Ed Lehrburger, CEO of PureVision speaking on the future of bio-fuel production

PureVision – Enabling Technology for the Cellulosic Biorefining Industry
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Presented by Ed Lehrburger, CEO

PureVision is a technology company, based in Ft. Lupton,  that has developed a patented a solution to make bio-refining of fuels a sustainable and profitable venture. A carbon-neutral biomass fractional technology produces sugars from cellulosic biomass. The resultant product can also be direct energy or fiber to be used as feedstock to other industrial or consumer products. The feedstock to the PureVision process excludes food based products such as corn and focuses on cellulosic based biomass such as wheat straw, corn stalks, trees and energy crops.

Ed started his presentation by providing a clear definition of his technology and use of cellulose. Cellulosic sources range from trees, shrubs, grasses and other fuel crops. The process will not use the seed or the fruits but focus more on the branches, stumps, trees and other materials that are not necessarily as recyclable.

The result of the process is to produce sugars which can be used for many products. In the next hundred years sugars will replace crude oil as a source of energy. It is rapidly becoming the feedstock of the future.

There are many products that can be made with these sugars, including ethanol diesel gasoline, jet fuel and industrial chemicals, consumer products, pharmaceuticals with fibers and sugars from biomass. Today there are number of companies with platforms to make their products from these fibers and sugars but the problem is that there are few technologies to make sugars from abundant bio-mass. Today a common way to do this is the nine day process known as the NREL dilute acid pre-treatment. This pretreatment makes the biomass available for conversion when enzymes are added. The sugars are then used to make bio-fuels/ethanol.

PureVision has a new technology that condenses the dilute acid process from 9 days in batch mode to a 20 min continuous process. Today’s processes involve a number of steps such as stirring, mixing, heat that involve large facilities, energy, capital and incur waste water disposal problems. Fractionation reduces much of the downside of this process, by using water and reagents to quickly extract the product. Examining a new approach we first examine the inputs:  biomass & plant products. Typical feedstocks consist of a combination of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin (A typical biomass breakdown is 40% cellulose (fiber), 25% hemicellulose, 20% lignin, 5% ash, 10% extractives). Essentially much of the cellulose input is pulp, and the PureVision solution mimics the pulping process (removing lignin, hemicellulose) concentrated to an 8 min process in a reactor (versus 2 hours for paper). The cellulose (e.g. corn stalk) is converted to glucose (6 carbon sugar).

The structure of the target feedstock, biomass (e.g. corn stalks) is a combination of cellulose (containing glucose – 6 carbon sugars), and hemicellulose (containing non-glucose 5 carbon sugars). This combination along with lignin has evolved over millions of years to withstand rain/snow/storms. Ultimately though, the structure needs to be broken down to make the end product. Glucose is the primary intermediate product from the fuelstock – the (C6) sugar is the easiest to work with and provides the highest yields for the end product (e.g. fuels). The other product are as follows:

• Xylose sugar syrup from the hemicellulose
• Lignin – cane be used a young coal (high btu fuel) – sold as fuel or for making other industrial products
• black liquor – a biogrowth media for producing yeast
• residue of ash (nutrient rich to go back to the soil)

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The process is very effective, using a countercurrent process (injecting water upstream), it extracts out around 95% of the fiber from the biomass while removing the hemicellulose & lignin. This process avoids overcooking the biomass and thereby losing the fiber recovered. The final stage converts the extracted fiber to glucose

Food versus fuel debate has positioned cellulosic processes as a more viable option to make fuels. Ed referenced the spike in corn-meal prices in Mexico shutting down tortillas plants

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. Also here in the states corn went to over 7 dollars a bushel with increased ethanol production and the Iowa flood coinciding in June 2008. This positive incentive along with the federal support for cellulosic ethanol (up to one dollar a gallon for cellulosic fuel) is driving considerable research into making cellulosic biofuels more sustainable and produce better yields at lower costs. Target markets for PureVision is to follow the trend of converting ethanol plants (in the next 5 years) in places such as the American corn belt and South America (e.g. Brazil) into cellulosic plants. The existing PureVision pilot plant can run 24 hr/day and process a half ton biomass per day. Near-term pilots are expecting to scale up to 20 ton/day and an upcoming commercial plant is expected to process 250 ton/day. The company has done R&D for clients and received 6 grants so far to help develop their unique fractionator process.

