoin is forecast to use the entire global supply of electricity within the next three years.

Not ready for prime time. After a reader sent me the story, I replied:

There were a lot of military officers (generals, admirals) that were made to look like idiots under Obama -- I know they had no choice, but to tell warfighters to tackle climate change was absolutely ridiculous. In hindsight, they truly look ridiculous. Especially the admiral and general officer that explored powering naval destroyers with biofuel, and powering jet fighters with algae (or vice versa), respectively.

On a second note, this is doubling down. At the recent (last week/this week) Schwarzenegger, Macron, et al took on Trump and told him to get back on board. Macron (France) predicted that Trump would come back to the Paris accord. Trump, apparently, has made it very clear that he probably won't.

Finally, it was his daughter and son (or son-in-law) who were pushing Trump to go along with climate change. Apparently they've lost a bit of influence, at least in this arena.

One can argue whether fewer regulations out of Washington make a difference, but this is the market today:

Marcellus / Utica and Sarnia, Ontario -- The Series Continues -- RBN Energy -- August 25, 2016

Job watch. US jobless claims fall for third straight week.  Big headline  for a small story. Initial claims slipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 261,000. Four-week moving average fell 1,250 to 264,000.

Biofuels worse for environment than gasoline; University of Michigan, as printed in The Detroit Free Press.

Active rigs:

	8/25/2016	08/25/2015	08/25/2014	08/25/2013	08/25/2012
Active Rigs	32	74	194	184	189

RBN Energy: NOVA's plan to boost its Marcellus / Utica ethane use in Sarnia.

NOVA Chemicals’ 1.8-billion-pound/year ethylene plant in Sarnia, ON already is one of the largest consumers of Marcellus/Utica-sourced ethane, and plans are in the works to significantly increase the steam cracker’s ethane consumption.

In 2018, NOVA will complete a project that will enable the cracker to be fed 100% ethane; the petrochemical company also is mulling a cracker expansion –– again with ethane as the feedstock –– and a new polyethylene plant next door. All these plans are driven in large part by the availability of low-cost ethane piped from the U.S. Northeast.

From the beginning of the hydrocarbon era in North America, Sarnia has played an outsized role in crude oil, refining and petrochemicals, in large part due to that essential truth of real estate: location, location, location.

First, it was its local oil resource. As we said in Part 1 of this series, an 1858 oil well in nearby Oil Springs, ON, is said to have been the first on the continent. Over time, oil-production, refining and petchem infrastructure was developed in southwestern Ontario (as were railroads and pipelines); that infrastructure made Sarnia a refining/petchem center, a position that continues to this day, decades after most oil production in southwestern Ontario dried up.

Earlier, we looked at the crude oil side of things, describing the three refineries in Chemical Valley, the oil pipelines that supply them, and the petroleum-products pipelines that help move the refineries’ output to market.

Then, we turned to Sarnia’s increasingly important natural gas liquids (NGLs) sector –– the pipelines that transport purity ethane and mixed propane/butane to Chemical Valley, the fractionator that separates the propane/butane mix into purity products, the NGL storage facilities, and the big NOVA ethylene plant that “cracks” ethane, propane and butane into petrochemical products, with the star of the show being ethylene –– a critically important petchem building block.

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Ukraine On Edge

Ukraine: Russia to conduct military drills amid Ukraine tensions -- WSJ.

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The Market

Late day trading. NYSE:

• new highs: 108
• new lows: 14
  

Mid-day trading. Flat. Down 2 points right now. NYSE:

• new highs: 60
• new lows: 11
  

Opening. Having trouble getting a bit of traction. Opening a bit on the negative side, but well off the lows / futures. 

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The Ledecky Page

Flashback

An old video, but still great.

Katie Ledecky Interview, CBS This Morning, October 1, 2015. 

A Bit High-Tech For Me, But The Global Implications Are Interesting -- August 22, 2015

This is an interesting story, something I would not have come across on my own. A big "thank you" to a reader for sending it to me.

