 Aloha. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, the Biofuels in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Kampanya. We invite you to join us each week as we explore biofuels in Hawaii and engage with our interviews with some of the various local stakeholders to learn about policy, feedstock and conversion processes, and more. You can also visit and contribute your thoughts on the Hawaii Green Fuels Initiative Facebook page, so please look for that. Over the past few weeks, we have done an introduction into biofuels, what are biofuels and how does that work, and I hope you've enjoyed learning as much as I have along the way. Last week, I had the opportunity to attend an alternative aviation fuel workshop in Macon, Georgia, the first time I'd ever been to Macon. This event was coordinated by the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, or CAFE, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, the U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, and the Bioenergy Technologies Office, or BITO, and it was sponsored by an amazing company called Landsatek. We'll talk about them a little bit more later. This workshop was intended to provide DOE, BITO, and USDA with a glance at where the industry is currently, as well as provide next-step pathways for the advancement of the bioeconomy biofuel industry. The focus was on several facets. First, there was the Technoeconomic Assessments, or TEAs. Then there was the Life Cycle Assessments, or LCAAs. There was scale-up opportunity, as well as ensuring a robust feedstock and product supply chain. I will now provide you with an update from that workshop. We'll have various pictures that we'll be able to put up, and we'll talk about them as we can, but mostly it's good just to see the images that are relevant and related to what we're talking about as well. So the image we have here is ASTM. These are the national standards. So ASTM specifically for jet fuels, 1655, D1655. That's a specific specification standard that was set worldwide for all jet fuel aviation that we're looking at. So that's what we're trying to create our biofuels out of. So we want the process, whether they be sugars, or it be cellulosics, or woody biomass in various forms, whether algae, we want them all to be able to get to the point where they can be direct replacements or drop-ins for petroleum fuel, for commercial aviation, which also would include various other forms of transportation. So okay, through this workshop we identified several challenges in the effort to advance a bioeconomy. One of the first was proof of concept for the private sector engagement. So what we need there is we need the private sector to be able to see that the industry is ready for investment. We need them to see that we have technologies and that we have selected biomass that can produce an effective and with some support, some subsidy and tax credit support, can create a cost-effective alternative to petroleum. So that's what needs to be done. So that leads us to the next challenge, which was cost affordability. So how much does it cost? How much does it cost to produce and grow it, to harvest it? Is there a pre-processing fee? What is the cost in the conversion process and transportation process on both sides and all sides of that? Are there storage capabilities with that? And then also finally, what is the end cost to the end user, whether it be an airline or you in your car? So cost and affordability throughout the entire supply chain need to be assessed. Then there's looking at the maturation of a comprehensive supply chain, recognizing what were the choices? Have there been choices? How do we leave from one feedstock to a fuel? And what is involved in that? And how has each step of that market been developed and is it ready to advance? These are all important steps to that. Along with that comes scale-up. So scale-up means economy of scale in essence. What we've got with scale-up is you prove your concept, you have a pilot project, you've just been able to show that I can demonstrate how I can utilize this plant and convert it into this fuel at this scale. Well, how do you then bring the investment in, the land in, and everything necessary, the technology to grow so that it can then produce the operational volumes that are really needed for the industry? One of those, I guess, markers is to produce a million tons per day. So if we're able to get to that point, then we know that we're able to make a significant dent in what is otherwise a petroleum-based industry. So, okay, back to ASTM for a minute. ASTM has several pathways with regards to biofuels. So with the biofuels, there are currently five blend stocks that are ASTM approved. So there are various pathways that lead from being able to utilize one feedstock through one process to create a fuel that is accepted and approved by ASTM standards so it can be utilized. There are currently five blend stocks that are approved since 2009. There are 18 more pathways that are currently under development and under review, and we're hoping that each of them will create more of an opportunity. Next, we get to the idea of blend stock, blend stock versus replacement. Blend stock means that we're taking some percentage of the biofuel that we're creating and