Volvo announces bio-dimethyl ether partnership
Dimethyl ether (DME) is one of those fuels that is not well known to the general public but is should be, if for no other reason than it promises up to 95 percent carbon neutrality. According to Wikipedia and my Chemistry 101 book, it's a clean-burning gas that can be sourced from renewable materials. In the case of a project leaded by Volvo, the source is something called "black liquor," an energy-rich, highly viscous by-product of the paper pulp industry. The Volvo project uses 14 Volvo FH trucks that will be tested by selected customers at four locations in different parts of Sweden between 2010 and 2012 at four oil company Preem stations. Four tons of bio-DME per day will be made at the Smurfit Kappa Kraftliner pulp plant. DME takes the liquid form at just 5 bar pressure, so it can be used in place of LPG. Potential uses of bio-sourced DME include mixing it with LPG itself to create "bio-LPG." Learn more in this video.
[Source: Volvo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Swede 12:56PM (9/22/2009)
Yay
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Carney 3:00PM (9/22/2009)
This is very good news.
DME is made from methanol, which can be made from coal, natural gas, or any biomass without exception, (including black liquor).
Since black liquor is an environmental problem, turning into clean burning fuel is a real boon for mankind.
DME is preferable to bio-diesel for the following reasons:
While bio-diesel emits less smoke, soot, and particulate matter (SSPM, the source of smog) than petro-diesel, DME emits no SSPM at all.
Also, DME fits better than bio-diesel into an overall strategy to move beyond petroleum.
First, by encouraging the growth of the methanol industry, it helps provide more methanol, which by itself can be an alternate fuel for ordinary cars and light-duty trucks to replace gasoline with. (And the transition to it is easy if we simply mandate that all new cars solid in America be fully flex-fueled, able to run as easily on any alcohol fuel including methanol as on gasoline - the tech for this has existed for years, is reliable, and costs $130 per car).
Second, just as methanol is a feedstock for DME, DME in turn can be an alternate to petroleum as a feedstock for the production of polyethylene and polypropylene, the two most important plastics, used in every imaginable capacity and product. Breaking the oil cartel's control over this market would be a useful coup de grace after breaking their vertical monopoly over transportation fuel.
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Thunderbuck 4:39PM (9/22/2009)
This is an awesome idea. I've always liked the concept of bio-diesel, but low-temperature gelling is a problem. I wonder if this fuel would have the same issue?
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Chris M 12:03AM (9/23/2009)
According to Wikipedia, DME actually has a higher Cetane number than petro-Diesel, so it is a better diesel fuel than diesel is! Being clean burning, with no particulate emissions makes it even better. The only major downsides is that it is a gas that must be stored under pressure to liquify it, it requires specially designed fuel injectors, and it has limited infrastructure for refueling.
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Carney 11:10AM (9/24/2009)
Right, and it has roughly half the energy content. But that can be remedied with bigger fuel tanks or twice as many of them.
Also, IIRC, it can't be used in a flex fuel type situation where a vehicle is agnostic about whether it's running on DME or petro. The other downsides (the need for pressure, limited infrastructure) are similar to those of natural gas, and since another alternative (alcohol fuels) to NG exists I promote alcohol instead of NG as a fuel for light duty (non diesel class) vehicles. But since there isn't a liquid fuel diesel class option that is better than DME (see my post above as to why it beats bio-diesel), it's what we have to go with.
I think the infrastructure issue can be a real problem. It can be solved incrementally, most importantly by government.
First, government can make DME its only fuel for diesel-class vehicles, at least in the civilian sector. Amtrak could switch to DME trains for non-electrified service outside the Northeast Corridor. The feds could then make switching to DME a condition of further support for state and local government transportation, so that commuter rail, transit buses, garbage and fire trucks, and school buses get converted or replaced. In fact, school buses are an ideal target for rapid changeover because so few are used in the summer, so a mass conversion can happen then without great disruption (and could count as a stimulus). With so many urban kids suffering from asthma, a clean burning bus would be a nice to have. Such fleet vehicles would have a DME refueling station at their depot or garage, perhaps with the intention of later opening that station to the public.
Second, the government can begin to mandate that its contractors, such as construction firms, use DME diesel in their work for government contracts, and later for all their work (similar to requirements for non-discrimination).
Third, the usual taxes, subsidies, and regulatory breaks can be used to disadvantage petro diesel relative to DME and to encourage fuel retailers and vehicle makers to embrace it.
SundownSlim 11:30AM (9/24/2009)
There is some real opportunity here, but a lot of unanswered questions. The black liquor comes from harvesting of forests for fuel. Let's repeat, black liquor comes from forests that have been cooked with chemicals. To market it as carbon neutral is deliberately misleading. There are carbon emissions from forestry, especially from the most intensive, irresponsible methods. And how can we ensure that this new technology will not result in the loss of carbon rich, natural, wild forests due to land conversion to produce the fuel from plantations? Several articles in Science magazine this year have warned as much with compelling evidence. Could someone please tell me where the safety net is? I do not assert this technology is "bad" and should not be pursued but to claim 95-100% carbon neutrality does the world a great injustice.
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Carney 3:23PM (9/28/2009)
Black liquor comes from paper mills, not from people using firewood or wood as fuel in some other way. And we'll be using paper for a very very long time, perhaps forever. Turning the inevitably resulting black liquor into a fuel that helps replace petroleum seems to be a no-brainer to me.