First some education for me, from wiki:

• isobutanol: C4H10, primarily a solvent; can be made naturally by fermentation
• famesene: a family of six closely related compounds, aromatics, found naturally

Apparently both isobutanol and famesene can be made from natural gas.

A company in California -- Intrexon Energy Partners -- has developed a method to convert natural gas to these compounds through "bioconversion."

The company needs a reliable source of natural gas and has partnered with Dominion Energy for that natural gas from the Marcellus and the Utica.

It takes a bit of looking but scroll down deeply in the wiki article where not less than 13 applications for isobutanol are listed. The very last one, almost a "throwaway," it seems, is "potential gasoline alternative." Most of the current applications for isobutanol: solvent, varnish remover, ink ingredient.

Actually, it would compete with ethanol. See this GreenTechMedia article from 2011.

Simply put, isobutanol -- which can be produced out of corn starch, cellulosic materials, agricultural residues and other ethanol feedstocks -- is an alcohol that acts like a hydrocarbon. The four-carbon molecule can be shipped in existing pipelines and blended with a variety of fossil fuel-based materials to produce greener versions of jet fuel, rubber, polyethylene or diesel.

Gevo has developed a genetically modified yeast that eats those feedstocks and secretes isobutanol. Currently, isobutanol comes from fossil fuels.

By contrast, ethanol is a soluble alcohol, one of the typical yeast byproducts. It corrodes pipelines, absorbs water and can only be used in certain applications like transportation fuel. Arguably worst of all, it has a lower energy density. A gallon of ethanol only contains around 67 percent of the energy of a gallon of gas. Biobutanol contains 82 percent, according to Gevo.

Meanwhile, the similarities between isobutanol and ethanol give Gevo an edge over some other bio-hydrocarbon makers. Because Gevo starts with a yeast, fermentation and similar feedstocks, the company can employ mothballed equipment and even entire ethanol distilleries as a foundation for its own factories. It will cost about 45 cents a gallon to retrofit a 100-million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant to produce Gevo’s isobutanol, says the company.

For the archives. 

By the way, at the GreenTechMedia article it was interesting to see who was behind some of this: Cargill.

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A Little Chemistry

From the GreenTechMedia link:

There’s a good chance you’ve paid quite a bit of money to drink isobutanol. “One of the flavor notes of scotch is isobutanol,” says Patrick Gruber, CEO of Gevo, adding that the naturally occurring chemical accounts for a good portion of the difference in taste between scotch and bourbon. 

I had come across isobutanol and its relevance to scotch somewhere in the past but I do not remember where.

I was sure it was in Heather Greene's book on whiskey but I was not able to find it.

These three books are the best books I've found on whiskey:

• Whisk(e)y Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life, Heather Greene, c. 2014 (probably the best overall book, written with wit; simply fun to read)
• Whisky, The Manuel, Dave Broom, c. 2014; best of the three for quickly finding best mixer (soda, ginger ale, cola, coconut water, or green tea) for a particular whiskey or whisky
• Michael Jackson's Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch, 5th edition, c. 1989 - 2004; the "Bible" for Scotch drinkers, perhaps, but feels too much like a reference book. If interested in good reading, start with Heather Greene's book; take the "Bible" along when shopping 

If I were teaching Organic Chemistry at the college level (and students were of legal age), I would begin the first week with a Scotch tasting (or aroma-smelling exercise for those who do not drink alcohol). 

Futures: Brent Is Surging -- Up Almost 2%, Nearing $110; WTI Holding Steady; Random Update On Advanced Biofuels

Futures mean squat, but ....

... a dynamic link that will change over time.

With oil solidly over $100, we can't get inexpensive biofuels fast enough. Fortunately, the Spaniards have answered the call. The New York Times is reporting:

There is an old joke in the energy business that advanced biofuels are the fuel of the future, and always will be.

