President & CEO of Dynamotive, Andrew Kingston, was invited to participate in an interview with SmallCaps.us to discuss the history and future of the Company.

To listen to the interview, click here to be taken to an external site.

Imagine how much money you could save if you could heat your greenhouses with oil derived from sawdust. Great Lakes Greenhouse in Leamington, Ontario, tried it without much extra effort to convert its existing boilers, thanks to the resources and know-how of Dynamotive Energy Systems Corp., based in Vancouver, B.C.

Great Lakes Greenhouse, a 1.2-million-square-foot operation that grows seedless cucumbers, ran a four-hour combustion test, burning 2 tons of Dynamotive’s BioOil, a product made from forest and agricultural wastes. The operation, which normally uses Bunker C oil (No. 6 fuel oil), was able to burn the BioOil in its own boilers.

According to Andrew Kingston, president and CEO of Dynamotive, further testing will be conducted, but he says the result of the combustion test substituting BioOil for a fossil fuel was encouraging.

“During the testing, Dynamotive’s BioOil demonstrated very good ignition properties, steady flame characteristics and a low emissions profile,” Kingston says.

Paul Dyck, owner of Great Lakes Greenhouse, says he was pleased with the process and the outcome.

“The BioOil was very easy to pump and it allowed a much wider combustion tolerance and stability than Bunker C Oil,” he says. “Whereas Bunker C Oil would typically extinguish, BioOil did not. The BioOil burned without any problems.”

However, despite the environmental benefits, Dyck says the current low volume and availability of BioOil is prohibitive to using it at Great Lakes Greenhouse, due to the operation’s size and dependence on a steady and reliable supply of energy. BioOil is a lower energy fuel, burning at approximately 50 percent of the heat content of fuel oil.

“I burn about 2 million gallons of heavy fuel a year now and I would need about 4 million gallons of BioOil,” Dyck says. “We need to have a good, reliable supply. We don’t want to have to go on BioOil for a week and then have to go back on fuel oil, especially with the way oil prices have gone in the last few years.”

I Dyck says, however, that once there is an adequate supply of BioOil, he would consider replacing Bunker C oil entirily.

“If it was priced competitively, sure,” he says. “This stuff is really interesting.”
Alternative Energy Solutions

Dynamotive has plans for rapid expansion and recently broke ground on a new plant in Guelph, Ontario, which will process 200 tons of biomass to produce approximately 140 tons of BioOil daily.

“We plan to expand and pursue many different markets,” Kingston says. “Approximately 40 percent of fossilfuels that are used today are used industrially, including diesel, natural gas, fuel oil and coal. BioOil is a great, environmentally friendly industrial energy alternative.”

Dynamotive sells BioOil at or below the price of conventional diesel on an equivalent energy basis.

The BioOil that was burned at Great Lakes Greenhouse was produced at Dynamotive’s West Lorne, Ontario plant. The plant is on location at a wood flooring company, using its sawdust to convert to BioOil.

“The BioOil fires a gas turbine, providing power to the sawmill,” Kingston says. “We’re connected to the power grid, as well, so we are providing environmentally friendly power to the area.”

The technology can be used anywhere there is biomass available and Dynamotive can partner with different businesses to license it. The business, in turn, can use or sell the fuel or sell the energy produced to the power grid. The key is having enough biomass, Kingston says.

“There is about a 70 percent yield of BioOil from biomass,” lie says. “It’s not economically viable to do this in small quantities. There are economies of scale as you go up.”
Go Bio

Dynamotive produces BioOil by converting organic waste or biomass through its patented fast pyrolysis process. BioOil is formed when cellulose-based plant material, like sawdust, bark, corn hulls and sugar cane bagasse, is exposed to very high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment. Pyrolysis is a cracking process in which the plant material is rapidly decomposed into many different compounds. When cooled to room temperature, they condense and form a single-phase liquid – BioOil.

The process creates zero waste because its products are BioOil and char, as well as non-condensable gases, which are used as energy to run the process -approximately 75 percent of the energy needed for pyrolysis.

Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation of Vancouver, BC is building a 200 tonnes/day plant on a 22 acre site in Guelph, ON to make BioOil from waste wood from construction and demolition sites collected and processed by its partner, MegaCity Recycling. Dynamotive has developed a process called “fast pyrolysis” in which cellulose is exposed to very high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment for an extremely short time (a few seconds). The short residence time is the key to the process.

BioOil is not a hydrocarbon, retaining the chemical structure of its original materials, but it can replace fuel and heating oil. Dynamotive is putting it through extensive testing to demonstrate its suitability for such replacement and has sold very small quantities. The material is price competitive with conventional oil products when oil prices are above $30 a barrel, but faces resistance from conservative buyers.

The process can use any type of cellulosic material e.g. sawdust, bark, com hulls, bagasse from sugar cane. It has been demonstrated in two pilot plants of 2 t/d and 10 t/d in BC. These plants will be moved to Guelph and used for research on the lignocellulosic part of municipal solid waste and sewage sludge. The company has another plant at West Lorne, ON and a R&D facility at Waterloo University. Dynamotive started in 1991, is a public company, and is of course so far reporting losses.

Dynamotive is also conducting research into chemicals that could potentially be produced by its process. Some 50% of BioOil made from wood is oxygen and 25% is water. The remaining 25% contains hundreds of chemical compounds. The most abundant are acetic acid, hydroxyacetaldehyde and levoglucosan at levels of 3-10%. Pyrolitic lignin can be separated by adding water; it is made up of phenolic fragments and has been proposed as a replacement for phenol in phenol-formaldehyde resins. Singlering phenolics are also present and could have uses as flavor chemicals. Levoglucosan is anydroglucose; with additional pre-treatment and hydrolysis following pyrolysis, it could produce ethanol, but the economics of this process have not yet been explored. Finally, the process produces charcoal and Dynamotive is looking at applications for this in heat production, power generation and briquette manufacturing. The idea of “Terra Char” is also being promoted: using the char as a soil amendment. It could also have value as a means of carbon sequestration.

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A Canadian company is creating an alternative green fuel from a new source of energy that was under our noses all along – human sewage. Scientists at biofuel group Dynamotive say the oil produced from human waste can be used instead of fossil fuels to generate heat and power in diesel engines and boilers. They have successfully carried out the transformation on a pilot scale and are looking at ways to scale up the process to commercial quantities.

Andrew Kingston, president and chief executive officer of Dynamotive, said: “There are no process issues at this point to stop us using human sewage sludge. If we can supply the oil then people will use it.”

In February 2005 the company opened a commercial-scale plant in Ontario that produces 22,000 tonnes of bio-oil each year from waste wood chips and sells it to local industries.

Mr Kingston said more than 100 types of biological waste could be used as feedstock. The company has already commercialised oil production using wood separated from construction waste and coffee bean shells. “We’re now looking at dirtier wastes like chicken litter, cow manure and household garbage,” he said.

The wastes are flash-heated at 400-500C in the absence of oxygen, a technique called pyrolysis, and the resulting carbon-heavy gases condensed into a dark brown, dense oil. Other hot gases are recycled to help heat the process, which makes it about 80% efficient.

Such biofuels are considered environmentally benign because the carbon produced when the fuel is burnt was absorbed from the atmosphere by the plants or trees used to make it. The fuels areusually produced through the fermentation of crops or by squeezing oil from seeds.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Don’t just count on whizzy atoms or the fickle wind to keep the lights burning in an energy-insecure future. Think about garden waste, old timber or even used coffee grounds.

Dynamotive, a small Canadian company, has been thinking about bits of plant waste and come up with a solution: bio-oil. It has begun operations at West Lorne in Ontario, converting waste from a woodflooring company into a liquid fuel that runs a 2.5 megawatt power plant, supplying the town with electricity. Dynamotive is the brainchild of Andrew Kingston, a former oil company man whose vision for biofuels differs from those rushing to lay waste to millions of hectares of virgin forest to build palm oil plantations that can fuel our cars.

