Doty Windfuels' Breakthrough in Synthetic Fuels Provides Breath-taking Promise, Fist-clenching Frustration

Well, my trip to see Doty Scientific was certainly worth the drive.  After dozens of conversations and meetings with Dr. Doty and his team at venues all over North America, I finally got a plant tour, and had the opportunity to meet some of the other key players. 

Most of the physical plant is dedicated to their core business, NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance), cutting-edge physics that helps scientists who are developing new compounds identify the exact molecules they’ve created.  I was reminded of the mass spectrometer we had in high school in the early 1970s, which was a comparatively primitive attempt at the same idea. 

The most striking thing about what these people do is that it truly represents the most advanced thinking on Earth in this field.  There are companies with a thousand times the capital resources that simply cannot keep up with them.  And the pace of development is incredible; it doesn’t stay in place for very long before it’s replaced with something better.  In fact, they often don’t even take the time to patent a certain new concept, on the basis that they know they will have made a further advancement on it long before someone could possibly reverse-engineer the product and steal the idea.  Wow.

My main area of interest with Doty Scientific is their work in WindFuels, i.e., using off-peak wind energy to synthesize jet fuel, high-grade diesel, and high-octane gasoline.  Recent developments in the lab (and quite a lab it is!) have raised the hopes of success in this endeavor even higher than they had been previously. 

Yet the company still hasn’t nailed down the $8 million or so it needs to complete the current stage of its R&D.  The public sector, which would appear to me to be the best source of this funding, has been completely unresponsive.  I really can’t imagine a better use of a small amount of funding from, perhaps, ARPA-E, as this is clearly a significant, scientifically valid innovation that, if successful, will literally change the world in terms of its carbon footprint associated with transportation. 

What’s up here?  Is it incompetence?  Corruption?  It’s no secret that the ARPA-E money has gone almost exclusively to multi-billion-dollar organizations that spend a fortune on lobbyists.  In either case, it’s a shame. 

 

 

 

 

 

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6 comments on “Doty Windfuels' Breakthrough in Synthetic Fuels Provides Breath-taking Promise, Fist-clenching Frustration
  1. Larry Lemmert says:

    A high school mass sprectrometer???
    These were not ever cheap, especially in the 70’s.
    Are you sure that is what your H.S. had?
    After teaching H.S. chemistry for 33 years, I never saw one of these at the secondary level.
    On a side note, NMR does not replace Mass spec.
    To lock down the identity of an unknown compound it is necessary to have the data from mass spec., NMR and IR or UV.

    • Craig Shields says:

      Yes, we were lucky enough to have some high-powered donors. However, I couldn’t say whether the school actually owned or was just borrowing the equipment. And yes, I know one is not a replacement for another; I only meant to say that they’re both attempts to determine the molecular composition of a certain sample substance.

  2. Glenn Doty says:

    Thanks again for coming down to see us Craig. It was a genuine pleasure to meet you, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue.

    And thanks again for your support.

    Eventually we will get the funds we need, and the world will change. As for ARPA-E, the true crime isn’t that the money is going to multi-billion dollar organizations. The true crime there is the money is exclusively going to ideas that have little to no chance of success. But again, eventually we will get the funds that we need, and we will change the world.

    Thanks again for shining a light on us, and for all of the other work that you do.

    • Craig Shields says:

      Great to meet you too; I should have mentioned that in the post. After all this time, and many dozens of correspondences from which I have benefited greatly, it was a pleasure to shake your hand and speak with you face to face.

  3. Gary Tulie says:

    Another approach is to use stranded wind to generate first hydrogen then react it to generate ammonia.

    Ammonia can be used as the basis for sustainable fertilizer production, or be used as a fuel.

    http://freedomfertilizer.com/

    http://nh3fuelassociation.org/

  4. Benoit says:

    I am also interested by the work of Doty Scientific, and like the great website “The Oil Drum”, I was very impressed by their scientific knowledge’s and how well they anticipated the development of alternative energy and especially wind curtailment problems.
    Have you raised funds that you needed for your project?
    For Arpa-e projects, I think that almost none of them will be able to be turned into fuel economically, but it is real science, giving real data to be possibily exploited to do something else than fuel, and I am using these results to develop a project with high value compounds, and not fuel, that is very difficult.
    Wish to see good news from Doty Scientific

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  1. […] you add more energy, you can synthesize some other compound; in fact, that’s what our friends at Doty Windfuels do; they’re on our list of clean energy investment […]