CNL, partners identify 3 Canadian locations to advance design of renewable diesel production facilities

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology laboratory, in partnership with Expander Energy Inc., Fuel Cell Energy, St Marys Cement and Nuclear Promise X announced Aug. 1 that they have identified three Canadian locations as potential sites for the location of renewable diesel production facilities.

These facilities would be capable of converting waste-wood feedstock into 90 million liters (nearly 24 million gallons) of drop-in ready renewable diesel fuel per year, transforming a waste product into a valuable, low-carbon fuel for the transportation sector.

This milestone follows the successful completion of a feasibility study, funded through Natural Resources Canada’s Clean Fuels Fund, which demonstrated the economic viability of synthetic diesel production using biomass through water electrolysis.

The concept, known as “eSyn,” encompasses the use of water and water electrolysis as part of an innovative, patented and patent-pending process for making biosynthetic fuels developed by CNL and Expander, called the Biomass Electrolysis to Liquids (BETL™) technology.

The project leverages Expander’s technology for biomass gasification and biosynthetic fuel production and electrolysis technology.

The resulting fuel (either biosynthetic diesel, known as Bio-SynDiesel^®, or biosynthetic aviation fuel, known as Bio-SynJet^®) will be comprised entirely of carbon sourced from biogenic (atmospheric) sources and is expected to have very low lifecycle-carbon intensity.

As part of the feasibility study, a number of potential sites in Canada were evaluated with the intent of selecting one site for a front-end engineering design (FEED) phase of the project.

This process culminated in the selection of three locations at sites in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, all of which fulfill the necessary requirements in terms of proximity to utilities, and accessibility to major roads and key resources like biomass, among other factors.

Following Natural Resources Canada’s approval, the feed study was extended from one to the three sites, a process that is expected to be completed this fall.

“CNL is thrilled at the results that were generated through the feasibility study and is ready to move into the next phase of the project, which has the potential to eventually produce economical, ready-to-deploy renewable diesel fuel,” said Stephen Bushby, CNL’s vice president of science and technology. “As Canada moves towards a net-zero future, synthetic transportation fuels provide an immediate opportunity for the country to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions, with the additional benefit of leveraging waste, such as wood, that may otherwise go to waste. The transportation sector in Canada is responsible for almost 25 percent of the country’s total emissions, so this innovation has the potential to make an important impact toward decarbonizing that sector as well as Canada’s overall carbon footprint.”

Gord Crawford, Expander’s president and CEO, added, “This is not a science experiment—the feasibility study showed that the BETL™ technology can efficiently produce biosynthetic fuels at prices competitive with existing food competitive hydrogenation-derived renewable diesel (HDRD) and hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) fuels. Preliminary economic assessments indicated strong financial performance for all three sites. For future opportunities to actually deploy this technology, Expander and CNL plan to install a commercially proven electrolyzer as part of the planned Expander Carseland Alberta Gasifier project in order to technically and commercially de-risk potential investment in the three sites under development in the CFF program.”

The engineering design work will be based on the utilization of 240 dry tons of forestry wood waste per day as feedstock to annually produce approximately 30 million liters (nearly 8 million gallons) of renewable diesel per processing facility by using the BETL™ technology.

The design of these facilities could also serve as a template for future sites, both nationally and internationally, using a build, own and operate model.

Site specific details will be announced in coordination with local partners, including government and Indigenous nations and organizations in the near future.

The relevance of this project is timely in Canada.

While increasing the supply of low-carbon electricity, including nuclear generation and other renewable power options, will be critical to reaching Canada’s net-zero target, synthetic liquid fuels provide an immediate opportunity to decarbonize marine, aviation and other heavy-duty transport sectors using existing engines.

These clean fuels are drop-in ready, providing an attractive opportunity to decarbonize without the need to make major changes to engine design and manufacturing processes.

Converting cellulosic biomass such as lumber mill and forest residues to synthetic diesel or sustainable aviation fuel is also an attractive and promising method to produce fuel that complies with North America’s ASTM D975 and Europe’s CEN 15940 diesel specifications.

Several investors, including major offtakers, have expressed interest in participating in any potential projects.