Questions from the green tech group started with the expansion and retrofitting of plants in Brazil. Ed considers it one of the biggest markets in the world. Brazilian sugarcane ethanol (considered to be the most successful alternative fuel to date) is processed by squeezing sugar cane. The residue created from this process is burned as bagasse The Black Shield of Falworth ipod which provides heat for the mill’s operations and is also used for cogeneration of electicity to be sold back to the grid. This process is considered to be greenhouse gas neutral since the CO2 released during its burning is the same absorbed by the plant during its growing phase but this could be partially mitigated. The PureVision process has proposed to make 35% more ethanol by using their process and to derive energy from the lignin to replace the direct burning of bagasse.

Another question raised about how much product is generated the 250 ton plant. Ed responded that the plant would generate 60 gal/ dry ton (cellulose) of ethanol fuel and by using the lignin and hemi-cellulose the output raise to 90 gal/ dry ton. Vertical integration is another evolving area for cellulosics. Although today a wood based feedstock could be used with volumes as high at 2000 ton/day, the main focus is on energy crops/ agricultural residues such as switch grass that will provide a more sustainable input to bio-refineries. PureVision has multiple patents on the process and apparatus and have worldwide patents. As of today they have experimented with 6 feedstocks: bagasse, corn stovers, wood, corn cobs, wheat straw, triticale straw. The energy required for cellulosics is generally accepted to be 35% more efficient the corn ethanol production and water usage is significantly reduced with cellulosics (specifically if the biomass has more moisture – typically plant mass is already 50% water).


Texas Instruments – Alternative Energy Initiatives Redacted hd Final Destination the movie
Presented by John Van Scoter, Senior Vice President

Texas Instruments helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through design, sales and manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries.

As Texas Instruments (TI) is primarily an electronics company, John began with a little background on how the company is applying its current expertise in green electronics. Firstly, TI is a large corporation with 12.5B in fourth quarter revenue 2008 (a 30% drop from 4Q07 ) and R&D spending was around 2B in 2008. Some other notable trivia, a major market segment for TI’s chips is targeted for communication based systems. The device/chip catalog has over 30000 products and many of these product are available for free for entrepreneurs for prototyping. TI is showing leadership in green construction with its latest TI analog 300 mm manufacturing facility in Texas, the first semiconductor facility awarded a gold LEED certification. TI also has a received a silver LEED certificate for their assembly/test facility in the Philippines that will be the first in the country awarded a LEED certification.

The Texas Instrument approach to the green technology sector falls into 4 categories:

1. MakeIt – Renewable(solar, wind, biomass) and Distributed power (including efficiencies in Refinement/Drilling)
2. MoveIt – Real-time monitoring, transmission & distribution, smart meters, 2-way price signaling
3. UseIt – improving motors, lighting (LED), consumption, appliances, power supplies, transportation, HVAC, (white goods – e.g. refrigerator appliances)
4. Self Powered systems – through Kilby labs (step-function innovation for technology 5 years out) - using intrinsic environment-derived (kinetic, thermal, RF) energy to store (in a thin film battery) and power small electronic devices

TI sees many opportunities to apply their experience to the Smart grid including communication applications in the home/wide are network. Today TI chipsets for the Smart Grid are employed on the meter-side. For enterprise applications, areas such power management/efficiency solutions  and optimization of battery management/density is also a TI expertise. TI solutions can reduce up to 50% energy consumption in data center-based server farms. Another area of opportunity is LED lighting. LEDs already   reduce power consumption with an efficiency improvement of over 10x compared to incandescent bulbs. TI sees a value-add green play by using the solid state device to become a sensor. Not only will the next generation light illuminate, it will collect information and turn on/off local thermostats, lighting and other electronics.  Other applications for embedded light circuits are security and atmospheric sensing. TI is currently researching this area more deeply with a learning lab that explores thermal properties, light balancing, power management and communication between sensors.

