California-based Cobalt Technologies has partnered with Colorado State University to perform engine testing with a gasoline-butanol blend made with the biobutanol from beetle-killed wood. The fuel testing will be performed at Colorado State University’s renowned Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory under the auspices of the university’s Sustainable Bioenergy Development Center.
Cobalt Technologies is claiming to be the first to produce biobutanol from beetle-killed lodgepole pine feedstock. To evaluate the fuel’s viability for commercial vehicles, the company has signed a fuel testing partnership with Colorado State University.
According to Rick Wilson, Ph.D., Cobalt Technologies CEO, “Harvesting beetle-killed trees could produce low-carbon fuels and chemicals, establish a foundation for a sustainable biorefinery industry and create jobs, particularly in rural areas. If we use only half of the 2.3 million acres currently affected in Colorado alone, we could produce over two billion gallons of biobutanol—enough to blend into all the gasoline used in Colorado for six years.”
Colorado’s pine forests have been devastated by the mountain pine beetle, which has infested nearly half of the state’s five million acres of pine forest. Additionally, millions of acres of lodgepole and ponderosa pines across the Western United States and Canada have been infested, with 40 million acres in British Columbia alone. From Canada to the Mexican border, the destructive path of the pine beetle has left brown, dead trees, which have little use, pose a significant fire hazard and threaten communities.
“Clearly, this is a significant achievement and a major step forward toward the production of cellulosic biofuels. Converting beetle-killed pine for biofuels is an extremely difficult process,” said Ken Reardon, professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Colorado State University. “If Cobalt can convert beetle-killed wood, it’s likely that the company can make biofuel from almost any cellulosic feedstock.”
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