Synthetic gasoline? Syndiesel from coal? Oil-based fuels from algae, grasses or waste grease? Single alcohols like ethanol? What about higher mixed alcohol fuels?
So amid the chaos of market upheaval due to declining demand, spurred on by the new “less is more” mantra of increasing consumption efficiencies, at least one industry guy is pointing where fuels in general are headed, in my opinion. Fuels, like the rapidly changing vehicles we all drive, need to be better in every respect, not just price, but sourced from feedstock diversity, cleaner, produce local area benefits, and ultimately be more profitable to local business.
Refiners raked in big profits from 2003 to 2006, but “by 2007, it was largely over,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, an energy information firm in Wall, N.J.
“Now, along with very weak demand numbers for gasoline, everything points to biofuels getting a larger and larger share in the future.”
“One of the most contested parts of Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is the plan to log 10,000 acres a year for 10 years. On Feb. 24, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told Congress he wanted “approximately 20 10-year stewardship contracts offered in targeted areas around the country that could provide a steady supply of forest products.”
In a paper published online on Feb. 3 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers described how they used a climate model to estimate the impact of 13 sectors of the economy from 2000 to 2100. They based their calculations on real-world inventories of emissions collected by scientists around the world, and they assumed that those emissions would stay relatively constant in the future.
In their analysis, motor vehicles emerged as the greatest contributor to atmospheric warming now and in the near term. Cars, buses, and trucks release pollutants and greenhouse gases that promote warming, while emitting few aerosols that counteract it.
There’s never been a more opportune time to develop an alternative energy company from the ground up to meet the needs of a dramatically changing world.
Or, one could easily understand, it might well be the worst time to start an alternative energy company, especially considering today’s horrible economy. Good thing we’re not looking for a loan yet. Nobody’s lending money, especially to punk startups like Bioroot Energy. Yet, here we are being “contrary” to conventional wisdom: Launching our startup in the midst of a severe downturn, and in the great state of Montana, with under 1 million residents no less.
Smurfit-Stone Missoula facility to cease operations on 12/31/09. What will become of this facility?
photo: Linda Thompson, The Missoulian
The entire industrialized world needs sustainable green energy, all it can make, and from wherever and whatever sources it can be made from. As long as those energy sources are truly sustainable and environmentally responsible.
We think there’s no better place to prove ourselves and deliver the right technology to convert our trash and non-crop biomass into clean, green, sustainable and renewable biofuel. If you’re a Bitterroot valley resident, think about what this choice of locations means for a moment. If we can prove our business model here, we can prove our methods, technology and know how anywhere on the planet that it makes good financial and environmental sense.
Towns. Cities. Coal fired power plants. Methane Fields. Landfills. That’s a whole lot of places!
Thank you for visiting Bioroot Energy and taking time to learn more about our mission and goals.
We believe this project could rapidly become one of the most important alternative energy projects in the world, and one of the first of hundreds or even thousands of similar projects to come. Ours could be the first community in America to turn its trash to green liquid energy, without using incineration or fermentation, or we could be one of the last. The choice is ours.
If we continue to assume that garbage, trash and biomass can only go to a landfill or be incinerated or burned, that garbage will always be a waste product and that resources are limited, then it’s easy to conclude we will eventually run out of space to store our garbage. This seeming contradiction will only be solved when we understand that humans are constantly discovering ways to adapt to challenges and overcome.
We know this is a bold claim and that such talk is generally suspect from the get go. Rightly so. However, our bottom line is and will continue to be focused squarely on the bottom line: Are we creating enough value to support current our way of life here in the Bitterroot? Or are we going backward simply by not adapting to our changing world and delivering new and innovative energy products the whole world really needs?
Ethanol from corn is old news, and long-term unsustainable. We simply can’t grow our way to energy independence, and we can’t afford to throw away 50 percent of the energy value in feedstocks creating a fractionalized biofuel that does not truly serve our long term interests. Higher mixed alcohol fuels such as ENVIROLENE from Standard Alcohol Company, our core technology parter, are what’s next in bioenergy. Make it from anything carbon-based. Convert it in large enough volumes to be profitable and sustainable. Put it in your gas tank and reap the benefits. Not just somewhere. Everywhere that it makes sense, and beginning in the Bitterroot valley!
Our solution “stack” will be powered solely by trash and non-crop biomass. Even sewer sludge and CO2 has value as feedstocks in this new paradigm of energy creation. Yours, mine, ours. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of it and we aren’t ever going to run out because we’re always making more! And so is the natural environment. Better still, our solution will clean up the environment, create jobs and businesses, and put money in everybody’s pockets if we are successful.
Bitterroot valley residents have an unprecedented opportunity to come together and make history building a next-generation waste to energy solution that has so many clear and measurable economic and environmental benefits, and so few credible downsides, that it would seem a no-brainer.
