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I get the desire to turn biomass into vehicle fuel. I don't get the desire to involve hydrogen. Biomass-derived syngas has to be substantially better in energy

I get the desire to turn biomass into vehicle fuel. I don't get the desire to involve hydrogen. Biomass-derived syngas has to be substantially better in energy density and efficiency than any kind of hydrogen. The leading industrial use for hydrogen is in oil refining, so if you outcompete conventional steam reformed hydrogen on price, you're just going to make gasoline cheaper.

chimere 8y ago
(Charm Co-founder here) Ultimately our goal is large-scale CO2 removal and sequestration with biomass. This process produces an excess of energy which we can sell in various forms to fund the process. We chose to start with Hydrogen simply because it's quite easy and has a large industrial market. Also note that the largest use of hydrogen (~50%) is actually for ammonia production as fertilizer, which alone is responsible for 1-2% of global CO2e emissions. Decarbonizing that industry would be fantastic.
- jacknews 8y ago
  There's this https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/nanomembrane-based-tech-can-replace-haber-bosch-process-that-feeds-world.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/nanomembrane-based-tec... Don't mean to rain on the parade, but I am skeptical
  - thinkcontext 8y ago
    That advance is for combining hydrogen and nitrogen in order to make ammonia. This company is talking about production of hydrogen, so the technologies complement one another.
    - jacknews 8y ago
      Indeed, but they're also touting that the energy component of haber-bosch can come from complete combustion of the charcoal, which is where some (much?) of the economic incentive comes from to pay for 'geologic sequestration'. If a less energy-intensive ammonia process is used, perhaps a simpler hydrogen-generating process would be a better fit. ie, if the heat can't be used directly, is this process an economically viable way to generate hydrogen?
- mchannon 8y ago
  According to Dept. of Energy: US annual hydrogen production is approximately 10 million metric tons (1.0E+10 kg), 68% of which is used in petroleum processing. Given that worldwide production of hydrogen-derived ammonia is 140 million tons in total, compared with hydrotreated gasoline coming in at about 2000 million tons worldwide, it doesn't appear that the U.S. is an outlier. Decarbonizing the fertilizer industry would be fantastic. Wind-powered and solar-powered electrolyzers are already starting to do that job, perfect uses for intermittent energy sources. I'm skeptical that your process can realistically make more fertilizer than it consumes. I find it a little disturbing that you boast "Hydrogen's quite easy" with this little public documentation to back up your claims. Be real careful here: you don't want to be the next Theranos. You have lightning trapped in a bottle because of your luck in landing a YC slot. I encourage you to consider pivoting technologies away from anything involving hydrogen. Since you're such a big fan of ammonia, why not just go straight for that? Getting your nitrogen from the plant instead of from the air might stand a better chance to beat Haber-Bosch.
  - pkrein 8y ago
    Charm co-founder here... (1) electrolysis is much more expensive than steam methane reformation, so unfortunately I don't think it's gaining much steam as a real hydrogen production method. (2) typical ammonia fertilizer application is 0.125 tons/acre/year at a price of $500/ton = $62.50/acre/year. Our grass and gasification process yields $1,750/acre/year worth of hydrogen... so roughly a 28:1 financial return on the fertilizer input which is probably pretty close to the EROI (Energy Return on Investment) (3) To clarify "hydrogen is quite easy"... not on an absolute basis (which is quite hard), but relative to other products that could be produced. For example, you mention ammonia, but ammonia production has enormous economies of scale benefits from complex compression systems and pressure chambers... if you run the math it doesn't work out as favorably as hydrogen, and it's substantially more complex and difficult. (4) We are funded by an amazing group of angel investors, but that does not include YC.
