BRG
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This came via email from www.cattlenetwork.com
Tulsa -- Here in the heart of the oil patch, laboratory technician Christine King is surrounded these days by containers of what her employer hopes will become the next big thing in energy: grease and fat. There's used cooking oil, in various shades of yellow. There's chicken fat, a dark-brown goo with a scent that evokes dog food. "Here's one that smells really bad," Ms. King says, reaching for a jar and opening the lid. Inside: taco-and-pizza grease.
The small lab is in an industrial building that serves as the headquarters of Syntroleum Corp. For two decades, the people behind the tiny company have tried in vain to turn a profit by making liquid transportation fuel out of natural gas. Last summer, frustrated by its lack of progress reinventing fossil fuel, Syntroleum began shifting to what it saw as a greener pasture: making fuel from the renewable resource known as fat.
Today, Syntroleum and agricultural giant Tyson Foods Inc. are set to announce plans to build a $150 million plant somewhere in the south central U.S. that will take fat from Tyson's processing plants and turn it into liquid fuel to power everything from cars to jets.
The announcement comes two months after Arkansas-based Tyson announced a similar deal with ConocoPhillips in which the Houston-based oil company will run slugs of Tyson's fat through existing Conoco refineries and produce what the companies call "renewable diesel" to mix at low concentrations into Conoco's conventional oil-based diesel. The amount of fat-based fuel to be produced by Tyson and its new partners is miniscule in the context of the U.S. oil market.
Tyson and Syntroleum say their plant will crank out 75 million gallons of fat-based fuel annually; that's less than 5% the size of a typical modern oil refinery. There's long been a cottage industry in "biodiesel," the quirky concoction in which garage enthusiasts mix used french-fry grease with some rudimentary chemicals to cook up juice for their diesel-powered Volkswagens and the like. And the number of biodiesel plants is soaring.
The Tyson moves, and similar deals by oil companies in Europe, suggest the fossil-fuel industry wants to elevate fat-based fuel from a microbrew into an industrial-scale, if still niche, product. Motivating the industry are twin government actions: mandates pushing energy companies to produce more alternative fuels, and subsidies helping pay for that push.
Tyson and Conoco have lobbied hard in Washington in recent months to ensure that their renewable diesel will qualify for a $1-a-gallon federal tax break initially written for traditional biodiesel. Their Capitol Hill push has infuriated the Midwest-based biodiesel lobby, which argues that the subsidy never was intended to help Big Oil. Now, as Congress debates a new energy bill, the biodiesel boosters are backing amendments that would bar the Tyson-Conoco brew from the tax break.
The Senate voted down such an amendment on Wednesday. The House still is considering one. Three weeks ago, Finnish refiner Neste Oil christened a renewable-diesel plant beside a Neste oil refinery in Porvoo, Finland, one of two refineries Neste owns.
Last Tuesday, UOP, a unit of Honeywell International Inc. that develops technology for the refining industry, announced that Italian oil producer Eni SpA will use UOP's technology to make renewable-diesel at an Eni refinery in Livorno, Italy.
Syntroleum began in 1984 as a backyard experiment when Kenneth Agee, then a Tulsa pipeline-company employee, began researching a way to turn natural gas into a liquid fuel. He read about a process known as Fischer-Tropsch that had been invented by two German scientists in oil-poor Germany in the 1920s to turn various materials into "synthetic" liquid transportation fuels.
Mr. Agee's company, which sought to improve the process, went public in 1998. It has hemorrhaged money ever since. Building a gas-to-liquids plant costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and Syntroleum came to realize it was "in a big boys' game that we can't play," Mr. Agee says.
"We had to figure out, how do we walk before we run?" In 2005, as Congress was debating an energy bill, Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt authored an amendment on behalf of a plant in his district that was turning turkey parts into fuel using a process called "thermal depolymerization."
That process uses heat to change the molecular structure of a substance -- such as turning animal fat into fuel. The amendment expanded a tax break for traditional biodiesel to apply to fuel made through the more-complex chemical process. The expanded tax break turned heads at Conoco's headquarters in Houston.
