Bill Gates-backed ClearFlame retrofits diesel engines for cleaner fuel

Certainly, we have to accomplish sustainability, he told them. But there are close to a billion people in the environment who don’t have standard entry to electric power, and several things improve high quality of daily life in individuals communities as substantially as accessibility to diesel engines. Diesel vans connect them to food items and other important merchandise diesel generators convey light and refrigeration.

“And so what we established out to do as a company was decouple the economic benefit of the diesel engine from its environmental issues, which are not connected with the engine, but are essentially difficulties with the simple fact that the motor at present involves petroleum diesel gasoline,” say Johnson, CEO of ClearFlame Motor Technologies, the Geneva, Sick.-dependent startup he and Blumreiter started in 2016.

In other text, they required to energy a “diesel” engine with some other fuel that was inexpensive, plentiful—and clear.

In the 6 many years considering the fact that its founding, ClearFlame has performed that, modifying diesel engines so they operate on very low-carbon fuels like ethanol and methanol, appreciably chopping emissions (and probably mileage expenditures) in the system.

In Oct 2021, ClearFlame elevated a $17 million Series A funding round led by Monthly bill Gates-started Breakthrough Power Ventures and like ag car or truck producer John Deere. And this month, ClearFlame introduced it experienced signed agreements with truck refitting corporations to include its technology to current diesel engines, and experienced rolled out its 1st pilot fleet trial with a ClearFlame truck running on ethanol.

Together the way, ClearFlame has waded into a tense local weather alter discussion above no matter if an inside combustion engine can ever be regarded as environmentally seem in a planet that has electric powered cars—and if it’s defensible to switch food stuff into gasoline.

Soiled engines

Trucking demands to be decarbonized—that significantly is not up for discussion. About a quarter of throughout the world CO2 emissions are attributable to transportation. Of that, about 45{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} comes from passenger cars, an business now in the midst of a historic shift to electric powered motor vehicles. An additional 30{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} of individuals emissions stems from trucking, an industry that has so far unsuccessful to electrify alone. Electric trucks have made inroads in shorter to medium distances, but they haven’t carried out so for extended (over 100 mile) outings that account for 70{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} of U.S. freight.

Lengthy-haul truck firms complain about the short vary and long refueling instances of electric trucks. The newest Volvo VNR Electric powered semi advertises a assortment of 275 miles, while the Freightliner eCascadia goes for 230 miles equally acquire 90 minutes to get to an 80{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} modify. Diesel vehicles, on the other hand, can travel 1,000 miles per tank (even though motorists can’t go that considerably without rest) and refill in 20 minutes.

Option Fuels

In the Stanford lab, Johnson and Blumreiter proved that if you ran a diesel engine hotter than typical, the motor could operate on a full array of lower-carbon liquid fuels like ethanol, methanol, and ammonia.

“The basic discovery was that we could operate a diesel motor, finding the exact same overall performance, on any gas,” states Blumreiter. “That enables us to opt for fuels based mostly on some other desirable characteristics than their ignition characteristics, like value, regional availability, carbon intensity, or how clean they burn up.”

Courtesy of ClearFlame

Finding the diesel engine to operate hotter was the challenging part. Very low carbon fuels like ethanol and methanol ignite at better temperatures than diesel, so if they ended up employed in a standard diesel engine they would fail to combust and the engine would sputter out.

To tackle this concern, in 2017 Johnson and Blumreiter moved from Stanford to the Argonne Countrywide Laboratory in the Chicago suburbs. There, they joined a new application called Chain Reaction Improvements that had been set up to bridge the so-termed “valley of death” among strategy and proof of concept for startups in manufacturing and power.

They expended the next two several years experimenting with how to tweak a Caterpillar exam engine to verify their notion in a authentic-planet setting. Eventually, Blumreiter and Johnson obtained the diesel engine hotter by modifying 10-15{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} of the sections. For example, they taken off a large amount of the common cooling factors so it would be scorching ample to ignite minimal carbon fuels.

