Blue Fuel goes green:
B.C.-based Blue Fuel Energy is trying to phase out oil in favour of clean, synthetic gas
B.C.-based company aims to phase out oil for synthetic, clean fuel,
As oil giants headquartered in Calgary face the reality that the best days for their industry could be behind them, the towns of Chetwynd and Dawson Creek in northwestern British Columbia hold out hope that better times lie ahead. It is on about 1,000 acres of land straddling both municipalities that a small B.C.-based company called Blue Fuel Energy plans to build an industrial-scale refinery that could create enough low-carbon gasoline to fuel 20 per cent of vehicles in Canada’s third-largest province. Called the Sundance Fuels project, it’s expected to create about 1,500 construction jobs and another 150 permanent positions. But beyond a boost to the local economy, the project carries broader significance for what it represents to Canada’s petroleum sector: a path to phasing out the “fossil” from its fuels in a world that must dramatically reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions. Blue Fuel chief executive Juergen Puetter, the mastermind behind the $2.5-billion-plus project, has coined the term “liquid electricity” to describe the clean synthetic fuel his venture will produce. Initially, Blue Fuel’s pump-ready gasoline will be made from plentiful B.C. natural gas, not Alberta crude oil, and will have a carbon footprint 10-per-cent smaller. It will achieve this by making its refinery more efficient than conventional refineries and using zero-emission hydro and wind power from B.C.’s grid to drive as many steps in the process as possible. Not bad — enough, in fact, to comply with low-carbon fuel standards in B.C. and California — but nothing to brag about. It’s just the start, says Puetter, whose ambition seems to have no limit. “By having the refinery in place, we could ultimately make our fuel not just low carbon, but 100-per-cent renewable,” he says. How would that work? It comes down to basic chemistry. Any refinery that makes gasoline is just juggling carbon and hydrogen molecules — hence the word hydrocarbons. The molecules in natural gas are reformulated into something called synthesis gas or “syngas”, which in turn is refined into methanol. In Blue Fuel’s case, it plans to use technology from ExxonMobil to convert that methanol into gasoline. But natural gas, or any fossil fuel for that matter, doesn’t have to be the original hydrocarbon source. Puetter’s longer-term plan is to install machines called electrolyzers that use clean B.C. electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gases. Carbon would come from the CO2 emissions captured from existing industrial facilities or, as technology evolves, directly from the air. Over time, the idea is that the supply of waste CO2 and renewable hydrogen will grow and the use of natural gas will shrink. “Nobody so far has been able to prove this to be fundamentally wrong,” says Puetter, conceding that it’s been a challenge raising the capital to get the project moving. Still, he’s aiming for gasoline to start flowing out of Sundance by 2020. “If I told you this has been easy I’d be lying.” At the very least, the Blue Fuel plan paves a pathway to a future where liquid fuels don’t need to put additional carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a tall order. But if oil is truly an economic addiction, synthetic fuel made from rising amounts of recycled carbon dioxide and renewable hydrogen could be what methadone is to a heroin addict. Even assuming direct electrification is the way to go for most transportation, producing liquid electricity would address the reality that not all vehicles — from big trucks to airplanes — can run on battery power alone. The oil giants, after all, are already in the business of making liquid hydrocarbons. They have the project management experience, engineering skills and deep pockets needed to gradually transition from fossil to clean synthetic fuels, and the existing infrastructure — such as pipelines — to get their product to market. “We believe we’ll be the first plant that is truly a gateway to that future,” added Puetter. “Our refinery will hopefully be a poster child for bridging the fossil fuel industry to renewables.”