Its scientists had begun experimenting with making a renewable form of diesel in Conoco refineries using fats instead of crude oil. Tyson hadn't heard about Conoco's experiments when, in late 2005, it approached Conoco and proposed that they jointly start a traditional biodiesel business using Tyson's fat and Conoco's fuel expertise. Conoco told Tyson it had a better idea than biodiesel: renewable diesel. The companies began working together.
Syntroleum, meanwhile, discovered the tax break and recognized thermal depolymerization as essentially the final step in the longer gas-to-liquids process it had been experimenting with. Syntroleum and Tyson started working together. The Conoco and Syntroleum processes differ.
Conoco can accommodate only fairly clean fat in its refineries; it plans initially to add the diesel it makes from those fats to conventional petroleum-based diesel in concentrations of no more than 5%. But Syntroleum's process can use the dregs: the dirtiest, and thus cheapest, fats. Syntroleum, unlike Conoco, plans to make fuel using all fat and no petroleum. Syntroleum has been testing dozens of fats and oils.
A particularly inviting variety is a mixture that Gary Roth, Syntroleum's president, refers to as "the road-kill blend." Sitting at a conference table at Syntroleum's headquarters, he pulls out a vial of the stuff. "We tried to find the nastiest product we could," he says.
Renewable-diesel proponents say their fuel can be used in any diesel-powered car. But it's still just a test fuel, so it hasn't been validated for that use. Last week, Syntroleum signed a contract to supply 500 gallons of fat-based jet fuel for testing to the Air Force, which already has tested the company's natural-gas-based fuel.
Syntroleum's chief executive met last week with Paul Bollinger, an official in charge of the Air Force's effort to develop alternatives to oil. "You've got to be kidding," Mr. Bollinger says he thought to himself when the Syntroleum CEO showed up in his office bearing vials of animal fat and fuel made from it. Still, Mr. Bollinger says it's worth a look. "Lord knows," he says, "there's no shortage of chicken or hog fat in this country."
Tulsa -- Here in the heart of the oil patch, laboratory technician Christine King is surrounded these days by containers of what her employer hopes will become the next big thing in energy: grease and fat. There's used cooking oil, in various shades of yellow. There's chicken fat, a dark-brown goo with a scent that evokes dog food. "Here's one that smells really bad," Ms. King says, reaching for a jar and opening the lid. Inside: taco-and-pizza grease.
The small lab is in an industrial building that serves as the headquarters of Syntroleum Corp. For two decades, the people behind the tiny company have tried in vain to turn a profit by making liquid transportation fuel out of natural gas. Last summer, frustrated by its lack of progress reinventing fossil fuel, Syntroleum began shifting to what it saw as a greener pasture: making fuel from the renewable resource known as fat.
Today, Syntroleum and agricultural giant Tyson Foods Inc. are set to announce plans to build a $150 million plant somewhere in the south central U.S. that will take fat from Tyson's processing plants and turn it into liquid fuel to power everything from cars to jets.
The announcement comes two months after Arkansas-based Tyson announced a similar deal with ConocoPhillips in which the Houston-based oil company will run slugs of Tyson's fat through existing Conoco refineries and produce what the companies call "renewable diesel" to mix at low concentrations into Conoco's conventional oil-based diesel. The amount of fat-based fuel to be produced by Tyson and its new partners is miniscule in the context of the U.S. oil market.
Tyson and Syntroleum say their plant will crank out 75 million gallons of fat-based fuel annually; that's less than 5% the size of a typical modern oil refinery. There's long been a cottage industry in "biodiesel," the quirky concoction in which garage enthusiasts mix used french-fry grease with some rudimentary chemicals to cook up juice for their diesel-powered Volkswagens and the like. And the number of biodiesel plants is soaring.
The Tyson moves, and similar deals by oil companies in Europe, suggest the fossil-fuel industry wants to elevate fat-based fuel from a microbrew into an industrial-scale, if still niche, product. Motivating the industry are twin government actions: mandates pushing energy companies to produce more alternative fuels, and subsidies helping pay for that push.
