By Jesus Cabrera, Fluor Fellow, downstream process configuration and revamps and Garry Jacobs, senior Fluor Fellow, renewable fuels
This article concludes Fluor’s two-part series on the importance of the renewable fuels market to the energy transition. Read the first part here.
With the burgeoning renewable fuels market, there are three key characteristics that enable these projects to become a reality: strong technology licensor relationships, deep subject matter expertise and innovation.
Fluor’s strong relationships with renewable fuels technology licensors help to accelerate projects’ front-end engineering phases. This collaborative approach has shaved several months off an initial engineering effort, while setting up fast-track execution of front-end engineering and design and detailed engineering.
Our project management and procurement experts are navigating supply chain challenges to further help deliver facilities on an accelerated schedule to meet demand and government incentive schedules. For example, for the HollyFrontier (now HF Sinclair) renewable diesel facility in Wyoming, Fluor collaborated with HollyFrontier to develop an innovative execution approach that safely achieved a 6-month schedule reduction.
Fluor is also working with numerous clients to design facilities that are flexible for future needs with plants able to manufacture renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel at varying levels in response to market demand and incentives. For example, we are working with one client on potentially shifting its renewable fuels facility from production of both renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel to total production of aviation fuel.
It's not just enough to manufacture renewable fuels, however. We’re helping to ensure they are produced as sustainably as possible. Hydrogen, which is used in the process, can be generated using renewable byproducts, thereby displacing natural gas. In addition, the hydrogen production process can leverage carbon capture technologies to minimize carbon dioxide emissions.
New innovations are also helping to reduce the carbon intensity of renewable fuel feedstocks. While some feedstocks may be produced specifically for renewable fuels, Fluor is exploring how readily available byproducts of other processes such as wood chip waste and used tires or sludge can be used to produce renewable fuels. Often called third-generation feedstocks, Fluor is leveraging its gasification and pyrolysis expertise to help make these less carbon-intensive feedstocks commercially competitive over the next decade.
These strong technology licensor relationships, deep Fluor expertise and innovative ideas are turning cooking oils and waste products into fuels that create a carbon-free future for air travel, and Fluor is playing a significant role in this transition.