Fuel Farm™

Patent Pending

©2008 by Adrian Vance 

      Would you believe a process as simple as a swimming pool could make all the fuel America needs and be up and running in a few months?  This is the story of Fuel Farm™ a system that comes across eons of time.

          Science tells us the first green plants responsible for all our petroleum were likely identical to modern aquatic algae.  They are the fastest growing plants and double their mass in 12 hours of sunlight with supplemental CO2.  On dying they become the black gooey, stinky precursor to petroleum that small boys love and mothers despise.  This material first floats then sinks.

          Paleogeologists say early Earth’s atmosphere was 12% CO2 and 8% oxygen.  Marine algae consumed the CO2 in air leaving only a trace, 280 parts per million, but increased oxygen 125% while putting many gigatons of petroleum precursor on the sea beds to be covered and compressed into petroleum.  What we have taken from areas that had been sea beds is 2% of that deposited.  Most will remain in place forever.  Nonetheless, we can use the same process to make hydrocarbons to solve our fuel problem today.  

           The sun rising across America will bring thousands of two-acre Fuel Farm™ systems to life every morning.  Zero-polluting Fuel Farms™ can produce all the motor and home heating fuel for America at lower real costs than ever.  They also sequester carbon in accord with the new ideas.  60% of their product is sequestered carbon.  This motor and heating fuel sells for the equivalent of 25 cents per gallon in 1965 money without subsidies. 

Economics and Legalistics

          Fuel Farms™ are built with private funding with each plant based on a plan certified by the US Army Engineers and federally approved by law for building in all states pending site approval, tied to highway funds.

          While some fuel farms are owned by large corporations, most are in the hands of local private investors operating independently. They have to abide by federal product standards, but establish their own prices to insure a free market.

Simple Process

          The process is simple: Grow one-celled algae with carbon dioxide supplementation, ferment it with bacteria to produce butanol, chill the mixture to separate it, decant the finished fuel with no additional refining needed and bury 60% of the algae as sequestered carbon.

Butanol As Fuel

Butanol works with 100 Octane efficiency in every gasoline or Diesel engine without change.  Diesels do not have to use long chain hydrocarbons.  They can use them where lower compression engines cannot.  But, Diesel fuel must have lubrication for the high pressure injectors.  1% oil is added to butanol to lubricate the injectors.  Butanol is compatible with all existing petroleum infrastructure. It includes no water.  Each two acre farm produces enough fuel for 7500 automobiles per year using fresh, salt, brackish or waste “gray” water. 

Regional Differences

          South of Saint Louis (38° N) farms function every day of the year, but on rainy or overcast days output is reduced for lack of sunlight.  North of the 38^th parallel the production season will be shortened due to cold weather and overcast, but can be extended with heat and insulation.  The facilities may use solar heat and fermentation produced hydrogen and methane gas to heat the algae in growing and fermentation tanks.

          A shortened season and greater cost may require higher product prices in the north adjusted to account for storage and larger facilities needed to insure year-round supplies or importing product.  Nonetheless, there will be a national market for butanol fuel product.

          As sunlight strikes the clear growing tanks and solar collectors we hear creaks and groans of metal and glass.  Each growing cell is a one foot deep, eight foot wide, 200 foot long formed plastic trough in 20 foot cast concrete sections.  CO2 delivery tubes in the troughs come to life emitting tiny bubbles while motor driven screws stir the culture to agitate cells so all are well exposed to both CO2 and sunlight.  At the end of the day the top half of the culture is skimmed off to a fermentation vessel.   

The Bacteria

         Clostridium tyrobutyricum and Clostridium acetobutylicum bacteria are the active fermenting agents.  They are common in the soil.  At 100 X look like little snare drum sticks with two bulbous ends.  The mixture is heated by sunlight and heat exchangers from pumps cooling a batch in the separation tank deep in the ground.  After several days of fermenting 35% to 45% of the mass will be butanols, the four carbon alcohols with a remainder  solid having 55% to 65% of the carbon locked into a solid that will become  animal feed, plastic or paper source product or buried in soil as amendment there to remain in perpetuity, continuing the economy to the very end.

History of the fermentation

In 1916, Chaim Weizmann, a disciple of Louis Pasteur who would later be the first President of Israel, discovered Clostridium acetobutylicum converted waste products to acetone and butanol.  The process was used during World War I to make acetone for Cordite gunpowder production. Later it was observed that two bacilli species in combination did a better job of making butanol.  But, the process fell into disuse when butanol could be made from petroleum much cheaper with $2 per barrel crude.       

Collecting the Species

To start the process is it possible to purchase both algae and bacteria cultures.  But, the best way is to find local versions as they are adapted to prevailing conditions.  This only entails leaving the tops off the growing tanks for a few days allowing algae spores in air to find the water.  Several varieties will appear and they should be grown as a group.  The bacteria are common in the soil, but must be found and isolated by an experienced bacteriologist.  Most high school biology teachers can do this work.

New Science

          Biologists recently discovered plants do better growing with other species.  The reason for this is not known, but it simplifies Fuel Farm™ management if there is no imperative to maintain a pure algae culture.

          Clostridinium bacteria are common in soil.  A bacteriologist must isolate the two we need to produce butanol as other varieties will make unwanted substances.  Nonetheless, what is found locally will already be adapted to regional conditions and better than anything that comes from a lab many miles away.  Local high school biology teachers with one course in bacteriology will be able to culture and purify Clostridium tyrobutyricum and Clostridium acetobutylicum bacteria as well as manage a development program.  Commercial cultures are available if needed or preferred.

          It is imperative to have an ongoing program of developing both the algae and bacteria as the output will drift in other outputs if left undirected.  Ten one gallon containers can handle algae cultures.  In each cycle the most vigorous sample is used to seed the next round by dumping nine cultures and dividing the best culture between the vessels for the next cycle. 