Structure embedded self powered sensors have show great promise. Work on embedding monitoring sensors in bridges can detect strain on bridge components and communicate potential issues to state authorities. Previous bridge collapses such as the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis are examples where long-lived sensors (potentially up to 100 years) could be used with no external power or wiring to monitor a structure’s health. Future personal healthcare monitoring applications could use energy generated by a person to power devices such as in a smart shirt. An individual can generate up to 100W a day. From the TI perspective, this is more than adequate energy to power its low-power electronics that would be embedded into clothing items.

The green tech audience brought up TI  consumer awareness which for many translate to TI-powered products such as Speak & Spell, TI-branded calculators and LCD projector systems. Beyond its product line, the most famous asset of TI is one of its engineers, Jack Kilby, who invented the thermal printer, integrated circuit and won a nobel prize in Physics.

Another areas raised by attendees was the area of environmental stewardship. TI has made great strides optimizing the wafer fabrication process and improved the management of the toxic waste generated. Their latest work for LEED certification was attributed to water reclamation and power reduction/efficiency. One of the more impressive illustrations of this was a reengineering effort to optimize water pumping systems (reduced # of pumps by 50%) in their facility that resulted in a significant energy reduction to run the new lab.

TI also is leader in smart meters / e-meters,  where they enjoy a 2/3 market share in this product category for embedded TI chips. In order to be a chip supplier to worldwide green products , TI’s approach is to be protocol/standard agnostic. In that regard TI has adopted, amongst other standards,  Zigbee for wireless device communication.  It is a popular standard in the US and is advancing with EU standard committees for use in smart meter in-home device communications for smart grids.

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Speakers

Heartland Renewable Energy – renewables-based natural gas production plants
Presented by George Howard, Managing Member

Heartland develops and delivers renewables-based natural gas ‘manufacturing plants’ which process organic waste streams in a proprietary form of anaerobic digesters. In addition to gas production, these production plants provide significant environmental benefits including greenhouse gas mitigation. This natural gas (clean methane) is transported by interstate gas pipeline to electric power plants for generating

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electric power that meets the Renewable Portfolio Standard which exists in many states. Residue from the gas plants is a high quality soil amendment (”compost”) for land reclamation, agriculture, erosion control and mitigation, and other purposes.

George first set the stage for anaerobic digesters. Their goal is to create natural gas or bio-gas as a next generation digester system with advanced overall performance compared to today’s existing municipal sewage systems. The digester can take animal waste, which is typically typically manure and uses the bacteria to produce bio-gas consisting of 40% CO₂, 60% methane and trace of hydrogen sulfide. The ultimate destination is California, which needs to fulfill it’s renewable energy portfolio standard. This alternative energy is highly regarded solution in Colorado and has the potential clearing the permitting process. There a re number of customers in California waiting to purchase these type of energy resulting in a good margin of return. This approach for removing green house gases has a significant effect. Farmers previously would be disposing manure by spreading it on fields and using it as a low-grade fertilizer, creating Nitrous Oxide emissions (300x more potent Green house gas then carbon monoxide on a per pound basis). This means a digester solution goes especially far for green house credits. The digester solution is flexible for its inputs and takes a number of agricultural wastes and food waste streams.

The plants to produce the gas look like a field of Olympic-sized swimming pools with domes

Examining the bio-gas plant’s internal system, most of the methane is removed when the slurry traverses the separation sub-system. The water vapor, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are removed (and potentially resold) and the bio-gas is pressurized to 1500 psi. for interstate pipe transit. One downside is that potentially the CO2 may not be sold and will need to be released and the plant would then use a small portions of its own carbon credits for this. The plant they are building today is on 80 acres in Weld county and will produce 4700 mmBTU/day of pipeline grade quality gas or 5 mil. cubic foot/day and can support a 23-25MW electric power plant. This is equivalent to 170 natural gas wells over 30 years of operation. Unfortunately natural gas wells in old fields in Weld county have drop-off in capacity (up to 50% in a year) so this is also a factor in the number of wells needed to keep the equivalent plant running.