blending it with petroleum. So some of you have seen E85 or E15 or various forms of fuels, and those include some percentages of ethanol in most cases. So that's what we're talking about. Some percentage of biofuels that gets blended into petroleum. Now that is put in contrast to what is ultimately the goal, which is a direct replacement or drop-in fuel. So no change is necessary to any technology on any level of it, to any machinery at any level of it. It's literally, yesterday I put in petroleum fuel, today I'm putting in biofuel, and it works and it operates exactly the same with no challenges from operation or maintenance side. So one of the other challenges that finally perhaps the most important, what I would consider one of the more important, anyway, challenges is we have very little local and national policy that is directing this, that's helping us to achieve these goals. So that comes in the form of policy initiatives and tax credits of various types. Crop insurance. Now what we get is I was talking with one of the members from the USDA and they said, well, I constantly get a farmer asking me, well, what should I grow? And his answer is, whatever you can sell. So at the end of the day, we need to be able to create the policy that will say, if you grow this, we can process this and we can sell it. And that's what needs to be created within all of that. So these are the challenges that we have and policy is a big piece of that. So, okay, now, those are the challenges. We were also able to define some next step proposals. What to do next? What can we do? And one thing is based on, you know, the building off of what I just said, all agreed that the creation of a lobbying force to collaborate with and create or increase local to national policy initiatives would speed up the development of the industry. At the moment it's sort of a snail's pace. It's based on what people really have a passion about, how they're developing their technologies, how they're developing their processes in order to be more efficient and they're refining it as they go. However, with some investment in the form of tax credits and so forth where we get the investor class or the venture capital entities to come and get involved, much more money gets put into the system so that we're able to advance it more quickly. So that, again, goes back to that piece. The next step of that is defining the markets and realizing that each step of the supply chain has its own market to be developed. So what happens in that instance is, okay, if I'm growing this plant, who am I going to sell it to? Well, maybe I've got one place to put it. Maybe I only have one sales channel. Well, maybe this product has more than one sales channel and now we have competition for that particular product. So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, that is to be determined to some extent and when it comes to volume, that's really where we end up determining and dictating how that is going to then best be moved forward because the producer wants to be paid the most amount possible. Each step in the process wants to be paid as well. So as we go through that process, we need to make sure that those numbers make sense and get close to what we're currently paying and hopefully ultimately will be less than what we currently pay for fuel. So, okay, the process once again includes production, which is growing, and then harvesting that production and then storing it. It has to be stored in one capacity or another prior to its movement. There's a pre-processing piece of it that needs to be doubled. So once we've harvested it, once we've ripped it out of the ground, what needs to be done to it? Does it need to be cleaned? Does it need to be put into water and soaked? Does it need some other chemical treating or processing in order to make it available or better or more efficient for the conversion process into a fuel? And then, how do we transport? How do we transport it from the field to a storage facility? How do we transport it from storage to pre-processing? How do we transport it from there to our conversion technologies? And then so on. So transportation is a huge piece of that. The conversion piece is technologies that are currently, as we speak, being developed and being refined. And there are many of them. They use municipal solid waste, off gases from industrial manufacturing. Those are two extraordinary ones. In fact, that's what Lancetec does. In addition to that, we have the algae farms and we have all of the biofuels that we're talking about in regards to woody biomass or grasses, local grasses in Hawaii would be native grasses in particular. So that all needs to be looked at. And then how do we convert that? And what are the technologies that are best able to convert that? And then once it's been converted and it becomes a fuel, now we need to transport it again and get it prepared for distribution, for retail, for consumption. So that's the entire process there. I know we've gone over that in the past, but it's getting more and more clear and more and more refined as we go. So, okay, another piece. Another good piece of this is going back a number of years, there was EISA, which was an Environmental Impact Act that was created out of the White House in the past. And within