          When fermentation is complete the tank is dumped into a cooling tank in the ground where it chills to earth temperature of 10° Celsius thanks to the surroundings and heat conducting rods hammered into the surrounding earth when the tank was built.  The cooling side of a heat pump chills the “must” to 0° Celsius and 93% of the butanol separates, floating to the top where it is decanted as finished product with no further refining required.  That to be used in Diesels or jet turbines will need a quart of vegetable or petroleum oil for every 25 gallons of fuel purchased.   This is a Diesel fuel that has no sulfur and burns completely to be pollution free.

Water Demand

          The spent “must” cannot be returned to growing tanks as the residual butanol poisons algae.  With conversion of 3,360 gallons of water per day to butanol a well that produces at least 2.3 gallons per minute is needed.  Wells for single family homes routinely produce four times this so a Fuel Farm™ will not make objectionable demands on local water tables.      

No Water Included

         Unlike ethanol butanols are not miscible with water. “Miscible” means molecules are so compatible a water mixture has less volume than they do separately as their molecules intertwine.  50 ml of ethanol and 50 ml of water make only 95 ml of solution due to miscibility.  Water and ethanol are then very hard to separate.  Butanol separates completely from water when the mix is chilled to 0° Celsius.

Construction Details

          Fuel farms are built with growing and fermentation tanks cast in 20 foot concrete sections.  The first construction step is to build an underground cooling and decanting tank with a volume of 10,000 gallons, a cube 11 feet on a side.  It has large steel rods sunk five feet into the surrounding soil and jutting into the tank.  They cool the content to the earth temperature of 10 Celsius degrees quickly.  Then heat pumps reduce the temperature another 10 degrees to 0° Celsius, but no freezing is done as butanol separates well without it.  Freezing consumes enormous energy. 

          Chill separation takes only 3% as much energy as the distillation to separate ethanol from a yeast fermentation.  Each separation produces 3,360 gallons of motor fuel at a fully amortized cost of two cents per gallon over the cost of carbon dioxide which as a mandated sequestration product could be zero, or less.  By “less” we mean getting paid to take CO2.  To compete with gasoline of the 50’s and 60’s it should sell for $2.50 per gallon in this time and this leaves an enormous profit to encourage development.

Regional Economics

South of Saint Louis, where the plant operates year-round, gross sales will be over $3,000,000, but in half of the country it will be less due to cold and overcast weather down days, but nowhere will the gross be less than $1,500,000 per year assuming all product is sold.  Given the great profit margin fall and spring tank heating will be practical to extend the season in northern areas.

Construction Costs

          Where the plant is two acres of concrete castings made on site it needs 800 cubic yards of concrete at $100 per yard, the forms and labor plus the pumps, gas and other equipment and two steel two-car garage-sized service buildings.  The deep tank will take 22 yards of concrete and an elaborate form unless it is blown in place like a swimming pool. 

        A rough guess is that a crew of five men working five months could build the fuel farm with a labor cost on the order of $100,000 as only one man need be skilled.  We think $500,000 per fuel farm is possible and a $1 million budget would be very generous for a business with a very quick payback given the low cost of materials, water, CO2 gas and cultures.  Once underway the only material costs are water and carbon dioxide. “Gray water” from sewage plants or that unfit for humans from salt or alkali poison work well in algae culture.  Seawater works and floating farms have been designed as part of our SCAF patented systems. 

Financing

          On a $1 million budget putting down $200,000 and borrowing $800,000 the monthly payments would be $4,796 fully amortized over 30 years.  Labor would include two unskilled clerk or technical people, a maintenance contract with an industrial plumber, annual taxes and so on.  The facility should have a part-time science staff including a high school biology teacher with bacteriology and algae preparation or the interest to study these two areas as needed skills are simple and straight-forward for any lab-science trained person.  We will prepare a training course and test to certify fuel farm operators.

Operation

          We should have several storage tanks, but the product may be picked up every day for distribution as it will be sold every day.  This is a very   profitable venture with an immediate return on investment and ongoing revenue stream that is very attractive. 

          An ongoing algae and bacteria development system can be done with simple equipment to keep the culture on track and develop several species of algae and bacteria adapted to the locale.  Where bacteria reproduce in hours this work can produce an idealized organism very quickly when the process is well managed and the most eager version is selected for the season.  Having a stock of cultures insures against a disaster if the bacteria are ever attacked by local organism.

Liquid Solar Energy?

          Butanol is solar energy that is here now and storable. It works all the time. It can be used in our existing motor and industrial infrastructure without a penny spent on change.  It can operate on land or sea.  The marine version could supply all the fuel needed by America in one giant array 14 miles on a side floating in the quiet waters of Baja California where the sun shines year-round.

Backyard Butanol

          Could individuals have their own fuel farms?  The equipment and operations are as simple as running a flush toilet or maintaining your own septic system or swimming pool.  Where the above system produces 3,360 gallons of fuel quality butanol per day and large car uses 1,000 gallons per year we only need to make 2.73 gallons per large car per day if the system operates every day.  Thus, we only need 36 square feet of growing and six ten gallon fermentation tanks.  US Patent law permits private persons to make one such facility for personal use as long as they do not sell the product.

          With two courses of concrete block we could build tanks 4 by 9 feet, 12 inches deep from which we would skim nine gallons of algae per day, putting it into one of a bank of six fermentation tanks.  Every six days dump one of these into an underground chilling tank.  A small heat pump, room air conditioner size, would separate nearly 4 gallons of product daily.

          This system spans time accessing our beginnings for more tomorrows of virtually free, abundant, safer liquid solar energy than we have ever had from a system that is totally “American.”  The Fuel Farm™ is simple, inexpensive and now.