CoolPlanet BioFuels, Inc., a start-up company developing a technology that converts low-grade biomass into high-grade fuels, including gasoline, and carbon that can be sequestered (earlier post) announced that BP Technology Ventures has made an investment in the company’s C Round of financing. CoolPlanet’s renewable gasoline is chemically indistinguishable from gasoline derived from and can only be detected by radiocarbon isotope analysis.

CoolPlanet is developing modular thermal/mechanical processors which directly input raw biomass such as woodchips, crop residue, and algae and produce multiple distinct gas streams for catalytic upgrading to conventional fuel components. The process generates activated carbon with a very high surface area which will allow it to be used as a soil enhancer similar to “terra preta”, which, when buried, serves to sequester the carbon.

The C Round, led by Shea Ventures, included follow-on investments by the company’s current investors, General Electric, Google Ventures, ConocoPhillips, NRG and North Bridge Venture Partners.

In addition to BP and ConocoPhillips, several other energy companies are in the process of testing and evaluating Cool Planet’s fuel with very good results to date, according to the company. The company expects to announce additional energy company strategic relationships throughout 2012.

The company completed its B Round financing in the spring of 2011 and has pulled in its C Round a year ahead of schedule in order to accelerate the development of its modular fuel production plants. CoolPlanet expects to deploy hundreds of relatively low cost modular plants around the country in the next few years to make effective use of available biomass without incurring high transportation costs. CoolPlanet’s Energy Systems Division plans to mass produce these plants on a production line basis. CoolPlanet’s BioFuels division plans to team with various strategic partners to produce fuel using this equipment.

The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) has released a map of the areas that it considers to be Nebraska Sandhills, based on an analysis of a variety of existing data. NDEQ is conveying this to TransCanada for reference as the company develops a proposed new route for the Nebraska portion of the Keystone XL pipeline.

NDEQ Director Mike Linder said this was an important step resulting from legislation which was passed in November relating to the development of an alternative route that avoids the Nebraska Sandhills.

Obviously, the applicant cannot propose the route without knowing the area to be avoided. NDEQ has been reviewing available information and has selected a map of ecoregions which was finalized in 2001 as best depicting the Sandhills region.

—Mike Linder

This map, titled “Ecoregions of Nebraska and Kansas” was a multi-year project involving numerous state and federal agencies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NDEQ, the US Geological Survey (USGS), Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC), and the US Forest Service (USFS).

The Nebraska Sandhills (in yellow). Source: NDEQ. Click to enlarge.

TransCanada agreed in November to develop a new route through Nebraska to avoid the environmentally sensitive Sandhills. The entire project remains on hold while a new route is developed and studied.

TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL project is designed to carry oil from Canada across Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. TransCanada also has proposed connecting it to the Bakken oil field in Montana and North Dakota.

New US legislation, signed by President Obama, contains a provision requiring a US decision on the Keystone XL permit within 60 days; should the President take no action on the permit decision, the new law (Public Law Nº 112-78) then mandates that the permit shall be in effect, given requisite permits from Canadian authorities and relevant Federal, State, and local governmental agencies. The law specifically requires the reconsideration of routing of the Keystone XL pipeline within the State of Nebraska.

When TransCanada submits alternative route information, NDEQ will move forward in the development of a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, which will consider a variety of potential environmental impacts.

NDEQ will provide opportunities for public participation during the process. Early in the process, the agency will conduct a series of information sessions to discuss what is being proposed and solicit public input. Later, when a draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement is developed, a formal public comment period will be held.

Background on NDEQ’s new responsibilities. On 22 November, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman signed LB4 into law, which provides new responsibilities to NDEQ relating to supplemental environmental impact statements involving oil pipelines. The first application of the new law is the development of a supplemental environmental impact statement for the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

The legislation assigns NDEQ to work with the US Department of State throughout the review. Negotiations continue with the US Department of State to finalize a Memorandum of Understanding detailing how NDEQ’s environmental review process will fit into the federal review process.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the 2012 percentage standards for four fuel categories that are part of the agency’s Renewable Fuel Standard program (RFS2). (Earlier post.) The final 2012 overall volumes and standards are:

• Biomass-based diesel (1.0 billion gallons; 0.91%)
• Advanced biofuels (2.0 billion gallons; 1.21%)
• Cellulosic biofuels (8.65 million gallons; 0.006%)
• Total renewable fuels (15.2 billion gallons; 9.2%)

In the proposed rulemaking released earlier this year for 2012, EPA had proposed a cellulosic biofuels volume ranging from 3.45–12.9 million gallons (0.002–0.010%). To arrive at this final volume, EPA considered additional factors such as the current and expected state of funding, the status
of the technology, progress towards construction and production goals, and other significant
factors that could potentially impact fuel production or the ability of the produced fuel to
generate cellulosic Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). It also considered projections
of cellulosic biofuel provided by the EIA.

Of the domestic sources, EPA estimated that six facilities can make volumes of cellulosic biofuel available for transportation use in the US in 2012:

Volumes are ethanol-equivalent gallons. Click to enlarge.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) established the RFS2 program and the annual renewable fuel volume targets, which steadily increase to an overall level of 36 billion gallons in 2022. To achieve these volumes, EPA calculates a percentage-based standard for the following year.

Determining the applicable standards under RFS requires EPA to conduct an evaluation of the volume of qualifying cellulosic biofuel that can
be made available the following year. If the projected available volume of cellulosic biofuel is less than the required volume specified in the statute, EPA must lower the required volume used to set the annual cellulosic biofuel percentage standard to the projected available volume.