The plant design requires feed-in pipes to be built to the plant location. These pipes then will connect the plant to the interstate pipeline. The plant will include a water reclamation/treatment system (using desalination/reverse osmosis) to feedback water into the process.  A portion of the methane from the process is used to heat the plant. The system uses CO2 monitors to ensure the level is below 2%. The plant requires 5MW of power supplied from a rural energy co-op (at about 5.1 cents per KWh). The plant can process 1500 tons of waste a day and uses about 100,000 gal of “grey” water a day, (dirty water from an adjacent dairy farm).  In California, this methane fuel would cost 10-13 cents/KWh. Turns out anaerobic digester projects are harder for VCs to fund (since they need around 7x return in 8 years). The first Heartland plant uses project funding, which is closer to a condo/high rise building project return. George indicated they had a dutch uncle discussion earlier on financing and now are getting much better return for their project. Before the plant is operational all Colorado department of health certification must be passed.

Cool Energy – Powering a Clean Tomorrow

Presented by Sam Weaver, CEO

Cool Energy is a renewable energy equipment supplier in the growing field of distributed power systems.  Founded in 2006, the core technology under development is thermal energy conversion, and is applicable in solar power, waste heat recovery, and biomass combustion.  The initial SolarFlow^TM System product provides highly efficient solar collectors and a novel Stirling engine generator to enable a single solar system to provide 80% of the heating needs, 60% of the electricity needs, and nearly all of the hot water for a building while emitting no greenhouse gases.  Other applications include distributed geothermal and waste heat power production.

Cool Energy is based on Boulder, with 8 people on staff and a product that has 9 patents (current & pending). The core case for the cool energy system is the rising cost of home/small business costs for energy. Heating fuel costs are increasing 7.5-10% annually and electricity is seeing a 4% growth rate. An example from the customer perspective showed a 2/3 heating oil (space heat and water heat) and 1/3 electricity usage for a sample home in New Jersey. A standard PV solution only addressed the 1/3 electricity part of this bill.

The goal for cool energy systems is to cover 75% of the energy bill: 80% space heating, all the hot water and half electricity (large installation). Their system addresses areas that PV and solar thermal cannot – which is they can’t provide neither heat nor electricity. Comparatively PV can’t store energy or generate heat and solar-thermal can’t provide electricity. The Cool Energy system is managed by the control system.

The core technology is a stirling engine, that does not use combustion, needs no maintenance and can have a 20yr lifetime. The Cool Engine solution uses temperature differences (heat exchangers) to create motion (usually a piston) – it utilizes low-end temp differential with the high end at only at 250C.  Normally stirling engines go up to 650-1000C – which is more expensive to design as it needs to accommodate higher temperatures. There are evacuated tubes on the roof for solar collection, this can be used to heat-exchange water filled tubes for heat or used across the hot side of the stirling engine to generate electricity. This solution avoids 6 tones of CO2 over a year compared to conventional fossil systems.

The thermal storage is useful over cloudy days (most home heating utilize this). Typically load curves don’t match up to production curves for PV. With storage, the “cool energy” system can collect energy at peak  sun hours and then utilize the stored energy at peak demand hours. The stirling engine’s part of the design has an efficiency less than combustion fuels and less then conventional stirling engines as well but it does not get as hot and can be built from cheaper materials. Another benefits over PV systems is the Cool Energy system does not produce “semiconductor-waste” and can provide twice the return of PV .

The cost of a typical home system is 15-30K (with 30% tax credit) and with incentives, it has a 7-15 yr. payback. The convective radiator is twice as big as a car radiator and takes 50KWh/yr. to run. The controller uses the internet uses predictive weather information as well as local fuel rates to determine the appropriate energy generation. The engine operates with temperature ranges 100-200C in and 0-40C out.

Power Ecalene Fuels – Patented Thermochemical Process that Produces Mixed Alcohols (clean fuels)
Presented by Gene Jackson
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Power Ecalene Fuels, Inc possesses a unique patent pending gasification technology coupled with
patented catalyst technology that yields a low-cost, high-production and cleaner
burning fuel, Ecalene™.

Ecalene is meant to be a drop-in fuel and to replace ethanol. The name is registered, trademarked and named by Gene, he refers to it as Gene Ecalene. There are two existing patents with 10 being filed. The original feedstock was going to use beetle-kill lodge-pole pine feedstock and claims to convert one ton of wood to 186 gallons of Ecalene fuel.  The technology can take almost any type of feedstock such as Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), spent tires, coal, medical waste, municipal west and natural gas. One benefit of ecalene is that its transportation method is preferred (and much easier) when compared to transporting natural gas which needs to be liquified (before transport).