It is better to understand the supply chain, Mr Kingston reckons. “I was an oil trader. Where you make money in the oil business is in the logistical chain,” he said. It’s not just about drilling wells to capture oil. You need ships to transport it, a refinery to manufacture fuel and a willing customer to buy it.

Fuel made from plant material is no different. Access to a secure supply of cheap biomass is critical and the biofuel industry is hitting the buffers over concerns about crop shortages and the use of food crops, such as rapeseed, for fuel.

The political momentum behind renewable energy has created a plethora of projects that are driving up the price of palm oil, a raw material for biodiesel. Prices have risen by a quarter this year. Yesterday Malaysia’s biggest palm plantation companies, Sime Darby, Kumpulan Guthrie and Golden Hope, came together to create the world’s top palm oil producer, anticipating further growth. Meanwhile, a British power company, RWE NPower, has abandoned plans to convert a power station in Dartford, Kent, unable to secure enough palm oil.

“Where we have an advantage,” Mr Kingston said, “is we are not taking food crops.” He has set up a team to prospect for secure supplies of biomass. That includes crop waste, timber from demolition sites and a 5,000-hectare energy park in Ukraine, where Dynamotive and its partner, Rika Biofuels, is planting enough msycanthus — elephant grass — to replace the energy of 250,000 barrels of crude oil.

Dynamotive uses a patented technology, pyrolysis, that turns plant material into liquid in two seconds. According to Mr Kingston, the fuel is competitive at oil prices of $25 to $30 a barrel — half the crude price.

In Australia, it expects to supply a plant in Darwin with municipal tree cuttings to fuel a mining operation nearby. Talks are under way with Alcoa after the successful test of bio-oil at an aluminium plant in Quebec.

Anything based on cellulose will do, including coffee grounds, the object of talks with another large company. “It’s coming to a coffee shop near you,” Mr Kingston said.

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www.timesonline.co.uk

It is Dynamotive Energy Systems who will produce combustible liquid fuels from agricultural and forestry residues. “Our objective is to move the company forward in the country, contract personnel, invest and provide for the local and global markets,” said the President of the firm, Andrew Kingston to Télam.

The President of the Canadian firm, Argentinean Andrew Kingston, confirmed yesterday that they will open in Argentina to produce combustible liquid fuels with an investment in each plant between twelve and fifteen million US dollars.

“We think that this is the best moment to do this. Our objective is to develop the biomass firm in Argentina, contract and train personnel locally, invest, and provide for the local markets and global markets,” said Kingston to Télam.

Biomass is all agricultural and forestry residue such as wood or straw; these can be converted into a liquid fuel.

”We have the capability of converting all of these feedstocks into a combustible liquid fuel through our process that we developed in Canada,” he explained.

Andrew Kingston said that “the decision to open in Argentina has already been taken” and confirmed that they will incorporate “the company in all of Latin America, with its headquarters in Buenos Aires.”

He said that the company will initially operate in Argentina with branches in Chile and Uruguay, but he stated that “the point of entry into Latin America is through Buenos Aires.”

Kingston said that Dynamotive has the capability to fabricate plants and has a profound knowledge of the market.

Kingston confirmed that there will be an initial investment of “approximately one and a half million dollars to establish the firm.”

“As for the construction of each plant, we have discussed an investment of between twelve and fifteen million dollars, and we estimate that in the next four years we will develop six to seven plants or more,” he said.

Kingston maintains that he has commenced negotiations with various provinces, including Corrientes, Misiones and Salta, for locations to build these plants.

Kingston also said that they have many investors who work for the firm; they include Consensus Business Group based in London.

When he was asked why the firm chose Argentina, he responded that they chose Argentina because of “problems with logistics elsewhere.”

”We have worked with Tecna for over five years, and we know the Argentinean Market. There is a large amount of biomass in the country, and there is a need to develop fuels to replace oil,” he said.

www.telam.com.ar

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