    - mchannon 8y ago
      (1) You should check out https://wcroc.cfans.umn.edu/wcroc-news/ammonia-wind https://wcroc.cfans.umn.edu/wcroc-news/ammonia-wind (the title specifically mentions "gaining momentum"). (Bear in mind this technology works by making H2 first from electrolysis). There's a half-dozen more of these research groups. Wind and solar electrolysis are sensible because they can be placed next to ammonia consumers that currently have to have ammonia shipped in from thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, your technology is tied to CO2 injection wells, which aren't all that common outside the western US. (2) I'd love to see your math, but assuming it's not available, let me show you my math: Assume 6000 pounds per acre per year yield of wet grass. Say that's 5000 pounds dried. Model grass as 100% cellulose, which is 6% by weight hydrogen. Assume 100% process efficiency, where you get all the hydrogen out, and it's magically compressed. 300 pounds of hydrogen sounds like a lot, but according to wikipedia, is only worth about 32 cents a pound at the pipe. So my numbers show $100/acre/year. The value goes way up at the "pump", but that's because of transportation infrastructure that neither you nor your competition provide. That also assumes free injection of low-pressure waste CO2, which is not only a fantasy, but presumably ties your process to a location far away from your target market for the H2. (3) Ammonia solves your hydrogen storage and transmission problem, so my math shows it's way favorable, especially since you're triply tied to a CO2 injection site, fertile acreage to grow your grass, and an H2 consumer. Picking ammonia makes cost-effective transportation to the consumer possible. Realistically, you'd react the ammonia with CO2 to make urea, which is way better than ammonia for both transportation costs and market demand. (4) Didn't say YC funded you, but you were in their demo day, hence my mention of the YC slot.
- epaulson 8y ago
  Are there hydrogen pipelines that make it easy to sell hydrogen on a larger regional market, or will you have to deal with a ton of transport issues too?
dangrossman 8y ago
Their goal as a company isn't energy density or efficiency, it's atmospheric CO2 reduction. Their production of hydrogen displaces CO2 production by other methods, uses plant mass which is sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, and produces hydrogen fuel that can be burned or consumed in fuel cell vehicles with zero CO2 emissions. Even if it gets sold to an oil refinery in the short term, it'll have offset and sequestered CO2 compared to their previous source of hydrogen. That means the lifecycle CO2 emissions of the cars running off the resulting gasoline will be lower.
- mchannon 8y ago
  Consider the Pepsi challenge between a straight natural gas wellhead and using lawn. The natural gas tap requires no natural-gas derived fertilizer, no grid-derived irrigation, no fuel-based harvest or processing, and doesn't deplete soil of nutrients. It doesn't remove CO2 from the air but it likewise doesn't add CO2 to the air from its use of the aforementioned. Steam reforming the natural gas and then injecting the CO2 can't be any harder than charring the grass clippings and then injecting the CO2. At least corn-derived ethanol is a decent motor fuel, for all its limp efficiency numbers and carbon-positive growth cycle. If you're willing to overlook the warts of this hydrogen technology, I don't see why you're not instead advocating for corn-based ethanol. And if making green industrial hydrogen is your goal, PV-powered electrolyzers can outperform this in process efficiency, complexity, scalability, and deployment cost, all without consuming fertilizer, (as much) water, or depleting soil.

