Q: What is TECTANE Corporation?
A: TECTANE is an environmental R&D company, whose founder Nino De Santis has been involved for more than three decades in the research and development of alternative, renewable sources of energy to replace oil and gasoline.
In 2000, De Santis incorporated TECTANE under the laws of the State of Florida in anticipation of its becoming an operational, commercial company. In 2002, when it became apparent that the U.S. would not join the Kyoto Accord and in light of the fact that Canada had endorsed Kyoto and had passed the Alternative Fuels Act in 1997, the Montreal-born De Santis decided that Noyan, Quebec, — just south of Montreal on the U.S. border — should become the world headquarters of TECTANE. Accordingly, he incorporated in Canada, which is now the hub of TECTANE's worldwide initiatives.
Q: What is TECTANE's main business?
A: TECTANE has developed the H2O Injector that can mix 20% water with up to 80% ethanol in the combustion chamber of a car engine, producing a cleaner, more efficient combustible fuel known as Aquahol. Feature Bulletin #771-80 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on April 11, 1980 cited Aquahol as being 800% more efficient than gasohol — 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline — the mix used by traditional oil companies to boost octane while avoiding use of the noxious additive MTBE (methyl tertio-butyl ether).
In order to produce the ethanol needed in the Aquahol mix, TECTANE grows Sweet Sorghum, which is a hybrid of sugar cane, bamboo and sorghum with a higher yield per acre than any other known source of ethanol, including corn, sugar cane or switch-grass. Unlike most companies which use mechanized means to process biomass into ethanol, TECTANE has developed a system of hand-held implements, known as its SoloTech Program, which allows its Sweet Sorghum to be harvested and converted into ethanol manually, which is good for developing countries that have ample manpower but lack the investment capital needed to build mechanized factories.
Q: Besides the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Feature Bulletin #771-80, which talks about the efficiency of Aquahol, does any recognized international organization say that Aquahol is better for the environment than gasohol or gasoline with MTBE?
A: Yes, in October 1994, the United Nations Commercial Trade and Development Agency (UNCTAD) issued a report through its Standing Committee on Commodities that listed Aquahol as one of the biomass fuels that can maintain a neutral carbon dioxide cycle in the atmosphere. Among Aquahol's advantages, UNCTAD cited fewer emissions of nitrous oxides and aldehyde. The report also alluded to the increased power a vehicle engine would get through use of an H2O Injector because the water injected contains 89 percent oxygen which is known to create a cleaner, more powerful burn for all fuels, including Aquahol, gasohol or gasoline.
Q: Have any other recognized organizations, other than the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the United Nations Commercial Trade and Development Agency (see Q & A above) verified that alcohol and water injected into a combustion chamber is a viable way to boost power and extend mileage?
A: Yes, the U.S.-based Society of Automotive Engineers, whose SAE grade system is still carried on cans of oil sold in retail outlets and in service stations around the world, did scientific studies after the Second World War which indicated that alcohol and water injected into a combustion chamber boosts power. In Volume 53 published in 1945, the SAE Journal said:
"Recent successes with the use of water injection for increasing the power of aircraft engines have renewed interest in what is really an old idea. Although early tests were made with the injection of water alone, it now appears that the injection of alcohol or a mixture of alcohol and water gives superior results in many cases... The authors of this paper feel that alcohol-water injection has a field of use in both aircraft and ground vehicle engines, where it can give more power and smoother operation, with a fuel of about 12 octane numbers less than the normal engine requirement."
The SAE study cited above envisaged using water and alcohol to boost the octane content of gasoline instead of doing so by additional refining at greater cost and the use of additives such as lead or MTBE. Due to the abundance and low cost of oil at that time, the SAE study did not consider the possibility of doing away with gasoline as a fuel and instead using only water and ethyl alcohol, better known as ethanol. The low oil prices of the era did not encourage development of alternative fuels as a commercially viable proposition. Nobody foresaw oil prices rising to over $50 a barrel, as they have in the past few years.
Q: If a car with a gasoline engine is outfitted with the H2O Injector, does it still require a catalytic converter?