Gene helped start two alternative fuel companies, one is the well known Range Fuels in Colorado. Their process is stacks up well against the competition and recovers 85% of the energy for any fuel stock. Registered with EPA as a fuel additive, their target is to replace the ethanol additive used in today’s gasoline. Their future plants will be about 70% of the cost of a typical ethanol plant. Ethanol will not be as cost-effective as agile as ecalene, especially with with a lower feedstock energy conversion then ecalene which produces 186 g/ton. The first plant will be 100 ton/day biofuel using beetle-kill as an intial feedstock – this output is around 4 tanker truck equivalents. The long term expectation is to put one ecalene plant in every municipality. The dynamic aspect of ecalene system has allowed it to co-locate with aglae production, utilizing a CO₂ and oxygen exchange between the two plants. Beyond the additive, Ecalane can be a standalone fuel for cars or be produced in biodiesel or jet-fuel.

The by-product of the ecalene product is ash which can be used for roadbed or other applications. The plants can be “fuel-agile” and support multiple feedstocks if it is designed for that purpose. The plant should be energy neutral, with the gasafier and endothermic/exothermic processes balancing each other out.

Optibike – 1000 mpg and have fun too !!Demo bike at the Meetup!!
Presented by Jim Turner, President and Chuck Hodges, CFO

Optibike builds the highest performance electric bikes in the world today, and seeks to firmly establish its premium brand as the Ferrari of electric bikes.  Optibike enables its customers to lose up to 20 lbs a year; reduce their risk of heart disease and diabetes by 30%; save $1000 a year; reduce their carbon emissions a metric ton per year; reduce their gasoline consumption by 325 gallons per year; and have fun.  All in no extra time.

The start of the presentation is a video of a dallas cowboy player, DeMarcus Ware, doing a testimonial for Optibike. DeMarcus and his wife use the bike extensive.  Optibike is designed to be rugged and easy to use. There were some humorous parts where DeMarcus talks about riding the bike all the time and wanting to make it go 50-65mph.

Optibike was founded in 1999 and their bikes are designed and made in Boulder. The company is already at profitable and growing. The core product markets to improving weight/health, fossil fuel depletion and climate change. Jim asked the meetup group questions on bike usage and was impressed with the response of a number of people riding over 40mi/week (although a good response from a  green conscience crowd). One of the reason, Jim pointed out, that people don’t ride their bikes is that it does not go fast enough or it goes slower then a car. The argument is that we could ride a motorbike but would miss out on the health element. An electric bike would assist us up steeper hills or in the foothills around Boulder, while still allowing the rider to pedal like on a “regular” bike when feasible. Another testimonial indicated that a car commute of 40-50 min is  just over 1 hr. for an Optibike ride.  The  mileage figure for an Optibike ride is the equivalent of 1000 mpg. It uses less then a 1KWh and has a range of 40 miles,. Energy return then is better then a solar/PV installation.

Around the world e-bikes are growing significantly. In Europe 700K units have been sold and in China aroudn 20 mill. units have sold and trailing but growing US growth (around 75K units/year) is growing at 40%. The overall market today is around 1-2 Billion. Opti-bike holds the title for the most expensive e-bike in the world, with one of their limited-edition bike. Optibike builds what they consider the best premium quality e-bike on the market. There are 6 bike models in their product line. The earliest bike cost 5K. There are a number of patent designs around the design and they have years of production experience.

As for performance, single charge lasts for 40 miles and takes 8 hrs to charge (costing around 10 cents). The battery has a 3 yr./30k warranty. The replacement cost of the battery is 1500 dollars. The bike is aluminum frame and weighs 55 pounds. There is no regenerative breaking, as it did not make sense for the bike since it is mostly coasting. Right now the cost is on the high end since they are a boutique shop, but it also has significant quality related to gearing and electronics that make it easier to use then its competitors. The electric system works in parallel with pedaling. You pedal-only, use electric drive or a hybrid mode that employs both. A recent article in national geographic featured the e-bike trend that highlight the Optibike. There is a cardio-monitor design upcoming in future products as well as more advances in designs allows for software to control electronic shifting and other functions.