A Spanish company, Abengoa Bioenergy, has bet $500 million on robbing that joke of its punch line. In the middle of a cornfield here it is building a 38-acre Erector set of electrical cable and pipe that will soon begin producing cellulosic ethanol, which it calls a low-polluting alternative to petroleum products. This is just as the George W. Bush administration and Congress intended seven years ago with legislation promoting energy independence.

But even as Abengoa and other companies prepare to produce significant amounts of cellulosic ethanol, using corn stalks and wheat straw as opposed to corn itself, the appetite for such fuels seems to be diminishing.

Never mind. I missed that last line the first time reading the article: "... the appetite for [biofuels] seems to be diminishing."

It looks like the "old joke in the energy business about advanced biofuels" will be around for awhile. LOL.

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A Note to the Granddaughters

Grammy returns to Grapevine tomorrow after being gone for about two weeks. It will be very, very good to have her back.  I sense a "but."

But I'm going to have to give up the man-cave experience. Wow, what an incredible two weeks. Up most mornings by 5:00 a.m. for four hours at Starbucks. The rest of the day revolved around responsibilities with the granddaughters. The day concluded with a Omaha Steak dinner most nights.

So, tonight/tomorrow: vacuum cleaner through the house. Haircut. Straighten up the living room. And the kitchen.

Probably less blogging. The time at Starbucks will be slightly less. Maybe only two hours at Starbucks and then I bicycle back home to pick Grammy up and take here to breakfast at a wonderful coffee/pastry shop on Main Street in Grapevine.

Worse: I'll have to share time with the granddaughters with Grammy.

For Those Who Favor Ethanol Over Shale Oil

For anyone who tells you we don't have enough water for fracking....

The Hill.com is reporting:

In order to meet the excessive ethanol mandates in the RFS, more and more land has been converted to grow corn for fuel — not food. In the 16 years prior to RFS implementation, corn acreage in the U.S. rose by just 6 percent. By contrast, in the seven years since the mandate was enacted, corn acreage has spiked by 22 percent — quadruple the growth in half the time. The Environmental Working Group estimates that more than 23 million acres of America's wetlands and grasslands — an area the size of Indiana — have been converted to industrial cropland since 2008, encroaching on our wildlife habitats and gobbling up enough conservation land to cover Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks — combined. [And a lot of those cornfields are making North Dakota farmers rich. Hoo-ah!]

But it's not just our land that's under attack. By 2030, nearly one of every 10 gallons of water consumed in the U.S. will be used for biofuels production. That's more than is cumulatively used by every household in the country. Let that sink in.

Making matters worse, fertilizer runoff resulting from the increase in corn production to make ethanol has contributed to an alarming growth of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving marine life asphyxiated and surrounding industries suffering in its wake.

And what about our air? Studies have found that corn ethanol nearly doubles emissions over a 30-year period. According to the EPA, the lifecycle emissions of corn ethanol are higher than that of gasoline. So much for being a cleaner fuel.

The environment is not the only victim. Food producers and anti-hunger activist groups, including Oxfam and ActionAid, have been warning us for years of the policy's impact on food prices and security. In the U.S., the average American family of four saw an increase of $2,000 in their grocery bills during 2012.

The RFS is slated to further increase the price of staple commodities like corn, wheat, rice and soybeans by 20 percent. And policy-driven land grabs by global corporations seeking to capitalize on the crop-for-fuel craze have forced family farmers and local citizens off their land, taking access to affordable food away from the world's neediest populations.

Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit puts a lot of this in perspective. But you don't have to read much more to know how bad the president's ethanol program is. But if activist environmentalists are happy, that's fine with me. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I love North Dakota corn farmers getting rich off this, and North Dakota entrepreneurs getting rich with ethanol plants in the state. 

Saudi Burns Record Amount of Oil To Generate Electricity For Air Conditioners

Link here.

Saudi Arabia burned record monthly volumes of oil in June and July, official government figures show, contrary to the top crude producer's plan to temper its summer oil burning spree this year with more gas. 

