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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2

Transitioning the Transportation Sector: Exploring the Intersection of Hydrogen Fuel Cell and Natural Gas Vehicles

On September 9, 2014, Sandia National Laboratories, American Gas Association, and Toyota, in support of the U.S. Department of Energy's Fuel Cell Technologies and Vehicle Technologies Offices, convened stakeholders across the hydrogen and natural gas communities to consider opportunities and challenges at the intersection of their development as alternative transportation fuels. Although natural gas and hydrogen have an obvious intersection — natural gas is the feedstock for 95% of the hydrogen produced in the U.S. — little attention has been given to how these fuels can evolve in the context of each other. This workshop explored infrastructure requirements, regional trends, and market opportunities at the intersection of hydrogen fuel cell and natural gas use for on road transportation. The goal of the workshop was to provide background and context for thinking through the dynamic evolution of these two transportation options in tandem, and to identify opportunities that can support the synergistic development of both fuels.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis (FRD-17-002 Progress Report)

Both our subcontract with ISU and the one with Frontline have been finalized and the requisitions for the initiation of them have been submitted (this places defined amounts of funding available to the subcontracts, for the first allotment of work to be done, for which we already have funds from the CEC). Once the requisitions are approved, the subcontracts will be fully executed. During the month of August, further work on the Market Report was carried out, and will continue, as this is the most adaptable of the LLNL-main tasks to working remotely, so will not have any delays due to the shelter-in-place orders. Organization of our databases and sources on availability, and potential availability of all woody biomass was continued. Tables and figures for the report were begun as well, and the outline was finalized. Additionally, a parametric study for pyrolysis’ different products was done, with a metric of return on capital investment being chosen. Evaluated parameters include feedstock price, CO2 credit price, CO2 transport cost, and minimum fuel selling price, for drop-in fuels.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Ethanol to diesel: a sustainable alternative for the heavy-duty transportation sector

The combustion of middle distillates (diesel and jet fuel) is responsible for the emission of more than 2 GTon of CO 2 per year worldwide. While sustainable alternatives exist for gasoline and jet fuel, we still lack sustainable alternatives for diesel. This fact is especially relevant if we consider that electrification of sectors where diesel is used is challenging. One sustainable approach for diesel production is the catalytic upgrading of ethanol. While most work in this field has focused on the dehydration/oligomerization of ethanol, this approach is limited to producing fuels that have a high degree of branching and low cetane number. Another approach is the sequential use of ethanol Guerbet coupling, leading to higher alcohols, followed by etherification, leading to large ethers which, importantly, result in a product with high cetane number. In this work, we explore the catalytic upgrading of ethanol into diesel following an approach based on the initial Guerbet coupling of ethanol followed by etherification. The results presented are a collaborative and synergic effort among process and systems engineers, experimentalist in the area of catalysis, and fuel property modelers. Here, we demonstrate experimentally the feasibility of upgrading ethanol into a diesel fuel with properties that surpass its fossil counterpart. The diesel produced has a predicted cetane number of ~70 and outstanding cold flow properties, while maintaining other properties (viscosity, density, and flash point) within expected ranges. A technoeconomic analysis performed based on a detailed biorefinery model shows that the MFSP is ~5.89$ per Gal in 2021 dollars when lignocellulosic ethanol is used, with the most relevant economic driver the cost of the ethanol feedstock. The upgrading process can be performed with a net energy gain (EROI = 1.49 > 1). An LCA analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reveals that the use of lignocellulosic ethanol may lead to more than 50% reduction in GHG emissions compared to fossil diesel. Depending on the CO 2 emissions associated with the production of ethanol we show that in some instances the production of carbon neutral diesel fuel is possible.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis August 2019 (Progress Report for FRD-17-002)

What we planned to accomplish this period: In the month of August we planned to get any comments or edits on the Site License Agreement from SPI for review, make further progress on the market assessment for the Wood-to-Bio-oil Market Report, and continue moving towards getting the subcontracts in place with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy, LLC. What we actually accomplished this period: We finally received the updated Site License Agreement from SPI on August 21st. The only comments and edits on it are minor and should not take more than a couple of weeks of review internally (the only reason this is weeks instead of days is due to the Laboratory’s fiscal year end approaching on September 30, making for heavily increased workloads on our folks that review these documents, and making a few weeks, instead of days, more realistic) before we can pass it along to Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy, LLC.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis (Progress Report)

We sent our updated draft Site License Agreement back to SPI on June 4 th , with redlines. Gary Blanc of SPI said he would circulate it internally to appropriate parties and get back to us. He did not return an accepted or redlined version to us before the end of the month of July, nor did he send us any questions/comments or updates, despite them being requested. He is currently traveling around visiting SPI’s various forestry locations and mills, so is difficult to reach. In working towards the commercialization strategy, during the month of July, further research was completed on understanding and evaluating the availability and potential availability of fire clearing forestry residue in California. In July, a meeting with Stephen Kaffka and Rob Williams who are both authors of the report “An Assessment of Biomass Resource in California, 2013” was attended. These individuals provided us with guidance and information about how to identify the availability and potential availability of forestry/wood resource biomass in California. Also, in the month of July, a meeting with Cal-Fire was attended in order to understand what Cal-Fire plans to do in terms of reducing the risk of wildfires and how much potential fire clearing forestry residue biomass this will produce for California. Additionally, the potential of a novel pathway of producing H2 from pyrolysis oil, maximizing the products’ value, as well as maximizing the carbon emission reduction potential by incorporating carbon capture onsite, was investigated. We continued with the process of subcontracting with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy. We have our Contract Administrators working with their counterparts at each partner to get the details in place. Draft contracts with statements of work were provided to each partner, and updated schedules and budgets, broken down by task in the statements of work, have been requested from each.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis (FRD-17-002 Progress Report)