that, there is a decarbonization timeline. And that timeline suggests that we need to achieve 80% reduction in carbon by the year 2050. An important piece of that is we need to have a roadmap defined and we need to have it defined by 2030. So we're not talking too far away, really. We're talking about 15 years where we need to have this roadmap fully defined and functional in order for us to be able to achieve that 80% goal. In order to achieve that, there's a number of things that we need, and that includes outreach and education, that includes generating social and market analysis with community input. We need to create a global database for every type of drop-in, or every job and every type of alternative jet fuel and add to that what's called a renewable identification number. We need to assign all of this per gallon with a number. So we know where it came from, who produced it, what type it is, what specification it hits, and who can use it and move on from there. Other thoughts were, okay, well, we can focus on sugars. Well, we are waiting for the cellulosics to be developed. Some say that we can do that, others say, well, we can't do that. Here in Hawaii, we can't actually use sugars. One thing, the sugar plantations have closed down, and for another thing, there are several steps in the process that become too costly to make it affordable for Hawaii. In particular, bringing the enzymes in to Hawaii will cost more to bring the appropriate quantities of enzymes in in order to create this process to create the fuel. So in Hawaii, creating ethanol through sugars isn't actually financially viable or feasible. So one of the things, one of the concerns that we have. So, okay, that was a whole lot of information, and hopefully there's some good pictures that we've been able to see in there where there's going to be some more coming. But we're going to take a quick break. We'll go to a quick commercial, and we'll see you on the other side. Thank you. Looking to energize your Friday afternoon? Tune in to Stand the Energyman at 12 noon. Aloha Friday here on Big Tech Hoy. Good afternoon, Howard Wigg, the host of Code Green for thinktechhawaii.com. I appear on Mondays at three in the afternoon, and my gig is energy efficiency. That is the cleanest, quickest, safest way that we're going to get down to 100% clean energy by the year 2045. And that's not that far away, but it is doable. Just join me, Mondays three o'clock. Aloha. Aloha, I'm Kirsten Baumgart, Turner, host of Sustainable Hawaii. Thanks for watching thinktech this summer. We have a lot of terrific shows of great importance, and I hope you'll watch my show too every Tuesday at noon as we address sustainability issues for Hawaii. They're really pertinent as the World Conservation Congress approaches in September and the World Youth Congress that's focusing on sustainability next year as well. Have a great summer and tune in at noon every Tuesday. Aloha, and welcome back to thinktechhawaii's Movershakers and Informers, the Biofuels and Hawaiians series. So, okay, we were just talking about some of the possibility, some of the next-step processes that we have. And we were talking about, okay, focusing on sugars. Well, in Hawai'i, we can't focus on sugar, so we just mentioned why. The enzymes are too expensive to import. Importing is a big key here as we also import oil. So, okay, another aspect of what we can do, some other thoughts of what we can do to help advance this is apply what's called a consortium approach so that we have shared or minimized risks because at the moment, no one wants to put their money or their effort into something that isn't going to then turn out to be something and they'll have a loss. So, how do we share that? How do we create better opportunities, better environment to move that along? In addition to that, one thing that's important that hasn't really been done thoroughly and there's a lot of reasons why, but we need to provide a side-by-side assessment of biofuel costs compared with petroleum costs while also taking petroleum subsidies into account. So, that's one of the challenges that we have. So, there are very few, very little subsidies or tax credits or any support for the biofuels industry, very little. In Hawaii, we just recently passed Act 202 that provides some of that. Well, the oil industry, the petroleum industry has had generations' worth of subsidies. So, the cost of the fuel that we buy on average across the country is about $2 per gallon is what we pay at the pump. Well, that's based on the continuation of these petroleum subsidies. Well, we need to have that side-by-side comparison to see if we took those subsidies out, how much would petroleum fuel actually cost compared to biofuels, and that would be a really important way to really assess that to see what we're doing and how we're moving forward with that. Okay, another step, another thing that would be a really important part to do is create a cost assessment throughout the supply chain of feedstock type with the potential conversion technology leading to specific fuel types, impacts of potential policy incentives, and so forth. So, how do we pull all that together and how do we move that forward? Another piece of that is we need to, as we go through the development of these, we