BJ Johnson and Julie Blumreiter don’t have anything in opposition to electrical vehicles.
However the duo suppose the push to impress heavy-duty transportation misses an vital actuality and leaves a yawning hole, which they hope to fill with the engine know-how they developed as doctoral college students at Stanford College.
Blumreiter and Johnson co-founded ClearFlame Engine Applied sciences to market engine know-how that permits vehicles, mills and different motors to run on a wide range of low-emissions fuels like ethanol, methanol or liquid ammonia. Whereas these fuels will not be zero emissions, varied research have proven pure ethanol’s life cycle greenhouse fuel emissions are roughly 40 % to 50 % lower than petroleum-based gasoline.
Johnson and Blumreiter argue that it’s going to take years to impress trucking within the U.S., to not point out different international locations, therefore an reasonably priced, low-emissions diesel-type engine that may run on varied fuels generally is a boon to lowering transportation sector emissions. The U.S. Division of Power, trade sources and main buyers have taken curiosity.
In 2017, Johnson and Blumreiter had been chosen among the many first cohort in Argonne Nationwide Laboratory’s Chain Response Improvements fellowship program, offering mentorship and entry to Argonne’s emissions testing and different gear. Blumreiter and Johnson moved to the Chicago space for the fellowship, the place the corporate has been primarily based since. ClearFlame has raised near $50 million in collection A and B funding, has about 50 workers and pilot tasks underway with main companies.
John Wall, former chief know-how officer for the worldwide engine maker Cummins, has been an adviser for the reason that Stanford days. He sees ethanol-fueled vehicles with ClearFlame know-how offering an vital “bridge” to zero-emissions transportation.
Testing has proven that ClearFlame’s engine know-how achieves equal or larger torque in comparison with conventional diesel engines.
“Too many individuals need to say all the things shall be battery electrical, let’s overlook about the rest,” stated Wall, who additionally beforehand labored in diesel analysis for Chevron. “I’m fairly optimistic about battery electrical in various purposes, however some shall be arduous. Lengthy haul trucking is considered one of them, and energy era. You don’t need the right to be the enemy of the great. If you may get 40 % emissions reductions now, let’s try this and work on the remaining.”
Johnson and Blumreiter emphasize that their know-how can be well-suited to creating international locations, the place electrification of transportation just isn’t on the horizon, however feedstock for ethanol — like corn or sugar cane — is offered. And relying available on the market, ethanol could also be considerably extra reasonably priced than diesel.
“This isn’t only a California resolution, this can be a international resolution to a world downside,” Blumreiter stated. “Essentially our know-how is that we are able to make the diesel engine design and all the things that’s good about it function on any gasoline. You’ll be able to select gasoline primarily based on value and regional availability.”
A number of purposes
A number of pilot tasks are underway with vehicles on the roads utilizing engines retrofitted with ClearFlame know-how. Blumreiter stated she couldn’t identify the businesses doing the pilots, however they contain at the least one main truck cease firm and fleet managers who sit on the startup’s fleet advisory council.
ClearFlame markets the know-how to permit ethanol or different fuels to be burned in the identical kind of engine that burns diesel, however at a warmer temperature, which is important for ethanol and different fuels to combust.
“Should you get it scorching sufficient, something burns,” Johnson stated. “We modified the plumbing on the engine so these fuels function high-quality. At its coronary heart, it is vitally easy. The satan is within the particulars.”
ClearFlame depends on U.S.-based producers to construct its know-how, which could be retrofitted into diesel engines. Finally they hope unique gear producers like Cummins will determine to construct engines with the know-how.
Wall stated he sees that as a really actual chance, since it’s “simple” for a producer to include ClearFlame’s know-how into customary diesel engines.
“If a buyer calls up and says, ‘I’d like to purchase a thousand engines like this each six months for 10 years,’ then you definitely get very ,” he stated. “Now BJ and Julie are working with a number of the large fleets to have them perceive the know-how. the suggestions I’ve heard up to now is kind of constructive.”
One of many beauties of diesel engines is that they get used all over the place.
Testing has proven that ClearFlame’s engine know-how achieves equal or larger torque in comparison with conventional diesel engines, and it eliminates the necessity for filtering out particulate matter and different after-treatment for air pollution.
It’s simpler so as to add pure ethanol to current fueling stations, ClearFlame supporters say, in comparison with the infrastructure upgrades crucial for electrical charging, or different fuels like compressed pure fuel or hydrogen. Wall added that trucking corporations typically run vehicles on a significant transportation hall — like Interstate 65 — for about 4 years, then the vehicles are bought to work in regional markets or native deliveries. So including electrical charging or hydrogen infrastructure to main corridors wouldn’t assist the prevailing truck market construction, however fueling stations all through the nation might present pure ethanol, and ClearFlame engines might additionally burn E85 gasoline — with 85 % ethanol — that’s already extensively obtainable.
