Article

Renewed optimism

Consider a newly discovered molecule that offers hope for the nation’s energy future – a clean, safe, efficient and portable fuel with an existing infrastructure. It is introduced to national energy officials who glow about its potential.

“They’d say, ‘Wow, that’s fantastic. How did we miss that?’” says Larry Osgood, president of Consulting Solutions LLC. “You tell them it’s propane, and they’d say, ‘Oh, come on. Not boring, old propane? That’s not exciting enough for us to be interested in.”

Osgood, a research and development consultant with the Propane Education & Research Council (PERC), created the analogy to show how propane is often overlooked on a national energy stage, especially when compared to “more exotic” fuels such as ethanol and hydrogen.

But that could soon change.

Research is under way that could alter the entire U.S. propane industry, enhance its image on a political and national scale, and cement its legacy as a renewable, sustainable fuel. PERC contracted with Gas Technology Institute (GTI) in 2009 to analyze synthetic LPG and bio-LPG. A preliminary report was completed in November and introduced at the council meeting in December in Houston.

“It was one of the most expansive reports I’ve read in a long time,” said industry veteran Sam McTier, a PERC board member. “It was filled with knowledge on the concept of biopropane and the whole works. They have a man [GTI’s Dr. Arun Basu] who knows what’s going on in the rest of the world. It was very exciting and extremely well done.”

Charles Snelling, son of propane founder Walter Snelling and a PERC board member, is a proponent of fundamental, long-term industry research. He says he wrote a letter about two years ago to fellow board members, advocating research on such a topic. He says the project has tremendous potential, especially in light of ethanol’s struggles.

“Ethanol’s experience has been a disaster. Its carbon footprint is not all that good and its energy balance is all but negative,” Snelling says. “Propane has a very desirable footprint and we already have the infrastructure. There is limited infrastructure for natural gas buses, and there are very few hydrogen gas stations. But there are propane pipelines all over the world and country.”

Snelling says two main factors are driving and changing energy decisions in the United States today: the focus on carbon footprint and energy independence. It’s led to an emphasis on biofuels, which are produced from renewable sources such as biomass, vegetable oils and waste. Bio-LPG could be made this way, from waste and fodder, cornhusks and grasses – things not requiring tillage. Researchers, however, have focused more on those “exotic” fuels as the solution and not so much on propane.

“We’ve always had enough propane – and we still have enough – for all of our market needs in the United States,” Osgood says. “As a result, there hasn’t been a lot of research work, especially in the United States, in producing propane synthetically. We’re just trucking along, delivering propane every day, and nobody is thinking about propane in the future fuels policy discussion. In that discussion, we get left out, and we’re not being viewed as renewable and sustainable. But don’t penalize us just because we’re doing a good job and have plenty of fuel today.”

PERC hopes to bring propane back into that conversation with its research project, paying GTI about $100,000. Four key tasks were identified in the report, including the evaluation of methods to produce synthetic LPG and bio-LPG and to provide scoping economics for specific technologies.

The analysis aimed to recommend a strategy for full-scale commercial production of synthetic LPG and bio-LPG. It also set out to identify major risks and uncertainties, provide guidance on new technology requirements and analyze current key government programs in the area.

Unlike the current process of getting propane from crude oil refining and natural gas processing, synthetic LPG can be made from other materials that are chemically altered. Propane molecules don’t exist in the process, but instead they are manufactured by manipulating other similar molecules. Osgood describes the process as breaking up big molecules and reforming smaller ones until the desired end-result is reached.

Dimethyl ether (DME) is a type of synthetic LPG and a focus of the PERC study. Stored and transported like propane, DME is attracting worldwide attention as a supplement or alternative for LPG as well as for diesel and LNG applications.

DME is blended into propane and used as an extender, making propane more available. China is one of the countries already making DME from coal. The PERC study is exploring how other countries are using DME and at what concentrations it’s blended with propane.

While synthetic propane (only as a byproduct) and DME can be made commercially using coal, petroleum coke or natural gas, commercial production technologies for bio-LPG and bio-DME remain three to seven years away, Basu says.

“The nice part is a synthetic or bio-product would look just like our propane looks today,” Osgood says. “When you’re putting in new stoves or furnaces, or doing research into CHP systems, none of that has to go away. If and when we need to substitute with synthetic fuel, it just moves into the system as needed and nothing changes.”

Snelling adds, “I certainly think if we were to have successful practical processes of making propane from waste biomass, we wouldn’t try to dump that propane on existing markets. We would try to get the people who care about carbon footprint to say, ‘We want to use propane …’”

Research on synthetic LPG and bio-LPG could be met with skepticism, especially in terms of supply issues, Osgood recognizes.

“We’re not saying we need to produce volumes of propane today or next year or even in the near term,” he says. “But if we don’t validate (that) we are renewable and sustainable, we will continue to be left out of the longer-term energy policy discussion on where the United States should go with its energy policy.”

McTier adds, “The industry is probably slow to accept it from the start, but if we are going to get there down the line, we need to spend the money on the research now and find out the facts about the market so we can make intelligent decisions.”

Greg Kerr, director of research and development for PERC, notes that a fuel with a renewable component could also receive tax advantages from government.

According to preliminary results from the study, three near-term technologies have been identified to produce synthetic LPG. ExxonMobil’s methanol-to-gasoline process, using coal or natural gas, is a proven technology to produce LPG as a byproduct. Haldor Topsoe is developing a competing process (TIGAS) to produce gasoline (plus LPG) from coal, natural gas or biomass. And several technologies have been commercialized to produce DME from coal or natural gas. A handful of long-term process concepts to produce synthetic or bio-LPG also were identified for further evaluation.

“The processes that make synthetic gasoline typically have a significant fraction of propane that comes off as well,” Osgood says. “When we make other synthetic fuels, some of those processes may give us propane as well.

“These volumes might be in the thousands of gallons to perhaps a few million gallons per year if the production of bio- and syn-fuels grows for other reasons than needing the propane. So if the U.S. starts making hundreds of millions of gallons of other bio- and syn-fuels, I hope we will get many millions of gallons of propane as a side benefit.”

PERC’s Research and Development Advisory Committee is currently reviewing the final report and developing the proposed next steps. The analysis is heavy on DME, and more details are sought on LPG, the report states. An update on the project is expected at the April meeting in Atlanta.

“More interest in biopropane is just what the doctor ordered,” Snelling says.