{"id":14028,"date":"2021-05-03T22:53:50","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T05:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=14028"},"modified":"2021-05-03T22:53:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T05:53:50","slug":"ravensr-hydrogen-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/ravensr-hydrogen-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"RavenSR: Hydrogen from Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"

Green hydrogen is getting a lot of press lately, at least partly because of the possibilities it allows in transportation design.\u00a0 Raven SR, headquartered in Pinedale, Wyoming, has as its mission, \u201cProviding revolutionary, clean technology to convert waste into renewable fuels and energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clean Technica<\/em> took notice of the company\u2019s interesting location,<\/a> deep in \u201can epicenter of the US coal,\u201d the Powder River coal basin.\u00a0 Their article notes some of the politics involved.\u00a0 \u201cThe United Mine Workers of America<\/a>, for one, came through with a statement in support of President Biden\u2019s climate-friendly American Jobs Plan<\/a>, contingent on its members getting a share of those new green jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the same statement, UMWA also lobbied for saving the remaining few remaining coal jobs, partly through policies that ramp up demand for the metallurgical coal used in steel making and other industries.\u201d\u00a0 Note that Wyoming\u2019s coal is not metallurgical, though, and would never be used for smelting steel.<\/p>\n

Diminishing Landfills?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

America hauls a lot of its municipal wastes long distances to get rid of it.\u00a0 Portland, Oregon, for instance lugs its garbage by truck or train to Arlington, Oregon \u2013 140 miles up the Columbia Gorge.\u00a0 There, it\u2019s dumped into a landfill.\u00a0 Opening in 1990, the site has a \u201cprojected life remaining of 143 years.\u201d\u00a0 Even with huge amounts flowing in (2.74 million tons in 2017), Arlington has a remaining permitted capacity of 329 million tons.\u00a0 It accepts things like treated medical waste, animal carcasses, and used abrasive blast media (such as sand from sandblasting).\u00a0 That creates some waste of its own \u2013 most landfills give off methane \u2013 a significant greenhouse gas.\u00a0 Anything that reduces the need for transporting waste and heaping it in a toxic landfill is to be encouraged.\u00a0 Waste-to-hydrogen plants are one hope.<\/p>\n

As noted in their YouTube explanation, In 2018, Raven SR<\/a> acquired Intellergy Inc.’s waste processing technology.\u00a0 Intellergy’s technology is essentially unchanged today.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=o1nIkN0oSqg<\/p>\n

RavenSR manages its waste-to-H2 conversion through a \u201cpatented Steam CO2 technology\u201d that, \u201ctransforms biomass, municipal solid waste, bio-solids, industrial, sewage, medical waste, and natural gas into renewable energy products including hydrogen, sulfur and nitrogen-free Fischer-Tropsch liquid fuels (diesel, Jet A, mil-spec JP-8), additives and solvents (acetone, butanol, naphtha, etc.) and electricity (via fuel cells or turbines and\/or CAT syngas engines).\u201d\u00a0 The company claims the \u201csignificant difference between\u201d them and their competitors is \u201cno combustion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhat like pyrolysis, Raven\u2019s \u201ctechnology does not admit any oxygen into its process.\u201d\u00a0 The firm claims this provides a cleaner process to convert all feedstock into fuel instead of burning.\u00a0 It also converts more of the feedstock into synthetic gas (syngas), according to RavenSR.\u00a0 Because there is no combustion, there are no hotspots or tar buildup in its gasifier.\u00a0 This reduces maintenance and downtime.<\/p>\n

Raven claims their system, \u201cIs simply better for the environment.\u00a0 We actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions at multiple levels.\u201d\u00a0 For that reason, \u201cThe technology has been approved by the Berkeley (California) Air Quality Department, which is among the most stringent in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Gs0i0OOkSzY<\/p>\n

Besides being a non-combustion system, Raven says its technology has four other advantages.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. There is no steam methane reforming (SMR), reacting methane and other higher hydrocarbons with steam in the presence of a catalyst to form carbon oxides and hydrogen.<\/li>\n
  2. There is no auto-thermal reforming (ATR), which partially oxidizes a hydrocarbon feed with oxygen and steam and subsequent catalytic reforming.<\/li>\n
  3. It is water neutral, recycling and \u201ceven manufacturing\u201d any needed water, and can be completely water neutral.<\/li>\n
  4. It meets the highest safety standards, using \u201csophisticated AlertPlus sensors to detect leaks and automatically shut down plant operations.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Raven claims their system produces more hydrogen or Fischer-Tropsch fuels (which can be converted to other liquid fuels).\u00a0 Since their system are mobile and compact, they can be installed at sites next to methane flaring stations, taking a major greenhouse gas out of the air and producing clean-burning hydrogen or other carbon-neutral fuels from it.\u00a0 Likewise, feedstock can include the previously mentioned municipal waste \u2013 with many of the same benefits.<\/p>\n

    Hyzon Takes an Interest<\/h4>\n

    Compactness and flexibility led Hyzon, \u201ca global supplier of hydrogen fuel cell-powered commercial vehicles,\u201d to form a joint venture to build up to 100 \u201chydrogen hubs\u201d<\/a> across the U. S. and globally.\u00a0 Hyzon will acquire a minority interest in Raven SR.<\/p>\n

    Moving quickly, the partners will build and commission the first hubs in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2022, \u201cThen expand into the rest of the US and globally.\u201d\u00a0 Hubs will be built at or near landfills and convert \u201cmultiple organic wastes\u201d\u2026\u201dinto locally-produced, renewable hydrogen for Hyzon\u2019s fleet of zero-emission commercial vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Each hub, about the size of two semi-truck trailers (or cargo containers) are expected to take in 50 tons of solid waste per day and produce 4.5 tons of renewable green H2, \u201cenough to power 100 heavy-duty commercial vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"\"

    Compact nature of plant belies its high productivity of green fuels<\/p><\/div>\n

    Craig Knight, CEO and Co-Founder of Hyzon Motors, sees future expansion leading to enhanced efficiency of operation. \u00a0\u201cHyzon aims to be one of the first companies to supply our customers with a hydrogen fuel cell truck, including our own garbage trucks, at total cost of ownership (TCO) parity with diesel-powered commercial vehicles. With our leading fuel cell technology, we are working closely with partners to scale up hydrogen production in the US and globally. In Raven, we see a technology that is highly efficient in waste conversion, scalable and mobile, enjoying a low cost of hydrogen and most importantly, capable of producing the quantity of green hydrogen that our vehicles will need. One hundred hydrogen hubs could convert over 5,000 tons of waste per day and power over 10,000 trucks.<\/p>\n

    More and larger sites will allow, \u201cHyzon [to] provide their customers with a complete zero-emission mobility solution\u2014from hydrogen-powered vehicles to on-site or locally produced low cost clean-hydrogen.”<\/p>\n