Copernican model: heat biomass to create fuel

BOULDER – The efficiency is high, the cost is relatively low, and the impact seems endless.

That’s what helps make solar-thermal power enticing and part of the reason why Al Weimer, co-founder of Boulder-based Copernican Energy Inc., is pursuing it.

Weimer, along with Michael Masterson, Bob Morgan and Chris Perkins, founded Copernican in November 2006. While the company has pursued a variety of interests, solar thermal is one of them and is an advancing technology seen more every year.

“The technology is the ability to concentrate sunlight to high concentrations to drive chemical reactions,” Weimer said.

By using giant mirrors to direct sunlight to a solar receiver containing biomass, the heat converts the biomass into synthesis gas. With temperatures heating the biomass to nearly 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit, the biomass, which is either algae or switch grass, is eventually transformed into a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, Weimer said.

“This process would have the lowest carbon footprint of any technically feasible process for producing renewable fuels,” Weimer said.

Efficiency is what sets Copernican apart from other businesses that use solar, the co-founder said.

The photovoltaic solar process, which is commonly used as an alternative energy in homes, converts sunlight – directly or indirectly – into electricity. In the process, much of the energy is lost, he said.

Many other companies that use solar thermal to break down biomass either can’t process lignin, a chemical compound found in plant cells, or much of the biomass is burned and lost, Weimer said.

This is why Copernican is trying to fill an alternative-energy void through a more efficient process.

He said the company’s competition is using roughly between 30 percent and 45 percent of their biomass during the thermal process whereas his company uses 90 percent.

“So we’re two to three times more efficient than the other processes,´ said Weimer, who is also a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

As the immense heat causes a chemical reaction, a synthesis gas is created, which can be transformed into a handful of products including hydrogen, methanol, gasoline and more.

Algae are one form of biomass that Weimer uses.

Some companies, primarily in states like Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and others in the Southwest, use algae to absorb the carbon dioxide produced through manufacturing.

As algae grows Weimer can use the surplus as biomass, and his company was recently awarded a federal grant to do just that.

Monique Hanis, spokeswoman for the Solar Energy Industries Association, said she has seen an increased interest in both thermal and photovoltaic solar since the government offered a renewable-energy tax credit.

“We hear that ’08 is going to be a big year for both,” Hanis said.

She said while the number of thermal solar plant installations may be fewer than those of photovoltaic, the impact would be much greater because of the potential energy output from thermal.

“While it didn’t grow a lot last year, it was the first time we had a plant installed in more than 17 years,” she said. That Nevada plant uses the sun’s heat to produce and store steam to create electricity.

While Weimer said he and his partners are considering starting a solar thermal site, he wouldn’t comment on whether or not they are looking in the area. A month ago, Weimer said a test site would require about five acres of land.

Weimer did say, though, that he hopes to keep his company stationed in, or around, Boulder and close to CU.

The university has been doing solar thermal research for about 12 years, he said and Copernican is a spinoff of CU’s Technology Transfer Office.

Weimer said the office has filed patents and staked claim to other solar thermal technologies, and Copernican was formed to use the university’s advancements.

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