And it’s coming at a crucial time when real opportunities are as rare as grizzlies in the Bitterroot-Selway.
Is it possible to create a substantial economic opportunity where every stakeholder wins, including the environment and all God’s critters?
We think this is it. We hope you agree, and get behind what we’re doing.
We welcome your support and we look forward to hearing from you. But if your natural inclination is to first be skeptical about what we’re proposing, we urge you to share what’s on your mind so we can do our best to address your concerns. We think you too will be convinced we’re on to something very valuable here if you take time to understand what’s at stake and what is possible!
Other than raising money in today’s brutal business environment, there are very few real reasons to not be successful in the long term with a closed-loop gasification to liquid fuels facility. But we need to begin, and soon. Because Montana, like the rest of America, desperately needs to create new industries focused on making something of real value in our rapidly changing world.
We can’t afford to do nothing, nor should we, when an abundance of raw materials surrounds us all!
In this case, we can make a substantial amount of clean, green, and sustainable biofuel from non-crop biomass and trash right here in the Bitterroot.
The technologies we are proposing to use are proven, and ready for prime time. The time is clearly right. The reasons to proceed are many. And reasons to do nothing with our area’s biomass abundance are fewer with each layoff in our beautiful valley.
Our theme (okay, fight song) here at Bioroot Energy?
“A Trickle Becomes A River”
We know there are dangerous rapids just ahead that, honestly, have never been run. Alternative energy is an awesome, exciting, yet still largely undeveloped, landscape of opportunities. We’ve scouted up ahead and believe we have the right “gear” and the proper line to get through what’s ahead and have a great time every step along the way to a clean energy future! So we need all the dedicated rowers we can get!
The idea of turning solid waste and biomass into energy isn’t new. Look at any coal-fired power plant, for example. Look at waste management companies in league with cities all over the world incinerating solid waste to create electricity, spewing tons of contaminants ’round the clock into the atmosphere at a massive global scale.
Don’t kid yourself that all these emissions don’t already impact your life. They most certainly do, and it will only grow worse unless we change how we get rid of unwanted stuff. In fact, the long-term quality of the planet’s soil and water, and the air we breathe will all be determined by how we create energy to power the planet going forward. Even so will the levels of our oceans!
No matter how clean incinerators or current coal-fired power plants are claimed to be, the byproducts of incineration and coal burning at worldwide scale are toxic particles and greenhouse gases emitted to the sky through giant smokestacks. And, forgive us for this literary transgression, you are the human guinea pig breathing it every day of your life!
Is there a better way? You betcha. Bioroot Energy seeks to deploy community-scale plasma gasification to higher mixed alcohol fuel generation technologies to address these burning issues and fundamentally change how America’s cities and towns treat and view municipal solid waste and non-crop biomass.
Our “nothing into something” solution is a closed-loop, ultra low emissions process that efficiently converts all types of MSW, coal fines, petroleum coke, sewer sludge, black liquor, methane, excess non-crop biomass, and even CO2, into higher mixed alcohol fuels that can be blended and run neat in both gasoline and diesel engines or power a turbine, or even be slurried with coal and gasified. Without forcing you to breathe our emissions because we haven’t yet figured out how to it more cleanly.
“ENVIROLENE” from Standard Alcohol Company of America, Inc., is a a higher mixed alcohol fuel that can be refined from almost anything we dispose of without polluting. Or going broke!
We have the technology to transform what’s in your trash can (something nobody really wants) into something everybody needs (sustainable green energy). We’re sure you’ll definitely grow to appreciate our effort in more ways than one, and so will your kids and their kids.
We’re ready to go. Are you? Don’t mull it over too long, we have a planet to protect!
Is there really market-ready technology to transform carbon-based feedstocks like trash into abundant clean liquid alcohol fuels? Yes there is, but it takes more than technology to make it work in the real world. Making biofuel of any type requires significant capital investment to achieve sufficient scale. It requires a vast amount of business intelligence. Guts. Vision. Persistence. Commitment. Public and political support. And, last but not least, good old fashioned luck.
So far, the 21st century has seen public and private money pour into renewable energy research and methods of mitigating the use of non-renewable power. But as yet, we are no closer to knowing how the future will be fueled.
Barriers to entry are extraordinarily high in the biofuel business. As is the bankruptcy rate. If it’s such a great idea to create alternative energy, why are so many businesses crashing and burning in the biofuel sector?
We think it’s because the biofuel industry in general has not yet hit on the magic formula. A complete solution that does what it’s supposed to do at a profit for investors.
Consider the myriad variables:
To be long-term successful, a commercial waste to energy (green biofuels) facility must seamlessly integrate a wide array of W2E technology, such as gasifiers, reactors, converters, feedstock and output processing equipment, short-term feedstock and fuel storage on site, as well as product distribution and marketing, into a viable solution stack and a solid business. And then the company must prove it’s process works as advertised to the world by making money making green fuel in more than enough quantity to keep the lights on and satisfy investors.