“We improved some of the air and exhaust plumbing in the engine to fundamentally permit the air and exhaust appear hotter into the motor than it would have in any other case,” states Johnson. “And then we transformed the fuel injection units to be compatible with these lower carbon fuels, which commonly means engineering for decreased viscosity.”

With the science proven in an engine, ClearFlame lifted a $3 million seed funding round in early 2020 led by Clean Power Ventures, just ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic took off.

Hitting the Street

Ethanol is generally produced from corn or sugarcane and nonetheless has some carbon footprint, together with from the tractors and fertilizer used to improve it. But, ClearFlame says, operating a single of the company’s retrofitted diesel engines on ethanol cuts down CO2 emissions by 42{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} in contrast to diesel. In truth, the corporation claims a ClearFlame engine emits 23{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} fewer carbon than battery EVs mainly because of the combine of fuels made use of to make electric power on the national grid. And since ethanol is a “short” molecule with two carbon atoms—compared to the 16 in a usual diesel chain—a ClearFlame engine provides 99{ca2182fc8fed51dc37b95061ee48b5056cde1176732b225548c54a0c0156d303} significantly less soot particulate emissions, the organization claims.

Courtesy of ClearFlame

Probably similarly as attention-grabbing for trucking corporations, an exterior examine contracted by ClearFlame prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine found that operating a truck on a ClearFlame motor expenditures eight cents fewer per mile than a diesel a single. At diesel’s greatest cost throughout the war, that price savings rose to 25-30 cents for each mile, Johnson suggests.

In the very last calendar year, ClearFlame has retrofitted its very first four vans, Blumreiter says, and now has 35 employees. The company has operate vehicles on its engines for “tens of thousands” of miles, Johnson claims. In September, it declared that it experienced signed deals with Reviva, an engine rebuilder, and Vander Haag’s, a truck services chain, to combine ClearFlame’s kit into Cummins X15 truck engines and put in them in Course 8 vans, the most significant course on U.S. roadways.

The ClearFlame retrofit process fees concerning $40,000 and $50,000. A typical new diesel semi prices some $150,000 and receives an motor rebuild (about $30,000) following a million miles. Johnson argues that the included price of a ClearFlame retrofit is justified simply because it pays for itself in 12 to 24 months as a result of decreased for every-mile costs. Vander Haag’s main enterprise officer Eric Krikke states a retrofit really should just take about two weeks.

The Discussion

Not anyone is guaranteed that ClearFlame’s strategy is the ideal way to decarbonize trucking.

Electrical vehicles and vans can currently go over limited and medium excursions and their range is expanding, critics argue additionally, there is no nationwide community of service stations that give pure ethanol. (Blumreiter notes that trucking fleets, which presently have diesel tanks put in at their depots, could repurpose an by now mounted tank or put in a new one particular for tens of 1000’s of pounds, and trucks stops could stick to: “I’m anticipating that to occur, since the value of liquid fueled infrastructure is so lower.”)

Courtesy of ClearFlame

There are also philosophical arguments towards reduced carbon fuels like ethanol and methanol. Working with them assumes that carbon emissions are ok as lengthy as they don’t come from pumping fossil fuels out of the floor. But, “hardcore decarbornizers say all carbon is evil,” notes Christoph Stuermer, automotive apply lead at Vindelici Advisors.

Ethanol elicits extra immediate criticism. “There is a panic that this stuff will turn out to be so economically viable that the cultivation of crops for to start with-generation biofuels will crowd out food items and animal feed and therefore increase food items prices or boost food stuff shortages,” Stuermer says. “Americans could spend a lot more to set it in their vehicles than African youngsters could spend for it to take in.”

Kyle Teamey, BEV’s offer lead on the ClearFlame financial investment, argues that the issue of ClearFlame is not to style engines for plant-based mostly ethanol, but somewhat for a slew of new gentle fuels like methanol that can be created from h2o, CO2 and renewable electricity. “There are new electricity carriers emerging. And that is why I’m psyched about this…We’re not searching to get into a struggle in excess of how greatest to use crop lands, we’re seeking to the up coming period of the evolution of the marketplace.”