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University of Houston secures $3.6M from DOE program to fund sustainable fuel production

Researchers Rahul Pandey, senior scientist with SRI and principal investigator (left), and Praveen Bollini, a University of Houston chemical engineering faculty, are key contributors to the microreactor project. Photo via uh.edu

A University of Houston-associated project was selected to receive $3.6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy that aims to transform sustainable fuel production.

Nonprofit research institute SRI is leading the project “Printed Microreactor for Renewable Energy Enabled Fuel Production” or PRIME-Fuel, which will try to develop a modular microreactor technology that converts carbon dioxide into methanol using renewable energy sources with UH contributing research.

“Renewables-to-liquids fuel production has the potential to boost the utility of renewable energy all while helping to lay the groundwork for the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals of creating a clean energy economy,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm says in an ARPA-E news release.

The project is part of ARPA-E’s $41 million Grid-free Renewable Energy Enabling New Ways to Economical Liquids and Long-term Storage program (or GREENWELLS, for short) that also includes 14 projects to develop technologies that use renewable energy sources to produce sustainable liquid fuels and chemicals, which can be transported and stored similarly to gasoline or oil, according to a news release.

Vemuri Balakotaiah and Praveen Bollini, faculty members of the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, are co-investigators on the project. Rahul Pandey, is a UH alum, and the senior scientist with SRI and principal investigator on the project.

Teams working on the project will develop systems that use electricity, carbon dioxide and water at renewable energy sites to produce renewable liquid renewable fuels that offer a clean alternative for sectors like transportation. Using cheaper electricity from sources like wind and solar can lower production costs, and create affordable and cleaner long-term energy storage solutions.

“As a proud UH graduate, I have always been aware of the strength of the chemical and biomolecular engineering program at UH and kept myself updated on its cutting-edge research,” Pandey says in a news release. “This project had very specific requirements, including expertise in modeling transients in microreactors and the development of high-performance catalysts. The department excelled in both areas. When I reached out to Dr. Bollini and Dr. Bala, they were eager to collaborate, and everything naturally progressed from there.”

The PRIME-Fuel project will use cutting-edge mathematical modeling and SRI’s proprietary Co-Extrusion printing technology to design and manufacture the microreactor with the ability to continue producing methanol even when the renewable energy supply dips as low as 5 percent capacity. Researchers will develop a microreactor prototype capable of producing 30 MJe/day of methanol while meeting energy efficiency and process yield targets over a three-year span. When scaled up to a 100 megawatts electricity capacity plant, it can be capable of producing 225 tons of methanol per day at a lower cost. The researchers predict five years as a “reasonable” timeline of when this can hit the market.

“What we are building here is a prototype or proof of concept for a platform technology, which has diverse applications in the entire energy and chemicals industry,” Pandey continues. “Right now, we are aiming to produce methanol, but this technology can actually be applied to a much broader set of energy carriers and chemicals.”

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A View From HETI

Bill Gates says companies like Fervo push the geothermal technology 'to new depths.' Photo via fervoenergy.com

In a new blog post spotlighting Houston-based geothermal power startup Fervo Energy, billionaire Bill Gates — a Fervo investor — predicts geothermal will eventually supply up to 20 percent of the world’s electricity, up from his previous estimate of as much as 5 percent.

Today, geothermal accounts for less than 1 percent of electricity generated around the world, according to the International Energy Agency. The agency forecasts geothermal will represent up to 15 percent of global power by 2050.

“Geothermal power will have a big role to play in our clean energy future, and it’s exciting to see companies like Fervo push the technology to new depths,” Gates wrote.

Gates’ more than $1 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund has contributed to the $982 million pool of money that Fervo has raised since its founding in 2017. Fervo is now a unicorn, meaning its valuation as a private company exceeds $1 billion. Its valuation has been estimated at $1.4 billion.

The Microsoft billionaire published the blog post on his Gates Notes website after touring the site of Fervo’s Cape Station geothermal project, which is under construction in Utah. Fervo says Cape Station will be the world’s largest geothermal plant, capable of someday producing up to 2 gigawatts of power.

Earlier this year, Fervo raised $206 million to put toward the development of Cape Station. Of that amount, $100 million came from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a green tech investment program backed by Gates, according to Inc.com.

The first phase of Cape Station is scheduled to be completed in 2026, with first-year power generation pegged at 100 megawatts. An additional 500 megawatts of power-producing capacity is slated to go online in 2028.

“Geothermal is one of the most promising ways to deliver clean energy that’s reliable and affordable,” Gates wrote.

In the blog post, Gates praised the simplicity of geothermal energy.

“The interior of the Earth is incredibly hot, and the deeper you go, the hotter the ground becomes,” he explained. “If you pump fluid deep enough to be warmed by this heat and then pump it back to the surface, you can turn the hot liquid into steam and use it to spin turbines and generate electricity — just like many other types of power plants.”

Gates noted that horizontal drilling is one of Fervo’s biggest innovations. The company extends its wells horizontally by as much as 5,000 feet at the deepest point. It couples horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract geothermal energy from rock formations.

Most wells at Cape Station are 8,000 to 9,000 feet deep, and the deepest one is 15,000 feet below the surface, Gates pointed out.

Gates also emphasized the water-conserving, closed-system setup at Cape Station.

“Geothermal energy is one of the more climate-friendly sources of power, but one of its downsides is how much water it uses. … Fervo’s technology captures all the water that would’ve been lost and recirculates it underground to keep the system running,” he wrote.

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