The world's leading oil exporter burned an average of 743,500 barrels per day (bpd) of crude in June and July, up 82,000 bpd from the same months last year, mainly to make electricity to keep the population cool, data issued under the Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Wednesday. 

The kingdom had hoped that more supply from Saudi gas fields being made available for power generation would save millions of barrels of valuable crude for export this summer.

Meanwhile, on an unrelated note, the US EPA raised biofuels (converting food [corn] into fuel [ethanol]) targets for 2013.

And so it goes.

After Solar, The Next Industry to Bite the Dust

Simply look at the list of companies here and then compare their business plans / strategies with the solar companies that the President backed. For newbies, this refers back to the US Navy spending $26/gallon of diesel to prove that biofuels "work."

Inmates Running the Asylum?

If ever there was a better story ... link here:

Greco said the Clean Air Act requires EPA to determine the mandated volume of cellulosic biofuels each year at “the projected volume available.” However, in 2011 EPA required refineries to use 6.6 million gal of cellulosic biofuels even though, according to EPA’s own records, none were commercially available, Greco said.

Navy Buys Biofuel for $16/Gallon -- ObamaNomics

Updates

May 14, 2016: Solazyme update.  In 2016, Solazyme "ditches biofuels" and according to Fortune:

Solazyme, now renamed as TerraVia, says it will no longer focus on its fuels and its industrial businesses, and instead will double down on selling its algae oil to the food and personal care industries, for use in products like cooking oil, protein powders and face lotion.

Along with the new focus, the company has announced a $200 million supply deal to sell algae oil to Unilever for personal care products, and new financing of $28 million from a handful of food-focused investors, like founder and former CEO of Popchips Keith Belling.

August 12, 2015: back in the news; sold biofuel to the US Navy for $149/gallon; turned out to be a money-laundering scam; US stimulus money (to save the planet) given to Solazyme; Solazyme then gives money to Democrats and to the Democratic party; at least that's what is being said
 

Original Post

Hot Air Green Room link here.

The farmers will be happy.

Data points:

• Conventional jet fuel: < $4/gallon
• Cozy relationship between Dept of Agriculture and US Navy --> biofuel for $16/gallon
• Some of the biofuel is being purchased from Solazyme (California-based)
• Strategic advisor at Solazyme: TJ Glauthier, a member of Obama's presidential transition team; worked on the energy-sector portion of the 2009 stimulus bill....
• Solazyme's partner: Dynamic Fuels, Louisiana, joint venture, Tyson Foods and Tulsa-based Syntroleum
• Dynamics Fuels plant openeed in Louisiana in 2010; by far the largest biofuels plant in North America
• Dynamics Fuels, with a plant in Finland, produce 94% of the world's biofuels
• KLM is using some of that expensive biofuel (4x the cost of conventional jet fuel) but Dutch govt subsidizes

So, when I read that that the military can't handle budget cuts, I can now say, "what?" They can start by buying competitively priced conventional jet fuel. My hunch is US Navy would have been better off funding research for coal --> jet fuel and/or natural gas --> jet fuel.

I get lots of comments sent into me that farmers are inappropriately subsidized by the US government. I disagree but if you feel that way, let the president know how you feel about $16/gallon biofuel. Write him, not me.

Another link for this incredible story. From that link:

Solar panels, of course, have been shown to require a very energy intensive process to produce nearly negating any benefits from solar energies supposed renewability.

The algae blend biofuels that Solazyme produces has proven to be less efficient than originally anticipated as well. A study from the University of Virginia showed that algae biofuels require more petroleum based energy to produce than other biofuels and generate more greenhouse gases.

The actions of the Obama administration and connections to his crony TJ Glauthier only further confirm his willingness to reward his cronies with taxpayer dollars for junk science. Glauthier’s associated grants and funding, to the tune of more than half a billion dollars, show that the tentacles of Obama administration’s green cronyism reach beyond the Department of Energy.

And so it goes. The good news is that with this much fat in the system, plenty of opportunity to cut when "push comes to shove."