need to make each fuel molecule able to be blended in and fit in at any point in the supply chain. So, as we really take a look at the whole process, the whole supply chain, we're trying to get those molecules ready. What do we have to do and what are each steps in order to make that available for that? And then one other piece that's important, and this was one big thing that I learned last week, is there are various databases and resources at the moment, but unfortunately at the moment, they're not tied together, they're not linked, they're not collaborative. So, we need to tie together these various existing resources and databases, including the Department of Energy's Bioenergy Feedstock Library, the Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework, or KDF, and the Feedstock Readiness Level Tool. And if we do this, the goals would be several. First of all, we would be able to connect to the ongoing work. So, who's doing what and where and how, and how can we share in that information? How can we then integrate all the various stakeholders, producers, technologies, and agencies, and so forth into what's happening in a more comprehensive way, so that we then have collaboration and data sharing so that we can achieve more quicker. This would also help us provide snapshots for current and future funding flow to help advance these processes as well. So, okay, at this workshop, and I'll try to go through this a little quicker than I am at the moment, at this workshop we also discussed what's called techno-economic assessment, so the TEA as I mentioned. This quantifies fuel production costs for comparison to the cost of petroleum-derived jet fuels we were just mentioning that. So that's something that's being done, and we're trying to figure out how to best do that, as well as discussing the life cycle assessment, or LCA, which quantifies, and this is important, which quantifies greenhouse gas emissions of full fuel supply chain to estimate net climate change benefit of alternative jet fuels versus petroleum-derived jet fuels. Taking into account, of course, emission sources involved with various steps of the process, including extraction, the movement of the crude, the refining of it, again, the movement of the crude as well. One of the things that is used, one of the models that is used in order to assess this is called the GREET model, and this was created on the Argonne National Laboratory, which calculates energy use, greenhouse gases, air pollutants, and water consumption. Further, this whole process includes assessing land use changes and how that impacts environmentally. Climate carbon reduction policies, if they are there or not, and how that impacts. The Global Trade Analysis Project, or GTAP, which has been defined by Purdue University, and that gets into the whole supply chain piece of it as well, and then, of course, implementing and utilizing the renewable identification numbers, which can also be very important. The next step that we got to, we didn't talk about, okay, how do we scale this up? We've built little projects out there, and they're all doing great in various ways. How do we scale it up? How do we achieve million gallons, or million pounds, or million tons per day? That's what it is, million tons per day. How do we do the conversion site production radius? What that means is, where are we putting these sites? Where are we growing it, and where are we putting the conversion technologies? How close to the farms are we putting these, and where do they go? Really, what this comes down to is there's a demand for jet fuels, which focuses around major airport hubs and military bases. Okay, we know roughly where we want to put them, and the shorter the distance all of this stuff has to travel, the less expensive it gets. Okay, then we have feedstock type and density, which means the location. We have feedstock type and density, which means weight. So there's location and weight, and how that's being assessed and how that's being accommodated. We have size of the refinery and depoing capacity, so how it's being moved, how big it is, so how much is being produced, and how much is being distributed outward. There are distance regulations based on intertake commerce laws as well. So how can some of this be done, and how can some standards be set up, based on some of the regulation challenges that we have from state to state. Then there's social and political will. How do we create local incentives, and how do we get the general public to agree that these incentives are relevant and they're important and they're necessary, even though it might cost us a tiny bit more right now, in the long run it's going to be better for us. How do we socialize that? How do we get that through? How do we communicate that? And then there's the rural development and the needs for our rural communities and the opportunities there for jobs and for other growth opportunities, farming and so forth. Then there's how do we assess and how do we incorporate what's called low capital or capital light opportunity. So that's like low hanging fruit, what costs us the least that we can move forward on. Then we're looking at market flexibility and diversification, current takeoff agreements and what those costs are. We're talking to accommodate