Valley’s at the center of biofuel research
HOLTVILLE — Just as the Imperial Valley has played an important role in cleaner electrical energy, it may also play an important role in generating cleaner fuels for transportation.
As part of the 11th annual Imperial Valley Energy Summit, held at the Barbara Worth Convention Center, the summit centered on the growing research and opportunities emerging in biofuels.
Due to the federal and state efforts to curb greenhouse emissions, power plants are no longer the largest contributor of greenhouse gases. That is now the transportation sector. Though efforts to reduce those emissions are still at a relatively early stage, the results show a lot of promise and potential.
Perhaps the most intriguing area of research currently taking place is in the development, testing, and implementation of dimethyl ether, a potential substitute for diesel fuel. Commonly referred to as DME, it can be generated from organic waste and can be used as a cleaner fuel source. It also potentially reduces the amount of methane released into the atmosphere through the natural digestion of organic waste.
“The opportunity here is working on this push to do something valuable about this organic waste and help clean up the transportation system,” said President of Oberon Fuels Rebecca Boudreaux. Oberon Fuels has a commercial demonstration plant in Brawley where testing of this technology is currently taking place. She said about 15,000 to 20,000 cows are needed to produce enough waste in order to ensure a plant is feasible and produces enough fuel.
The Brawley plant is currently producing the first fuel-grade DME in North America, which is being used by Volvo for a commercial demonstration on heavy-duty trucks.
Oberon Fuels has also partnered with Ford Motor Co. and various academic institutions to build the first DME-powered passenger car for on-road testing in Germany.
Current testing involves using diesel-powered vehicles to combine diesel and DME and converting some of those vehicles to allow them to run on DME.
One of the challenges Oberon Fuels faced was contending with state rules and regulations. Boudreaux said the state of California has no set process to authorize a new fuel source. She said current legislation is designed to deal with fuels of today and not take into account the fuel of the future.
She did, however, praise recent efforts by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia.
His Assembly Bill 1970 would directly allocate funding and investments made to low-carbon fuels.
As part of the panel, Market Development Manager for Southern California Gas Company Jim Lucas also had the opportunity to give the audience a brief overview of the $100 million renewable gas project currently under development in Perris, Calif.
Two of four phases have already been completed, Lucas said, with each new phase completed, it gives the project the capacity to process an additional 83,000 tons of organic waste.
One of the biggest concerns for the continued development of renewable gas is the longterm availability of government incentives to make the development of the costly projects feasible.
Current federal incentives are set to expire in 2020 and 2022, and there’s no certainty Congress will take any action to extend them beyond their current deadlines.
Lucas said that at the state level, California has begun to invest in dairy projects over the past two years to process the waste from cows.
He said he’s hopeful the state will continue to move in that direction. He cited a recent bill proposed by Sen. Ben Hueso, Senate Bill 1440, which is an effort to establish a biomethane procurement goal for gas utilities in California to further reduce the impacts of emissions from natural gas.