It’s yet to be done and we would really like to be the first.
There is a little known Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) fuel technology with real potential to help our little company accomplish great things in short order. Indeed, this particular technology could be the missing link in a carbon bridge that has thus far eluded the biggest of companies and the brightest of minds.
At this point, to disclose exactly what the target fuel is called or its composition wouldn’t be fair to our potential partner. But here’s what this fuel isn’t.
First off, this fuel isn’t created by growing and harvesting a crop, like corn or switchgrass, or even algae. Secondly, it’s not a mere single alcohol, like ethanol, and no it’s not methanol or Fischer-Tropsch float on water bio-diesel. It’s better than any of those, and even a simple test drive with a few gallons of this next-gen fuel mixed in the gasoline tank of your car, diesel truck, snowmobile or lawnmower will prove it beyond any doubt.
What we can tell you today is that this alcohol fuel we are preparing to bring to market can be made from virtually any and all carbon-based feedstocks. It is EPA approved (since 2001) for use in gas and diesel engines either neat or diluted. This next-gen fuel has a documented, provenoctane rating of 120. and perhaps best of all for the environment, it’s water soluble and biodegradable.
Did we mention this next-gen clean fuel can be refined in abundant quantity from almost anything you’d find in a coal field’s tailing pile, a coal fired power plant, a landfill, or your trash can, without polluting the environment?
Bioroot Energy is aggressively pursuing its vision to help cities, counties, states, citizens, and private investors, profitably convert America’s trash and other carbon-based feedstocks into clean, green, sustainable biofuel.
Welcome to our discussion section. It’s not much of a discussion yet because next to nobody has anything to say. We take this silence to mean that everybody who visits knows or feels it’s a great idea to convert mankind’s waste to energy without incineration, at least in theory.
One could then reasonably infer that site visitors don’t believe it’s possible to do what we are attempting to do, right here in Montana’s Bitterroot valley.
So perhaps we have a credibility gap.
We’re closer to the solution than you might think: Converting our trash, garbage, sludge, coal waste, and non-crop biomass to clean green energy without polluting the environment or going broke. Not someday. Soon.
It’s in everyone’s interest to convert most of what’s in our trash to energy, jobs and a cleaner natural environment. Resources are all around us in the form of essentially free carbon-based feedstocks in myriad form: your trash, your human waste, your yard trimmings, your garbage times 306 million people. Our non-crop biomass: dead lodgepole trees, barks, branches: literally millions of tons of the stuff in our western forests just waiting to go up in smoke! (That’s just the short list of what can be converted to clean green bioenergy.)
Tis a noble idea indeed. And we believe we can succeed or we wouldn’t be here in the first place.
Stranger things have happened in America that a “nobody” became “somebody” because they had a burning desire to be successful and changed the world for the better. But not many. Think of young Bill Gates, who singlehandedly changed the world by putting two and two together and getting 5 with the help of a dozen or so “geeks” to build Microsoft into the behemoth global company it is today.
How important is Microsoft to the online world? In fact, there’s a 94 percent chance that you’re staring at this browser page from a Microsoft operating system.
So here we are at the MASH tent that is post-modern America, with Uncle Sam in debt well over his advancing bald spot, and almost everybody except the bad guy and a few software companies is broke, depressed, or both.
With the planet’s ability to sustain life in question as the backdrop, and a crackling etheric silence from the cheap seats punctuated mostly by mouse clicks and “fair and balanced” dogma food, cheesy sound bites, a global human audience considers the future with a mix of pessimism, optimism, FUD, blame, ignorance, denial, ownership and a huge dollop of garden variety apathy.
Sure we’re tired of the crap running downhill to where we live. But we sure are making it easy for the bad guy to live in palaces on Easy Street and drive Bugattis and toss crumbs to those who work, play, beg or dance on demand to get fed.
Who’s the bad guy with the fat wallet and crooked grin? Big oil. Big coal. Big problem! Fossil fuels! Fossil fuel in all its conventional forms is the unalienable villain and 900 pound gorilla of the energy world and the planetary environment, and we are its enablers, promoters, consumers and provocateurs.
Teasing the hand of fate. Living dangerously in a real life theater of the absurd because we have so far had little choice when it comes to energy.
Dare we attempt to rehabilitate the petroleum-coal fired beast that bestrides the world before industrial scale use of oil and coal ruins everything on the human stage and spoils the happy ending forever? Is there a better way for the human drama to unfold? You betcha.
Bioroot Energy clean fuel facilities will produce ENVIROLENE® 138 octane higher mixed alcohol fuel.
EPA-registered, water-soluble, biodegradable ENVIROLENE® blends seamlessly into gasoline and diesel fuels for more mileage, more power, and lower emissions.
Ten Million People