chimere 8y ago

(Charm Co-founder here) Ultimately our goal is large-scale CO2 removal and sequestration with biomass. This process produces an excess of energy which we can sell in various forms to fund the process. We chose to start with Hydrogen simply because it's quite easy and has a large industrial market. Also note that the largest use of hydrogen (~50%) is actually for ammonia production as fertilizer, which alone is responsible for 1-2% of global CO2e emissions. Decarbonizing that industry would be fantastic.

jacknews 8y ago
There's this https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/nanomembrane-based-tech-can-replace-haber-bosch-process-that-feeds-world.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/nanomembrane-based-tec... Don't mean to rain on the parade, but I am skeptical
- thinkcontext 8y ago
  That advance is for combining hydrogen and nitrogen in order to make ammonia. This company is talking about production of hydrogen, so the technologies complement one another.
  - jacknews 8y ago
    Indeed, but they're also touting that the energy component of haber-bosch can come from complete combustion of the charcoal, which is where some (much?) of the economic incentive comes from to pay for 'geologic sequestration'. If a less energy-intensive ammonia process is used, perhaps a simpler hydrogen-generating process would be a better fit. ie, if the heat can't be used directly, is this process an economically viable way to generate hydrogen?
mchannon 8y ago
According to Dept. of Energy: US annual hydrogen production is approximately 10 million metric tons (1.0E+10 kg), 68% of which is used in petroleum processing. Given that worldwide production of hydrogen-derived ammonia is 140 million tons in total, compared with hydrotreated gasoline coming in at about 2000 million tons worldwide, it doesn't appear that the U.S. is an outlier. Decarbonizing the fertilizer industry would be fantastic. Wind-powered and solar-powered electrolyzers are already starting to do that job, perfect uses for intermittent energy sources. I'm skeptical that your process can realistically make more fertilizer than it consumes. I find it a little disturbing that you boast "Hydrogen's quite easy" with this little public documentation to back up your claims. Be real careful here: you don't want to be the next Theranos. You have lightning trapped in a bottle because of your luck in landing a YC slot. I encourage you to consider pivoting technologies away from anything involving hydrogen. Since you're such a big fan of ammonia, why not just go straight for that? Getting your nitrogen from the plant instead of from the air might stand a better chance to beat Haber-Bosch.
- pkrein 8y ago
  Charm co-founder here... (1) electrolysis is much more expensive than steam methane reformation, so unfortunately I don't think it's gaining much steam as a real hydrogen production method. (2) typical ammonia fertilizer application is 0.125 tons/acre/year at a price of $500/ton = $62.50/acre/year. Our grass and gasification process yields $1,750/acre/year worth of hydrogen... so roughly a 28:1 financial return on the fertilizer input which is probably pretty close to the EROI (Energy Return on Investment) (3) To clarify "hydrogen is quite easy"... not on an absolute basis (which is quite hard), but relative to other products that could be produced. For example, you mention ammonia, but ammonia production has enormous economies of scale benefits from complex compression systems and pressure chambers... if you run the math it doesn't work out as favorably as hydrogen, and it's substantially more complex and difficult. (4) We are funded by an amazing group of angel investors, but that does not include YC.
  - mchannon 8y ago
    (1) You should check out https://wcroc.cfans.umn.edu/wcroc-news/ammonia-wind https://wcroc.cfans.umn.edu/wcroc-news/ammonia-wind (the title specifically mentions "gaining momentum"). (Bear in mind this technology works by making H2 first from electrolysis). There's a half-dozen more of these research groups. Wind and solar electrolysis are sensible because they can be placed next to ammonia consumers that currently have to have ammonia shipped in from thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, your technology is tied to CO2 injection wells, which aren't all that common outside the western US. (2) I'd love to see your math, but assuming it's not available, let me show you my math: Assume 6000 pounds per acre per year yield of wet grass. Say that's 5000 pounds dried. Model grass as 100% cellulose, which is 6% by weight hydrogen. Assume 100% process efficiency, where you get all the hydrogen out, and it's magically compressed. 300 pounds of hydrogen sounds like a lot, but according to wikipedia, is only worth about 32 cents a pound at the pipe. So my numbers show $100/acre/year. The value goes way up at the "pump", but that's because of transportation infrastructure that neither you nor your competition provide. That also assumes free injection of low-pressure waste CO2, which is not only a fantasy, but presumably ties your process to a location far away from your target market for the H2. (3) Ammonia solves your hydrogen storage and transmission problem, so my math shows it's way favorable, especially since you're triply tied to a CO2 injection site, fertile acreage to grow your grass, and an H2 consumer. Picking ammonia makes cost-effective transportation to the consumer possible. Realistically, you'd react the ammonia with CO2 to make urea, which is way better than ammonia for both transportation costs and market demand. (4) Didn't say YC funded you, but you were in their demo day, hence my mention of the YC slot.
epaulson 8y ago
Are there hydrogen pipelines that make it easy to sell hydrogen on a larger regional market, or will you have to deal with a ton of transport issues too?

dangrossman 8y ago

Their goal as a company isn't energy density or efficiency, it's atmospheric CO2 reduction. Their production of hydrogen displaces CO2 production by other methods, uses plant mass which is sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, and produces hydrogen fuel that can be burned or consumed in fuel cell vehicles with zero CO2 emissions. Even if it gets sold to an oil refinery in the short term, it'll have offset and sequestered CO2 compared to their previous source of hydrogen. That means the lifecycle CO2 emissions of the cars running off the resulting gasoline will be lower.

mchannon 8y ago
Consider the Pepsi challenge between a straight natural gas wellhead and using lawn. The natural gas tap requires no natural-gas derived fertilizer, no grid-derived irrigation, no fuel-based harvest or processing, and doesn't deplete soil of nutrients. It doesn't remove CO2 from the air but it likewise doesn't add CO2 to the air from its use of the aforementioned. Steam reforming the natural gas and then injecting the CO2 can't be any harder than charring the grass clippings and then injecting the CO2. At least corn-derived ethanol is a decent motor fuel, for all its limp efficiency numbers and carbon-positive growth cycle. If you're willing to overlook the warts of this hydrogen technology, I don't see why you're not instead advocating for corn-based ethanol. And if making green industrial hydrogen is your goal, PV-powered electrolyzers can outperform this in process efficiency, complexity, scalability, and deployment cost, all without consuming fertilizer, (as much) water, or depleting soil.