Rogers tours bioenergy lab at AU, local projects

Rep. Mike Rogers didn’t find a magic alternative to oil during his tour of Auburn University’s Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts. Instead, the brief visit offered a glimpse of technology that could make bioenergy production more reliable and practical.
Rogers, who helped secure approximately $1.5 million in federal funding for biofuels research at AU, watched a demonstration of the fractionation lab Tuesday.
“I have been a big believer in it for years,” Rogers said of alternative energy research. “Global competition for oil is a loser for us.”
Steven Taylor, director of the center, sees fractionation as a potential cornerstone of future biofuels refinement, a first step to produce intermediary feedstocks as uniform as corn kernels for further refining.
The lab is devoted to chemically breaking down biomass like wood chips or peanut hulls into basic parts like cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, which can be further refined into fuels, according to Taylor.
It’s a process that would be practical on an industrial level, Taylor said. The lab uses anywhere from 25 to 50 pounds of feedstock a day for fractionation. An industrial operation might use hundreds or thousands of tons daily, Taylor estimated.
“It’s not something that average Joe has in the backyard or their farm,” he said.
Unlike corn, which is a relatively compact, high-energy feedstock, the fuel sources the center is studying are more problematic.
“We are so far from that,” Taylor said. “None of them are very easy to handle.”
That’s part of why the industry is struggling, according to Taylor.
Each feedstock conversion requires a different mix of chemicals and processing.
“It’s more of an art than a science,” Taylor said.
Refineries must be designed to process specific biomass sources, which may only be available seasonally.
“It’s not a real efficient system,” Taylor said.
Larry Fillmer, executive director of the Natural Resources Management and Development Institute, said the lab’s research fits into a larger quest for a standardized fuel supply. The cellulose and other fundamental components could be processed into manageable forms like pellets or bricks.
“If we could create a commodity product that you can buy and sell at any time of the year, your plants can become more streamlined,” Taylor said.
Once designs are standardized around processing an intermediary stock produced by fractionation, biofuel refineries could be built and operated just about anywhere.
That standardization would also decrease costs.
Technologies to produce biodiesel or synthetic fuels aren’t new, according to Taylor. Petroleum shortages during WWII forced countries to ration or produce alternative fuels.
“The cost effectiveness has always been a challenge,” Taylor said. “In a sense, we’re still pecking away at the same problem.”