In the month of December, we planned to have the Site License Agreement with SPI from them for final signatures, make further progress on the market assessment for the Wood-to-Bio-oil Market Report, and continue moving towards getting the subcontracts in place with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy, LLC. The hope was to be able to get the finalized Site License Agreement back from SPI/Gary Blanc this month. Unfortunately, since we were in the immediate aftermath of fire season in California, and Gary was still unavailable as a result, we did not. Thankfully, it does not appear that there will be any major difficulties with getting the agreement finalized and signed, once Gary is available again, as SPI is constant in their support and eagerness for this effort to go forward, so we are not concerned that this is a risk to the project at this time. During the month of December, further research was completed on understand and evaluating the availability and potential availability of fire clearing, and other, forestry residue in California. Further investigations into the negative emissions of biomass pyrolysis products and their upgrading for use in other products (such as fuels) by incorporating carbon capture, drying and compression, and sequestration systems were conducted. The cost to achieve the maximum amount of negative emissions from these biomass-pyrolysis products with carbon capture and sequestration techniques was calculated. Sensitivity analysis was employed to understand how feedstock collection cost and product selling price affects this cost. We continued with the process towards subcontracting with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy. Increased emphasis was placed on getting an updated budget from Frontline BioEnergy, LLC., so it can be submitted for approval of replacing a subcontractor, as we understand this is of utmost importance to the CAM. Frontline reported being very close to an updated budget, waiting on contracted labor costs remaining.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis (FRD-17-002 Progress Report)

In the month of November, we planned to have the Site License Agreement with SPI back from them for final review and signatures, make further progress on the market assessment for the Wood-to-Bio-oil Market Report, and continue moving towards getting the subcontracts in place with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy, LLC. The hope was to be able to get the finalized Site License Agreement back from SPI/Gary Blanc this month. Unfortunately, since we are still in the midst of fire season in California, and Gary is unavailable as a result, we did not. Thankfully, it does not appear that there will be any major difficulties with getting the agreement finalized and signed, once Gary is available again, as SPI is constant in their support and eagerness for this effort to go forward, so we are not concerned that this is a risk to the project at this time.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis (FRD-17-002 Progress Report)

During the month of January, further research was carried out on understanding and evaluating the availability and potential availability of fire clearing, and other, forestry residue in California. Further investigations into the negative emissions of biomass pyrolysis products and their upgrading for use in other products (such as fuels) by incorporating carbon capture, drying and compression, and sequestration systems were executed. The cost to achieve the maximum amount of negative emissions from these biomass-pyrolysis products with carbon capture and sequestration techniques was calculated. Sensitivity analysis was employed to understand how feedstock collection cost and product selling price affects this cost.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis, March 2020 (Progress Report for FRD-17-002)

In the month of March, we planned to have the Site License Agreement with SPI signed and fully executed, make further progress on the market assessment for the Wood-to-Bio-oil Market Report, and hoped to have the subcontracts in place with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy, LLC. We also hoped to have the updated budget from Iowa State in order to send both updated sub-recipient budget sheets to the CAM for approval.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis (Progress Report for FRD-17-002)

In the month of April, we planned to have the Site License Agreement with SPI signed and fully executed, make further progress on the market assessment for the Wood-to-Bio-oil Market Report, and hoped to have the subcontracts in place with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy, LLC once we have approval from the CAM. We also plan to have the updated budget from Iowa State in order to send both updated sub-recipient budget sheets to the CAM for approval.We continue to make more progress towards getting our subcontracts in place and received the requested adjustments to ISU’s budget sheets. These were sent to the CAM on 4/30/2020. As the COVID-19 situation is country-wide, we anticipate slower responses from our partners due to similar delays in their organizations to what we are experiencing internally. Although their response times will be slower, both ISU and Frontline are continuing to make good progress on their work for the demonstration in Iowa for this summer, which is assisting with keeping us on schedule for the overall effort. We are continuing to work on the required documents for our subcontracts – though neither will be placed before we receive official approval from our CAM – so that once we have approval, we can place them very quickly.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Wood-to-Fuel for California's Transportation Sector using Autothermal Pyrolysis (Progress Report)

In the month of May, we planned to have the Site License Agreement with SPI signed and fully executed, make further progress on the market assessment for the Wood-to-Bio-oil Market Report, and hoped to have the subcontracts in place with Iowa State University and Frontline BioEnergy, LLC once we ha approval from the CAM. We also planned to have the updated Advanced Reconciliation to the CAM for approval as requested.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