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What are the most futuristic, innovative and cleanest fuels today, EVs aside? If you’re familiar with our content line-up, you’ll be thinking about hydrogen and ammonia by now, but those aren’t the ones we’re focusing on today. A prestigious brand has just developed a new engine that uses, unexpectedly, a ‘living’ fuel (metaphorically speaking) and could be the end of electric mobility, sweeping away combustion mobility at the same time. Will it be the future of our roads? The experts are already pointing to it.
This new engine could be the future of mobility: No hydrogen, no EVs, no ammonia
Terragia Biofuel is a bright new star in the biofuel niche, which has recently attracted attention with its unique take on biomass processing. They have accustomed themselves to receiving $6 million in seed capital for the development of new technology that promises to radically change the low-carbon biofuel production process (that’s why we are talking about a “$6 million cost”).
Working as the backbone of Terragia’s innovation is a biology-based process of converting cellulose biomass to ethanol and other products. This approach is markedly different from classical cellulose biofuel production procedures and may possess aspects that can lead to cost reduction and increased efficiency.
- Engineered Thermophilic Bacteria: Terragia uses heat-loving bacteria to digest cellulose biomass and turn the content into ethanol and any other usable chemical products.
- One-Step Bioprocessing: The company’s technology follows what can be described as a ‘consolidated’ bioprocessing technique, which does not require more enzymes.
- Cotreatment Process: Unlike Terragia’s previous methods, which involved the use of thermochemical pretreatment, this one has mechanical disruption during the fermentation process.
We don’t know the new engine’s performance, but we are sure about this: Beyond the new biofuel engine
While specific performance metrics are not publicly available, the potential impact of Terragia’s technology is substantial:
- CO2 Emission Reduction: When the technology is fully rolled out in the market, it is assumed to reduce CO2 emissions by 3 gigatons per year.
- CO2 Capture Potential: It could be used to capture an even a greater amount of CO2, but the numbers are not discussed in detail.
- Market Potential: Currently, through the Terragia platform, its technology targets close to fifty percent of the future global transportation energy market, which is a trillion-dollar market.
The biofuel produced through Terragia’s process is primarily ethanol, which can be further converted into fuels suitable for various transportation modes:
- Aviation Fuel: The ethanol can be upgraded to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which is a desperate need currently in the aviation industry.
- Maritime Fuel: The technology provides possible solutions to the shipping industry, which is currently on the lookout for cleaner fuels.
- Heavy-Duty Transport: The biofuel that Terragia had been developing could give trucks and other tough-to-electrify vehicles a feasible solution.
From the United States to Brazil: An “international mobilization” has been deployed for this engine
Terragia’s technology development has been supported by a combination of public and private funding sources:
- Government Support: The U.S. Department of Energy Center for Bioenergy Innovation and the São Paulo Research Foundation, while staying independent, funded this work.
- Research Grants: Other support has been obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.
- Private Capital: In the most recent development, it secured $6 million in seed funding from Engine Ventures and Energy Impact Partners (EIP).
The ongoing technology development is carried out in collaboration with prestigious institutions:
- Dartmouth College.
- University of Campinas, Brazil.
The idea behind the Terragia biofuel engine is so innovative that experts are comparing it to hydrogen. Funding is no longer a problem, and so is the innovation to make a new type of combustion possible. The challenge now, however, is to bring it to market on a large scale, something that will depend on the brands that decide to incorporate it into their models. Otherwise, we will be talking about an experimental prototype, although it doesn’t look like it will remain just that.