A Tinge of Blue
Nov 11, 2009
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This site is a huge fan of dimethyl ether, or DME, and with all the fuss over solar, wind, and even algae, DME is one option often overlooked. It's clean burning and has applications from cooking fuel to running buses and trucks. Renewable energy advocates often overlook DME, a by-product of natural gas production, coal extraction, and biomass production. While the feedstocks necessary are ubiquitous, DME often is not, except in China. One company in British Columbia, however, has ambitious plans to market DME, and will be a company to watch for the next several years.
Blue Fuel Energy, based in Sidney, BC, plans on producing one million liters of DME starting in 2014. Blue Fuel will use feedstocks including renewable energy (such as wind and hydroelectricity), water, and waste carbon dioxide from natural gas processing facilities.
Up to now DME producers have developed the fuel following a more conventional method using indirect sythesis. First, the gasification of coal or natural gas extraction provides synthesis gas (or syngas, which is hydrogen and carbon monoxide). Next, this gas is then in two steps: methanol dehydration, a two-step process that starts with methanol synthesis and ends with the result, DME.
Blue Fuel has a different technique, direct synthesis, in the works, which it says is more efficient than more traditional methods. The company’s production will mostly involve electrolysis. An electric current will run through water, decomposing it into oxygen and hydrogen gas. The company plans on using electrolyzers that Norway’s StatoilHydro will provide.
British Columbia is a location ripe for DME processing: the province has a huge hydroelectricity capacity. Its largest dam, Bennett Dam, and largest reservoir, Williston Lake, can cooperate like a giant battery because hydro and wind are highly complementary: hydro can back up the wind when the wind is light, and wind can stand in for hydro power when water levels are down or if there's a need to conserve water.
Two of Blue Fuels’ strategies stand out: first, the company is re-branding DME (which few know about) as “Blue Fuel,” giving it a competitive advantage in this market. Second, the company is pragmatic: it insists that DME can preserve petroleum for future generations. A reality we must face is that petroleum is a valuable source for creating everyday products from lubricants to plastics, and despite all we hear from the green community, these products won’t disappear or fall into oblivion anytime soon (and if we produce plastics from plant sources, we're devouring crops that would be used to feed people). So we agree with Blue Fuel: free some of those reserves from energy production, using petroleum for products that are indispensable for everyday life.
A lot can happen between now and 2014, but Blue Fuel’s long range plans may well pay off: harness a resource that everyone else is overlooking, produce your product in a region where you have plenty of feedstock, and be ready for production because oil may very well spike in price again.
What other DME projects are out there on the horizon? 