Tyson and Conoco have lobbied hard in Washington in recent months to ensure that their renewable diesel will qualify for a $1-a-gallon federal tax break initially written for traditional biodiesel. Their Capitol Hill push has infuriated the Midwest-based biodiesel lobby, which argues that the subsidy never was intended to help Big Oil. Now, as Congress debates a new energy bill, the biodiesel boosters are backing amendments that would bar the Tyson-Conoco brew from the tax break.
The Senate voted down such an amendment on Wednesday. The House still is considering one. Three weeks ago, Finnish refiner Neste Oil christened a renewable-diesel plant beside a Neste oil refinery in Porvoo, Finland, one of two refineries Neste owns.
Last Tuesday, UOP, a unit of Honeywell International Inc. that develops technology for the refining industry, announced that Italian oil producer Eni SpA will use UOP's technology to make renewable-diesel at an Eni refinery in Livorno, Italy.
Syntroleum began in 1984 as a backyard experiment when Kenneth Agee, then a Tulsa pipeline-company employee, began researching a way to turn natural gas into a liquid fuel. He read about a process known as Fischer-Tropsch that had been invented by two German scientists in oil-poor Germany in the 1920s to turn various materials into "synthetic" liquid transportation fuels.
Mr. Agee's company, which sought to improve the process, went public in 1998. It has hemorrhaged money ever since. Building a gas-to-liquids plant costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and Syntroleum came to realize it was "in a big boys' game that we can't play," Mr. Agee says.
"We had to figure out, how do we walk before we run?" In 2005, as Congress was debating an energy bill, Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt authored an amendment on behalf of a plant in his district that was turning turkey parts into fuel using a process called "thermal depolymerization."
That process uses heat to change the molecular structure of a substance -- such as turning animal fat into fuel. The amendment expanded a tax break for traditional biodiesel to apply to fuel made through the more-complex chemical process. The expanded tax break turned heads at Conoco's headquarters in Houston.
Its scientists had begun experimenting with making a renewable form of diesel in Conoco refineries using fats instead of crude oil. Tyson hadn't heard about Conoco's experiments when, in late 2005, it approached Conoco and proposed that they jointly start a traditional biodiesel business using Tyson's fat and Conoco's fuel expertise. Conoco told Tyson it had a better idea than biodiesel: renewable diesel. The companies began working together.
Syntroleum, meanwhile, discovered the tax break and recognized thermal depolymerization as essentially the final step in the longer gas-to-liquids process it had been experimenting with. Syntroleum and Tyson started working together. The Conoco and Syntroleum processes differ.
Conoco can accommodate only fairly clean fat in its refineries; it plans initially to add the diesel it makes from those fats to conventional petroleum-based diesel in concentrations of no more than 5%. But Syntroleum's process can use the dregs: the dirtiest, and thus cheapest, fats. Syntroleum, unlike Conoco, plans to make fuel using all fat and no petroleum. Syntroleum has been testing dozens of fats and oils.
A particularly inviting variety is a mixture that Gary Roth, Syntroleum's president, refers to as "the road-kill blend." Sitting at a conference table at Syntroleum's headquarters, he pulls out a vial of the stuff. "We tried to find the nastiest product we could," he says.
Renewable-diesel proponents say their fuel can be used in any diesel-powered car. But it's still just a test fuel, so it hasn't been validated for that use. Last week, Syntroleum signed a contract to supply 500 gallons of fat-based jet fuel for testing to the Air Force, which already has tested the company's natural-gas-based fuel.
Syntroleum's chief executive met last week with Paul Bollinger, an official in charge of the Air Force's effort to develop alternatives to oil. "You've got to be kidding," Mr. Bollinger says he thought to himself when the Syntroleum CEO showed up in his office bearing vials of animal fat and fuel made from it. Still, Mr. Bollinger says it's worth a look. "Lord knows," he says, "there's no shortage of chicken or hog fat in this country."
