US revs up efforts to power cars with waste

Straits Times 26 Jul 08;

Govt offers grants to help waste-to-fuel plants kick off, and subsidy for such fuels

NEW YORK - AFTER years of false starts, a new industry selling motor fuel made from waste is getting a big push in the United States, with the first commercial sale possible within months.

Many companies have announced plans to build plants that would take in material like wood chips, garbage or crop waste and turn out motor fuels.

About 30 small plants are in advanced planning stages, under construction or, in a handful of cases, already up and running in test mode.

Scientists have known for decades that it was possible to convert waste to fuel, but in an era of cheap oil, it made little sense.

With oil now trading around US$125 a barrel and petrol above US$4 a gallon (3.8 litres), the potential economics of a waste-to-fuel industry have shifted radically, setting off a frenzy to be the first to market such products.

'I think American innovation is going to come up with the solution,' said Mr Prabhakar Nair, research chief for UOP, a company working on the problem.

The federal government is offering grants to help plants get off the ground and a subsidy of US$1.01 a gallon for one type of fuel. This is twice the subsidy it historically offered for ethanol made from corn.

Potential controls on global warming gases would heighten the appeal of these fuels, since many of them would add little new carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Tellingly, the type of companies placing bets on the field has started to expand.

The earliest were small start- ups founded by people with more technological vision than business experience.

Now, some of the giants of global business, including Honeywell, DuPont, General Motors, Royal Dutch Shell and BP, are taking stakes in the nascent industry.

And advancing technology has made the notion more plausible.

Virtually any material containing hydrogen, carbon and oxygen could potentially be turned into motor fuel.

That includes plastics, construction debris, forest and lawn trimmings, wood chips, wheat straw and many other types of agricultural waste.

The potential fuels include ethanol, which can be blended with petrol or other liquids that could displace petrol or diesel entirely.

Government studies suggest the country could potentially replace half its petrol supply in this way - even more if cars became more efficient.

The government is pushing to get the industry off the ground. Legislation passed last year mandates the use of 36 billion gallons of biofuels a year by 2022, less than half of it from corn ethanol.

Almost all the rest is supposed to come from non-food sources, though the requirement could be waived if the industry faltered.

A handful of small companies have long made a diesel replacement from waste oil, or sold kits to individuals to do the same. One company in Carthage, Missouri, even turns turkey guts into fuel.

The goal of the emerging waste-to-fuel industry is more elaborate, however: to take bulky, solid feedstocks and transform them into high-grade motor fuel.

And an increasing interest from big companies - ones with a track record of solving technical problems - suggests that a waste-to-fuel industry may not remain out of reach forever.

NEW YORK TIMES