greenhouse gases, water use and quality, crop development, invasive species. Well then there's the challenge taking food and feed, potentially out of production for biofuels. I don't think that's necessary. I think they can go side by side. I think we have enough land to do that. And then there's habitat gain and loss. Ecosystem function changes. So now that we're putting this in, well okay, how is that impact everything around it? And that's something that needs to be understood. What is the yield growth and land expansion or double cropping? What are we doing in order to increase what our supply is? And so how are we assessing that? And this all comes into play. And that includes this terminology, intensification, which the intensification of biofuels would lower greenhouse gases versus the extensification, which would higher greenhouse gases. So how we assess these and how we advance this supply chain and how we advance this industry can impact in those ways. How are we minimizing and eliminating costs? How are we assessing the cost of feedstock and one way of looking at that is how we understand low cost feedstocks equals consistent and reliable availability. So okay, finally we'll hit this piece here. Then we explore the supply chain itself. We've talked about the supply chain in various times. But now what we've got is cultivation, production, harvest, storage, transport, pre-processing, conversion, again transportation and then consumption. All understanding that the pre-processing can actually take place after harvest after storage, after transport, various phases of that. Then there's standardization and commercialization of the ASTM approved pathways. We need more of them so we can have more fuels and more possibilities to advance forward. So in order to achieve that we need proof of concept. So again from the beginning of what we were talking about in order to capture the needed funding we need proof of concept. Okay, we also generated some questions and recommendations along the way, such as defining which feedstocks produce which fuel types. Based on which conversion technology and process. Is it a blend or a drop-in replacement? How much of each crop needs to be or can be harvested per acre in order to reach the industry production goals of 1 million tons per day? How is it or can it be stored and transported at each phase of that supply chain? What pre-processing is needed prior to conversion is there a post-conversion process needed as well? How and when within the chain does product ownership change hands? Before or after pre-processing? Before or after conversion or distribution? At what point does the actual ownership of the product change hands? Then we consider what policies might be needed. Green fuel initiatives. Feedstock production subsidies, tax credits per acre. Conversion tax credits. Carbon credits and greenhouse gas emission reduction credits. Crop insurance. Specific land set-asides. They can be put specifically to a jobs program for ag and manufacturing sectors. These are all important ways of trying to advance this. In addition to the workshop, and I'll try to fit this in real quick, in addition to the workshop, we also got to visit with a sponsor, Landsitec. There's going to be some pictures we drew for an hour outside of Macon, Georgia to their site where we learned how they are making jet fuel by converting industrial off-gases using their proprietary technology. It has been dubbed, I guess, waste-to-wing, is what they refer to it as, and it's extraordinary. So let me clarify that a bit. They're collecting industrial off-gases or emissions like CO2 from steel mills, for example. Municipal solid waste and other sources. And then converting it into replacement or drop-in jet fuel. Talk about sustainability. They're basically mimicking what plants do in nature. Imagine the implications of that. Instead of emitting dangerous fumes and gases into the air, collect them and convert them into usable energy. This is the law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation, which states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, mass of that system must remain constant over time. As system, mass cannot change quantity if it is not added or removed from that process. Hence the quantity of mass is conserved over time. The law implies that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space, or the entities associated with it may be changed in form. A phase change. In this case, it utilizes the emissions from an industrial process of making steel. So it's collecting the mass and energy from that process and then conserving it or transforming it again into a liquid fuel. So, okay. That was a whole lot. There's a whole new section that can be talked about as far as local policy opportunities, but we'll get to that another day. I thank you for joining us. I hope that again this was informative for you and interesting for you. Very interesting for me. I think it's an important step for Hawaii to really consider and hopefully we can have a good conversation with that. Thank you again for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Mover Shakers and Reformers, the biofuels in Hawaii series. Thank you to the staff and to the crew and to everyone who joined us. See you next week. Take care.