Sundrop Fuels, a New Mexico-based company, has developed a hybrid solar-biomass refinery using concentrated solar power (CSP) to heat plant scraps and wood chips to create biofuel. Biofuels are controversial as the ongoing food vs fuel debate continues to wage, but also the energy intensity is high in order to produce the alternative to conventional fuel.
By using solar power, the consumption of biomass at the refinery should decline substantially. Sundrop has licensed its CSP technology from eSolar, creating SurroundSun reactor technology. Instead of using mirrors to reflect sunlight and to heat water or molten salts in a central tower, Sundrop’s design will use that solar energy to heat biomass to very high temperatures. The solar heat “blasts organic materials with super high temperatures…tearing apart the materials at the molecular level…which creates a synthetic gas that can be formed into gasoline or diesel,” said Sundrop CEO Wayne Simmons.
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