Steeper Energy is partnering with Silva Green Fuel to construct an advanced biofuels plant at demo scale in Norway
Type of post: NEWS.
Steeper
Energy is partnering with Silva Green Fuel to construct an advanced biofuels
plant at demonstration scale in Norway (see press
release from Steeper Energy and press
release from Södra, 15/12/2017). Steeper Energy is a Danish-Canadian
clean-fuel company focused on commercializing their proprietary Hydrofaction™
technology. Silva Green Fuel is a joint venture formed by Statkraft (leading company in hydropower
internationally and Europe's largest generator of renewable energy) and Södra (group with extensive forestry
operations and producer of paper pulp, sawn timber and bioenergy).
They formed the joint venture in 2015 with the
aim of establishing future production of biofuels based on forest raw material
(see press
release, 17/02/2015). Statkraft owns 51% of the company and Södra the other
49%. Also, Statkraft acquired all of the shares in Södra Cell Tofte AS, which
owned the industrial site of the former Tofte cellulose plant. The partnership
with Steeper Energy is the first step towards Silva Green Fuel producing
commercial-scale transport biofuels. The demo plant will confirm engineering
data and design protocols to de-risk future commercial scale facilities planned
to be built by Silva. Steeper Energy is actively entertaining partnerships with
biomass aggregators or energy producers to develop similar commercial-scale
projects.
Project factsheet
Location
|
Former
pulp mill located in Tofte (Norway).
|
Feedstock
|
Woody
residues from the forest industry.
|
Products
and production capacity
|
Renewable
crude oil that will be upgraded to renewable diesel, jet or marine fuel.
4,000
litres per day.
|
Technology
|
Hydrofaction™
|
Timeline
|
Steeper
will license its proprietary Hydrofaction™ technology to Silva, who will
build the facility over the next 18 months.
It is
expected to be in operation by spring 2019.
Test
period: 2019-2020.
|
Figure 1. Location of the new demo biofuels
plant in Tofte and some data about the project (courtesy of Steeper Energy)
The technology
Hydrofaction™ is an implementation of
hydrothermal liquefaction which applies supercritical water as a reaction
medium for the conversion of biomass directly into a high-energy density
renewable crude oil, referred to as Hydrofaction™ Oil.
Those are some characteristics of the process
and the product:
- It achieves biomass-to-oil conversions of 45%
on a mass basis and 85% on an energy basis.
- The
bio-crude produces 80%+ fewer CO2 emissions when compared to fossil
(well-to-wheel).
- The biofuel can be easily integrated into
existing petroleum infrastructure and is physically comparable to fossil fuels.
- Although initially focusing on low-value forestry
by-products, the technology can also utilize many other biomass feedstocks,
including urban organic wastes, agricultural residues, animal manure and algae.