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Sasa Cook, vice-president of Maine Liquid Methane Fuels LLC, plans to build a liquid methane fuels plant in Brewer, Maine, that would draw from the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline and sell converted fuels to major customers in the states. The firm has introduced the project to Irving Oil Ltd.

Maine Liquid Methane Fuels LLC is proposing a $50-million plant that would produce heating and motor fuels with reduced carbon dioxide, sulfur and other heavy hydrocarbons, said vice-president Sasa Cook.

The company plans to transport the fuels by truck to customers that would include pulp and paper mills, ski mountains, municipalities and gas retailers, among others.

“We have talked to one of the largest petroleum distributors on a retail level about possibly putting in dispensing terminals at their facilities,” Cook said, later adding the firm has introduced the project to Irving Oil Ltd.

The company received site approval from Brewer this week to open the plant in a proposed new industrial park. Pending environmental approvals, the firm expects to break ground in June with plans to start production in the fall of 2011.

Maine Liquid Methane Fuels would extract from the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline and produce about 100,000 gallons of heating fuel daily or about 85,000 gallons of motor fuel per day. Company officials have contacted potential natural gas suppliers in Canada, although they have not yet approached Canaport LNG, Cook said.

Among other customers, the company is targeting its motor fuel product at major retailers, including supermarkets and logging firms, that typically re-fuel their transport trucks in the same locations. The customers would convert their trucks’ engines to run off either diesel or liquid methane at a cost of about $24,000, Cook said.

The company’s president, Christian Hofford, also heads up CHI Engineering, a New Hampshire firm that specializes in natural gas plants. CHI recently developed a plant in California that produces 200,000 gallons per day of mostly motor fuel.

“They are further ahead than us; they have the infrastructure, the dispensing stations so trucks can go to truck stops and refuel, and we hope that will happen here in Maine,” Cook said, referring to gas retailers in the state that could add liquid methane terminals.

As the company looks to convince potential customers to change their fuel sources, Cook said he was confident that it will offer a discounted rate, even with the additional conversion and transport costs.

Cook is pitching the plant as an economic development tool that could reduce costs for major employers and sustain jobs over the long term.

“If we can help reduce the costs for pulp and paper mills, and other manufacturers, and make them a little more competitive, that will retain jobs,” he said.

SAINT JOHN, N.B. — A Maine natural gas firm plans to build a liquid methane fuels plant in the state that would draw from the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline and sell converted fuels to major customers.
Maine Liquid Methane Fuels LLC is proposing a $50-million plant in Brewer, Maine, that would produce heating and motor fuels with reduced carbon dioxide, sulphur and other heavy hydrocarbons, said vice-president Sasa Cook.
The company plans to transport the fuels by truck to customers that would include pulp and paper mills, ski mountains, municipalities and gas retailers, among others.
“We have talked to one of the largest petroleum distributors on a retail level about possibly putting in dispensing terminals at their facilities,” Cook said, adding the firm has introduced the project to Irving Oil Ltd.
The company received site approval from Brewer this week to open the plant in a proposed new industrial park. Pending environmental approvals, the firm expects to break ground in June with plans to start production in the fall of 2011.
Maine Liquid Methane Fuels would extract from the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline. Company officials have contacted potential natural gas suppliers in Canada, although they have not yet approached Canaport LNG in Saint John, N.B., Cook said.
As the company looks to convince potential customers to change their fuel sources, Cook said he’s confident it will offer a discounted rate, even with the additional conversion and transport costs.
Cook is pitching the plant as an economic development tool that could reduce costs for major employers and sustain jobs over the long term.
“If we can help reduce the costs for pulp and paper mills, and other manufacturers, and make them a little more competitive, that will retain jobs,” he said.

BREWER, Maine (AP) ― The Brewer Planning Board is getting behind a plan to develop Maine’s first liquid methane fuels energy plant.

Maine Liquid Methane Fuels LLC must still get state and federal permits before it can begin construction on the $50 million facility in a Brewer business park.

The Bangor Daily News says the plant would tap into the nearby Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline.The facility will then liquefy the natural gas collected so it could be transported by truck.

If the company can get the needed permits, construction would begin in June and the plant would open about a year later.

There’s no immediate word on how many jobs the plant would create.

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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

New fuel plant pitched in Brewer

A new corporation is looking to build a plant in Brewer that would be the first to produce liquid methane fuel in Maine.

Maine Liquid Methane Fuels LLC has signed an option agreement with the city for 10 acres in Brewer’s new business district off Wiswell Road to build a liquid methane fuel plant, according to a press release from the company and the Bangor Daily News . The $50 million plant will purify and liquefy natural gas from the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline and truck it to customers, initially large commercial users like paper mills, in interior regions of the state. The company expects to hire 12-20 full-time workers for the project, and anticipates an additional 6-10 related transport jobs will be created as well, according to the release. The company is submitting plans for the plant today and will present the project to the planning board on Feb. 1.

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MLMF launch

BREWER, Maine — Maine Liquid Methane Fuels LLC is submitting plans today to build a liquid methane fuels energy plant to provide customers in the region with a cleaner and cheaper alternative to fossil fuels, a company official said.

The plant, estimated to cost $50 million to build, will be similar to ones in Massachusetts and California, which have used liquefied methane fuels for a number of years, said Sasa Cook, project manager and vice president of Maine Liquid Methane Fuels, Sunday.

“We’re intending to tap into the nearby Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline that travels through Brewer,” he said, and basically “we’ll be taking some of the natural gas and liquefying it, purifying it and distributing it via truck to customers [in the region] who, until now, have not had access to liquefied gas.”

There is an LNG storage facility in Lewiston, “but no other facilities [in Maine] are producing liquefied methane,” which is one variety of liquefied natural gas, Cook said. “What we’re doing by liquefying this product is reducing it in size by 600 percent. By reducing it in size, it makes it affordable to transport.”

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LONDON, England (CNN)

Carbon Sciences are developing a “breakthrough technology” to make fuel out of waste CO2.

Carbon Sciences believe they have made a breakthrough with their technology, which they say can transform CO₂ back into basic fuel building blocks efficiently.

Their biocatalytic process converts CO₂ into basic hydrocarbons – C1 (methane) C2 (ethane) and C3 (propane) — which can then be utilized to make higher-grade fuels like gasoline and jet fuel.