Damn straight I'd hope on my bike ;)

Biofuel from waste isn't bad, but how much good does it do? NREL estimated that the U.S. generates 157 million tons of Ag waste a year. If that converted to biofuel at 0.38 L/kg, it would substitute for a few percent of the gasoline we burn in our cars. That's nice, but it doesn't change the need for efficiency and real renewable fuels (e.g. solar, geothermal, and wind electricity).

Apologies for the ignorance, but does biomass include human poo?

If so, that would work quite well. The infrastructure is already in-place in every city to capture it. Plus the ratios work. More people = more cars. And more people = more excrement = more fuel... for those cars.

The fuel's source would no longer compete with food. It would be another nice way to recycle.

What this blog's author and most people seem to miss is a basic difference between biodiesel (produced through transestrification methods) using water to clarify and separate it and alcohols which are produced by A) inefficient batch fermentation or B) thermal catalysis which Syntec is working on.

The basic difference here is that ALL oils float on water or phase separate in the planet's atmosphere of water vapor. People miss this. Even extra virgin olive oil used for cooking or in salad dressing will still float on water.

Brown urban smog as the precurser to global warming which blows between continents is simply unburned oils (hydrocarbon petroleum products or coal) which is vented out the tailpipe or smokestack.

People who are gaga about biodiesel have typically never participated in making it and witnessing the process of transestrification and observing what is left over to be landfilled - let alone understanding that precious water is utilized to clarify and separate out these bio-oils at the tail-end of the process. Biodiesel still floats on water bodies just like a petroleum oil spill does.

The alcohol molecule is a oxycarbon vs: hydrocarbon. It contains one magic oxygen atom per molecule. This is what changes the magnetism of the molecule and it readily blends and dilutes in water as well as blends back into multiple flavors of petroleum products. This oxygen atom is the alcohol's key to bioderadability.... The oxygen atom doesn't combust - it does NOT contribute to the Btu strength of the alcohol. What the oxygen atom does is to "fan the flames" of the carbon atoms in both alcohols and hydrocarbon petroleum fuels and cause the combustion efficiency to increase to nearly 100%. Burning up all the petroleum fuel is the key here. And creating a new biofuel which dilutes readily in the planet's water bodies is the KEY to biodegradability.

Dilute methanol or ethanol or propanol or butanol simply becomes bug food for the planet's micro-organisms, phytoplankton and all green trees or living plants.

People do NOT know and understand so many basic differences in A) how new biofuels are actually produced, through what mechanisms and at what efficiencies. And B) folks don't understand that water solubility is the basic KEY to biodegradability functions. And we all can somewhat understand what happens with major oil spills fouling inland and ocean waterways plus beaches, etc. If petroleum had just ONE oxygen atom per hydrocarbon molecule then the oils would become water solubile, biodegradable alcohols.

Ie: methane becomes methanol. Ethane (two methanes) becomes ethanol. Propane becomes 3-carbon propanol. Flick your bik butane becomes 4-carbon butanol, etc. Capiche?

Gary Bridge

Here is a report from EERE that proposes that the total sustainable biomass production in the U.S. might be 1 billion tons annually.

www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/final_billionton_vision_report2.pdf

For those just wanting a snapshot overview you might check out the graph at http://coskata.com/EthanolFeedstockPotential.asp which I believe is based on that report. With yields reaching 113 gal/ton this would imply getting close to 40% of current needs for gasoline. Add in significant increases in fleet mileage with the new CAFE and/or CA regulations and some progress towards electrification... biomass might make a nice dent in the problem.

Granted there are still questions about land use patterns etc. I'm sure some environmentalists would probably not agree with all the assumptions/assertions in the EERE study.

RhapsodyInGlue, the billion ton report was not done with a view toward minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Much of it would need to be reevaluated in ilght of the recent Searchinger paper in Science, for example. Also, the billion ton figure is the most aggressive of the scenarios looked at in the report. For comparison, that scenario is 2.5 times the least aggressive scenario.

To whom it may concern February 20, 2008

Did Syntec Biofuel Inc hit the magic catalyst formula or is Syntec perpetrating one of the biggest scams in biofuel history??????
Where is the evidence to Syntec’s claims for 105 gallons of alcohols from 1ton of wood??? Where is the plant or the equipment which is supposed to have produced this miracle? Where is the confirmation of independent investigators??????