EPA must also determine whether the advanced biofuel and/or total renewable fuel volumes should be reduced by the same or a lesser amount. The final rule provides EPA’s determination of the projected production of cellulosic biofuel for 2012, and the final percentage standards for compliance year 2012.

Based on the standard, each refiner and importer determines the minimum volume of renewable fuel that it must ensure is used in its transportation fuel. For 2012, the program is implementing EISA’s requirement to blend more than 1.25 billion gallons of renewable fuels over the amount mandated for 2011.

Last spring EPA had proposed a volume requirement of 1.28 billion gallons for biomass-based diesel for 2013. EISA specifies a one billion gallon minimum volume requirement for that category for 2013 and beyond, but enables EPA to increase the volume requirement after consideration of a variety of environmental, market, and energy-related factors. EPA is continuing to evaluate the many comments from stakeholders on the proposed biomass-based diesel volume for 2013 and will take final action next year.

CSLM image (63x) of 3-day-old aerobically grown biofilm on CBD pegs. Autoflouresence of hydrocarbons from the tailings can be seen in the background and small clusters of cells are indicated with a white arrow. Source: Golby et al. Click to enlarge.

Researchers at the Universities of Calgary and Alberta are collaborating on a project for the microbial remediation of oil sands tailings—the waste byproducts of oil sands surface mining that are collected in large manufactured settling basins called tailing ponds. Tailings contain water, sand, clay, residual bitumen, heavy metals, naphtha diluent, and naphthenic acids (NAs); the latter contribute to the toxicity of the tailings ponds, which are managed under a zero discharge policy.

The research project, funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), is focused on biofilms—consortia of microorganisms of one or more species that adhere to a surface and are enveloped in an extra polymeric substance. A paper into the first round of research will be published in the January edition of FEMS Microbial Ecology.

Biofilms have been applied in biotreatment efforts, particularly in wastewater treatment facilities, for decades. Biofilms exhibit an altered physiological state from their planktonic counterparts, which likely contribute to their robustness in natural environments. It is now widely believed that compared to planktonic cultures, biofilms have a decreased susceptibility to environmental stressors such as heavy metals or hydrocarbons , which exist in many contaminated sites including oil sands tailings ponds.

…The aim of this study was to cultivate microorganisms from oil sands tailings ponds by selecting them to grow as a mixed species biofilm directly from their environment in an in vitro model. The hypothesis was that this approach would provide for a different view of the microbes in this tailings pond environment in comparison with previously published studies.

The Calgary Biofilm Device (CBD) has been used to establish mixed species biofilms from colonoscopy sections that closely reflect the diversity of microbial populations seen in individual patients. We therefore investigated whether the CBD can be similarly used to obtain representative mixed species biofilms from tailings ponds environments. Biofilm formation was tested under different laboratory culture conditions and the resulting communities were compared using molecular tools. Our study demonstrates that a good representation of the tailings pond microorganisms can be cultured if grown directly as a biofilm. As expected, media augmentation and different growth conditions altered the community recovered.

—Golby et al.

The researchers took a sediment sample (sludge) from a tailings pond in the Athabasca oil sands region of northern Alberta in July 2009 from a depth of 0.45 m below the surface. The average temperature of the tailings pond is c. 18 °C (64.4 °F), regardless of season. The sample was approximately 80–85% solid, and the sample jar was filled completely to limit oxygen exposure.

A single tailings sample was used for all inoculants to help maintain reproducibility as the tailings are very heterogeneous and different physical samplings can be quite unique to each other and can vary with depth, aeration, and company/mine type, the team noted.

The Calgary Biofilm Device (now called the MBEC Assay) has grown many bacteria and fungi as microbial biofilms. Scientists have used a variety of woods, plastics, paints and even hydroxyapatite (chemically similar to tooth enamel) in place of the standard 96 polystyrene pins on the lid of the assay, to mimic the natural environment of biofilms, to encourage growth.

Experimental media sometimes require modification to resemble the natural setting of the bacterial biofilm organism; scientists at Innovotech, which is commercializing the MBEC Assay, have grown biofilms in artificial urine, plasma, serum and many other media that reflect that natural environment of the organism.

Because of the nature of the tailings sludge, the team coated the CBD pegs with oil organics that adhered to the peg surface during inoculation. These oil organics were able to serve as carbon sources and/or electron donors in addition to the supplemented growth media.

Using the CBD, the team successfully cultivated mixed species biofilms under aerobic, microaerobic, and anaerobic growth conditions. The study recovered more than 10 different genera of microbes from the sample per biofilm; changes to the culture conditions such as growth media and oxygen tension selected for or against certain species resulting in slightly different communities.

We’ve isolated biofilms that are indigenous to the oilsands environment and are highly tolerant to the stress associated with toxins and metals found in tailings water. Those consortia of biofilms are able to, slowly, detoxify the water.

—Raymond Turner, U. of Calgary and co-leader of the project

Turner and his team are actively growing biofilms on the support material to test in bioreactors, which are being developed by professors and their graduate students in the civil and environmental engineering department at University of Alberta.

The ultimate goal, says Turner, is to develop tailings water treatment plants for all the oilsands operations.

The plant would take all tailings water, completely clean it, and return it to the river system. Just like wastewater in Calgary is cleaned and returned to the Bow River.

—Raymond Turner

Resources

• Susanne Golby, Howard Ceri, Lisa M. Gieg, Indranil Chatterjee, Lyriam L.R. Marques, Raymond J. Turner (2012) Evaluation of microbial biofilm communities from an Alberta oil sands tailings pond. FEMS Microbiology Ecology doi: 10.1111/j.1574-6941.2011.01212.x