Shell partners with U.S. company for biofuel project.

[jillithian]

This sounds promising: (From the Daily Executive Briefing email sent by SME today):

Shell partners with U.S. company for biofuel project.

The Financial Times (3/27, Crooks) reports that on Wednesday, Royal Dutch Shell, Europe's biggest oil company, "announced a joint venture with Virent, a U.S. biotech business based in Wisconsin," to develop "a process to turn sugars into a synthetic petrol, rather than ethanol."

Virent says the process, called BioForming, "uses catalysts to convert plant sugars into the hydrocarbon molecules like those produced at a petroleum refinery, instead of fermenting them into ethanol, a form of alcohol," the AP (3/27) reports. According to Shell, the five-year partnership "signals that, after testing successes, they want to bring the product toward large-scale production quickly."

The companies said the "collaboration has the potential to create new biofuels that could eliminate the need for specialized infrastructure, new engine designs and blending equipment, the Business Journal of Milwaukee (3/26) noted. Graeme Sweeney, Shell executive vice president, said, "Fuel distribution infrastructure and vehicle engines are being modified to cope but new fuels on the horizon, such as Virent's, with characteristics similar or even superior to gasoline and diesel, are very exciting."

The Houston Chronicle (3/27, Clanton) adds, "Unlike ethanol, the fuel can also be used in high concentrations in regular gasoline engines and travel through existing pipelines, the companies said." Moreover, the synthetic gasoline "will have a higher energy content and be more fuel efficient than ethanol."

Reuters (3/27, Bergin) points out that the partnership "follows a trend of major oil companies...investing in plans to produce motor fuels from crops." Most of the oil companies "are...focusing on second-generation biofuels, which will be produced from non-food crops" that are able to "be grown on land not suitable for wheat or sugar cane."