Louisville, Colo.-based Sundrop Fuels
says they have solar-energy technology “capable of producing 100 million gallons of synthetic gasoline annually from corn stalks and wood chips,” according to Bizjournals’ Portfolio.com.
As Biofuels Digest says, “The Sundrop Fuels process
centers on its SurroundSun reactor technology, a proprietary solar-thermal biomass gasifier mounted on a tower and powered by a concentrating mirror field below,
The company has already produced synthetic gas using the sun’s heat, Portfolio says, and now wants investors to kick in between $100 million and $150 million to build a solar-powered biorefinery which, as a demonstration project, “could make 7 million to 8 million gallons of gas a year.”
The company “is developing a 5-6 Mgy commercial demo which will be open in mid-2012, and ultimately the company will look to develop projects internationally, targeting sun-drenched regions such as North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of China,” Biofuels Digest says, adding that in a Sundrop fuel gallon, “30 percent of the energy is solar, the remainder is energy from biomass. No traditional burning of up to one-third of the biomass to provide power for the system.”
Company officials probably aren’t expecting a whole lot of investment from Saudi Arabia. Just a guess.
Wayne Simmons, Sundrop’s CEO, explained that the company plans to “convert the sun’s energy into liquid fuel using concentrated solar power to gasify biomass, then convert the biomass into gasoline or diesel.”
The way Portfolio describes it, “the company blasts organic materials, such as wood chips and straw, with superhigh temperatures gathered from sunshine. The heat tears the material apart on a molecular level, adds the sun’s heat energy in the thermo-chemical reaction, and creates a synthetic gas that can be formed into gasoline or diesel fuel.”
The company’s been flying under radar for while now. Back in September 2008, industry observer Chris Morrison wrote that “a new solar technology that
creates hydrogen as well as electricity is on the horizon. Sundrop Fuels, a stealthy New Mexico company with an innovative dish design, has licensed structural ideas from larger and better-known startup, eSolar, to create something unprecedented.”
Sundrop has been secretive about its technology since its inception, Morrison wrote at the time, adding “word of a $20 million investment from Kleiner Perkins slipped out earlier this year.”
Sundrop’s reactor can use “any kind of biomass, including plants grown specifically for their energy content,” company officials say, adding that “traditional gasifiers burn a large percentage of the biomass, or a fossil fuel such as natural gas, to reach operating temperatures above 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit. Sundrop’s process uses the free sunshine as its fuel source.”
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.Edited by
Erin Harrison