Johnson stated ClearFlame know-how is also utilized in marine engines, locomotives and different heavy gear. Mining large RioTinto is an investor, because the engine know-how might assist mining corporations energy their enormous machines whereas lowering emissions. Wind Ventures, an affiliate of main Latin American vitality firm Copec, can be an investor. Johnson famous that extra wind vitality could possibly be used onsite to provide liquid ammonia gasoline for ClearFlame engines.
“Vans are our beachhead,” Johnson stated. “One of many beauties of diesel engines is that they get used all over the place. Plenty of items of kit have a diesel engine-shaped gap within the center.”
The corporate CK Energy is piloting ClearFlame’s know-how in its cell gensets, mills focused to be used in utility infrastructure and electrical car charging stations. Photo voltaic is more and more utilized by utilities and for EV charging. However Clayton Costello, CK Energy vice chairman of company technique, stated there’s “no know-how but on {the marketplace}” that may exchange a cell fuel-burning generator in lots of conditions.
“As there’s extra federal spending [on reducing emissions] and clients have extra demand for lower-emissions know-how, we see a necessity in lots of industries for these kinds of platforms,” Costello stated.
A less-traveled highway
Blumreiter and Johnson say they really feel they’re going in opposition to the grain within the clear vitality startup world, the place a lot consideration is targeted on zero-emissions and electrification versus low-emissions applied sciences; and the place software program and superior supplies are extra frequent focuses than comparatively simple {hardware}.
They’re additionally considerably non-traditional cleantech startup founders. Blumreiter is considered one of comparatively few girls within the area; and Johnson is African American and a former nationwide staff member in swimming, having began the game late and peaked within the pool on the similar time he was creating the engine know-how.
“Competing at a really excessive stage [in swimming] places the challenges now in perspective,” stated Johnson, who was ranked second within the U.S. and ninth on this planet in 2013. “It’s not the primary time I’ve tried to do one thing arduous.”
He turned deeply considering local weather change round when the movie “Inconvenient Reality” was launched, “and it turned clear local weather change could be the situation of our era.”
Ethanol has been extensively criticized as a false hope for local weather mitigation, since rising corn entails vital greenhouse fuel emissions.
Blumreiter grew up in Wisconsin and at all times had a eager curiosity in volunteering. As an undergraduate at Stanford, she took a category in thermodynamics as a result of it was at a handy time, however realized “that is it! Intellectually I used to be captured — hook, line and sinker.”
She figured her skilled and humanitarian pursuits would progress on parallel paths, however with ClearFlame she seems like she is pursuing her ardour for know-how innovation whereas additionally making the world a greater place, she stated.
“It’s no shock that people who find themselves doing one thing that’s fully totally different than the prevailing method to decarbonization are two individuals who don’t appear like your common founders,” Blumreiter stated. “That results in us taking a extra international view and by no means shedding sight of affordability and fairness as substances in what options get to market.”
Fueling choices
Semi-trucks steadily run on ethanol blends or “renewable diesel” or biodiesel, extensively obtainable at service stations. However typical diesel engines can’t run on pure ethanol or methanol.
Renewable diesel and biodiesel have larger particulate matter emissions than ethanol, whereas additionally coming from feedstocks that aren’t at all times simply and extensively accessible — like animal fat and used cooking oil.
“Ethanol is 2 carbons and an oxygen and a few hydrogen; diesel are larger-chain hydrocarbons, so is renewable diesel — it’s the longer chains that are likely to type soot,” Blumreiter stated.
Wall stated that because the aviation trade tries to scale back emissions, renewable diesel is more likely to be more and more used, diverting availability from the lower-value trucking trade. In the meantime, as electrical vehicles turn into extra prevalent, demand for ethanol-blend gasoline could go down, decreasing ethanol’s market value and making it an much more engaging choice for truck gasoline, he theorized.
Ethanol has been extensively criticized as a false hope for local weather mitigation, since rising corn entails vital greenhouse fuel emissions and in addition makes use of land that may in any other case be rising meals. There was a lot debate about ethanol’s life cycle carbon emissions in comparison with fossil fuels, however proponents argue that when greatest practices are used, its life cycle emissions are considerably decrease than conventional diesel or gasoline.
“We didn’t got down to make an engine that ran on ethanol,” Blumreiter stated. “Ethanol is one thing [the U.S.] invested in many years in the past for vitality safety causes. It wasn’t essentially low-cost or clear then, however it’s now.”
Clear vitality incentives like California’s Low Carbon Fuels Normal and Inflation Discount Act funds for different fuels and fueling infrastructure might assist the deployment of ClearFlame’s know-how. Johnson stated that funds from the Volkswagen settlement and the federal Diesel Emissions Discount Act is also used for retrofitted ethanol-burning engines.
However Blumreiter stated she feels the corporate’s success isn’t depending on incentives; she thinks affordability and comfort will drive deployment, after extra testing and pilot packages are accomplished.
Johnson likes to think about ClearFlame because the “Tesla of heavy obligation.”
“Tesla was near a trillion {dollars} [in valuation] earlier than OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] took electrical autos severely,” Johnson stated. “We’re on basically the identical path. You must go to the market, and show individuals need this.”