I was personally involved with Syntec in the past 6 years, right from it’s conception. I was consulting the Syntec on equipment matters for the lab and for possible future production. My company has built some equipment for Syntec as well. I was not involved in catalyst research itself, however, later on I had access to all information to know what was happening.
From my personal experience the Syntec was always very high on hype and nearly zero on real substance

I visited Syntec company numerous times when it still operated from University of British Columbia campus. My last visit to the company was in the spring 2006 when I was called in to evaluate the progress. At that time the company has already moved to rented facility in Burnaby. I found that all process catalysts developed by Syntec up to date were worthless for any commercial production including those that were developed earlier in University of British Columbia.
The Ethanol yields were absolutely pathetic per volume of catalyst. Catalysis was done on micro laboratory scale, using only 1gram catalyst samples, just enough for gas chromatography analyses.
See the lab pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kandrnal/SyntecBiofuelIncLaboratory/photo#5169117682052453778

The reaction favored the production of methane, water and some hydrocarbons. Only about 8% of the synthesis products were alcohols and Methanol formation was prevalent. Up to my last visit, the Syntec company has never gasified a single gram of wood or any other biomass for their synthesis feedstock gas. All experimental, and always unsuccessful synthesis was done from pure Bottled Gasses.
I was extremely distressed to see that only one researcher (Caili Su) was working on catalyst research. Only one catalyst sample was run in several days and the results were always bad. After my last visit I realized that the whole Syntec company was based on big hype and nothing else. As shareholder, ( I had over 50,000 shares ) I was personally very disgusted with the pathetic company progress and all the hype. Up to my last visit I was led to believe, as were all other investors, that something magic was happening in Ethanol production catalyst research. Now I suddenly realized it was all worthless hype and that I was being taken to the cleaners.

Shortly after my last visit in early 2006 the company was taken over by Michael Jackson (a minority shareholder up to that time) who by skillful legal maneuvering (he is a lawyer) and his personal greed forced the company very quickly into bankruptcy and then bought the assets of the company from bankruptcy trustee via Montilla Capital Inc. In my opinion the trustee’s appraiser did undervalue the Syntec’s assets and of course there was no second professional opinion as to real value of the company.
The Ethanol catalysts that Syntec was so proud of were worthless, however, the equipment in the lab had higher value than it was sold for by bankruptcy trustee.
See the court case at: http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/sc/07/06/2007bcsc0656.htm
In this way the Jackson took complete control of the company and all original 25 Syntec investors lost all their money because no shares were transferred. Jackson simply ruthlessly screwed all previous Syntec shareholders because of $20,000 owed to him.
From there on I did not pay much attention to further Syntec affairs until today when I see another of theirs hyped claims . As far as I know, at present the company has only skeleton staff and no facility to actually synthetically produce alcohol in105 gallon volume.
All their overblown claims and wishful thinking seams to be based on theoretical analyses and practically nothing on solid reality. All seams to be designed to fool the unsuspecting investor.

Am I wrong??? Hardly! Let analyze it very simply by BTU on BTU (British Thermal Unit) basis. Syntec claims to make 105 gallons of Ethanol from one ton of wood waste. We know that oven dry ton of wood waste has about 16 million BTU energy content. 105 gallons of ethanol has 8,820,000 BTU energy content, therefore, the wood conversion to Ethanol and higher alcohols would be 55% efficient. I was not born yesterday to believe this nonsense. Not even coal to liquids conversion is this efficient.
It is highly unlikely that Syntec would all of a sudden go from a few % conversion rate to 55% conversion in less than 2 years with the skeleton staff it has in their mediocre Burnaby facility.
In order to believe it, their claim needs to be independently confirmed by other competent investigators. Before this happens I will consider it nothing else but another hyped scam.
In the past Syntec never had any real success in Ethanol production from their catalysts, even the patented one, however that setback did not stop them from publishing highly exaggerated claims. This company hype will end in future history as another great failure in the quest for useful Ethanol production catalyst. In the end, a lot of investors will end up holding an empty bag.
Before I would personally invest any more money or time into this company I would insist on physical confirmation of their claims. I don’t think it is too much to ask for.

I have also noticed that Syntec includes Methanol in their alcohol mixture. When it come to methanol it is possible to convert one ton of wood waste to 105 gallons of methanol. In this case the conversion efficiency would be 41% using standard commercial methanol catalyst. All of us know that some methanol catalysts produce traces of Ethanol, Butanol and Propanol, hence Syntec could hide behind methanol scheme all along and thus protect itself from being accused of scam since Syntec claims all of these alcohols in their portfolio. Nevertheless, no one needs Syntec for production of methanol because the methanol technology is already well developed and commercial catalysts are available.
I advice all potential Syntec investors to investigate this company in detail before investing your money.

Frank Kandrnal
Dynamic Energy Corp