Bioroot Energy

Montana governor Brain Schweitzer says he wants to meet with Washington state officials about opposition to a Columbia River port that would ship coal mined in Montana and Wyoming to Asia.  Here’s the full article.

We left the following letter as a comment to the article:

It is easy to blame environmentalists, but this news is really about the failure to invest and innovate here in Montana. There is a new clean-coal solution which is ready to go, but the state of Montana, the purported “Saudi Arabia” of coal, isn’t interested just yet. Frankly, the powers that be don’t fully understand our water-soluble, biodegradable higher mixed alcohol fuel with an amazing 138 octane rating. Nor does the Governor or his staffers understand how this new clean fuel can beneficiate, clean and then pipeline-slurry ground coal to regional or international markets via tanker ships.

When combusted with coal, this patented higher mixed alcohol dramatically improves coal’s combustion efficiency, just as it does blended with gasoline, jet fuel or diesel. Benefits include recycling the CO2 and other GHGs from coal-fired power plant smokestacks and steam reform these gaseous pollutants into still more of this patented, EPA-registered and approved oxygenate fuel. Best of all, no engine modifications are required to use this biodegradable fuel at the current 10.25 percent oxygenate additive blending mandate in any ICE from locomotives (MRL), jets, cars and trucks, to ocean going freighters! Power plant quick-fixes are a whole different arena yet just as applicable.

Our solution is new and patented innovation in the real world. Via a closed-loop 24/7 thermal production process, a far superior fuel to corn ethanol with 20% more BTUs is produced. This new fuel synthesis process using society’s garbage, biomass, sewer sludge, coal, tires, methane and/or CO2 greenhouse gas as elemental feedstocks (nothing to plant, fertilize, water, weed or harvest) instead creates skilled Montana jobs, nets far lower vehicle tailpipe and smokestack emissions, and lays the groundwork for a full circle of economic value and environmental responsibility in Montana for utilizing proven cleaner coal methods within the state’s borders.

Governor Schweitzer is aware of what we’ve described here, but, since it is tecnology “not being commercialized into clean fuels by a major oil company,” his 2nd floor hallway of advisors aren’t interested. Yet.

Looking for a free pass to export coal to China is perhaps the only viable tactic by Governor Schweitzer to buy time until he leaves office and our state’s energy issues become the next administration’s problem, because Brian’s vaunted plans for producing float-on-water synthetic diesel from 9 billion tons of coal on the Crow Indian reservation seem to have hit a brick wall.

It has been 28 months since our Governor proudly endorsed an $8-billion Aussie CTL development lease of Crow Indian Coal to begin a coal-to-liquid fuels project designed to produce expensive synthetic diesel fuel. It has since been quiet on this front from eastern Montana, except that the financiers for this Australian company publicly declared insolvency in early June this past summer. Why no in-state news on this busted Aussie/Crow Indian deal from the Saudi Arabia of coal?

Instead of innovating a domestic, municipally-owned equity and energy solution, the administration’s present focus is to ship Montana coal and wood chips to China on deadhead freighters for pennies on the dollar.

Governor Schweitzer, how is this strategy working for you? How is it working for Montana’s people suffering rising unemployment amid the national (don’t call it a depression) recession?

The truth is, Governor, this tactic really isn’t working for anyone. Let’s resolve to get back to the future in 2011, shall we?

Sincerely,

Bioroot Energy, LLC

Darby, Montana

Link to Missoulian article