A: No, because the H2O Injector injects small amounts of water into the combustion chamber where, at high RPMs, the water molecules are split thermo-chemically into their component parts of hydrogen and oxygen. This causes a cleaner burn of the gasoline which reduces nitrous oxides, one of the major causes of smog and acid rain and one of the by-products that catalytic converters are designed to reduce. (See previous Q & A dealing with UNCTAD report on advantages of Aquahol.)
Q: Does a catalytic converter deal with the problem of carbon dioxide emissions, which are a principle by-product of gasoline combustion and one of the main greenhouse gases which cause global warming, referred to by some scientists as an "atmospheric gas chamber"?
A: No, the catalytic converter does not help curb the emissions of carbon dioxide, which is one of the principle goals of the Kyoto Protocol in its attempt to reduce global warming. In fact, the catalytic converter reduces carbon monoxide but converts it into carbon dioxide through combination with oxygen.
By contrast, the H2O Injector does reduce carbon dioxide emissions because the water injected by it contains 89 percent oxygen, whose molecules combine with the carbon molecules from the gasoline in the combustion chamber where they are burned off instead of being released into the atmosphere. The hydrogen from the water injected by the H2O Injector creates additional power.
Olson Engineering, a certified E.P.A. laboratory in California, tested an earlier version of TECTANE's current H2O Injector in July 1979 and certified that it reduced gasoline consumption by 25.2 percent, thereby also reducing CO2 and other emissions.
Q: Has the H2O Injector been tested on any vehicles to see whether it works?
A: Yes, in 1979, Nino De Santis did experiments in the U.S. with patrol vehicles belonging to the Hollywood, Florida police department, as well as trucks belonging to Pepsi-Cola and the Marriott Hotel chain. The vehicles reported an increase in gasoline mileage of between 25 percent and 40 percent. The results were reported in the local press, as well as on the broadcast affiliates of NBC, ABC and CBS. Between 1980 and 1987, a Quaker State franchisee in Florida operating under the name of Ross Oil sold more than 10,000 units of a modified version of De Santis' H2O Injector.
Q: Does the H2O Injector work with modern cars which have computerized operations controlled by a Central Processing Unit (CPU)?
A: The H2O Injector could work in most new or used cars if the manufacturer were to modify its CPU specifications. If the CPU were modified, the H2O Injector could be retrofitted at a cost of under $500 in order to boost the power and mileage of its gasoline engines. TECTANE's long-term goal is to negotiate with interested car manufacturers to install the H2O Injector as part of the Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) process, to be used with gasoline engines or eventually with Aquahol (water and ethanol) when ethanol replaces gasoline as the fuel of choice for most motorists.
Q: Are there any talks currently being held with manufacturers to produce a car which works with Aquahol rather than with gasoline?
A: TECTANE is holding talks with a company in the Chinese auto parts industry about the feasibility of setting up an assembly line in China to develop its own line of an Aquahol-powered, "green" Eco-Car based on the prototype Humming Bird beach buggy built by TECTANE in 2000 in a former Toyota plant in Trinidad.
Q: How did Nino De Santis get involved with the H2O Injector?
A: Nino De Santis first learned about the system from Norman Waag, a senior aeronautical and mechanical engineer who worked for the engineering firm of TRW during World War II. There, he invented a version of the H2O Injector as a power booster for U.S. fighter aircraft, such as the Mustang and Thunderbolt. After the War, Waag adapted the water injection system for the auto-racing industry, which he supplied with thousands of units. De Santis met Waag in the mid-1970s in Florida where the inventor had retired. In 1977, De Santis became a partner with Waag in an effort to market the H2O Injector to the general population.
Q: Is there any patent protection on Nino De Santis' H2O Injector?
A: In 1976, Norman Waag registered a patent in the U.S. on his H2O Injector under Application No. 3-987-774 titled Supplementary Fuel Injection System. After Waag's death, Nino De Santis made modifications to the design of his late partner's H2O Injector and filed a new patent application in Los Angeles in 1994 under No. 8-194-119. In 1997, De Santis filed a patent application in Canada for an Electronic Sensor Injector under No. 2-202-932. In 1999, De Santis made further modifications to the process and filed another patent application in Canada as No. 2-275-025. The most recent patent application took place in Canada in 2000 under the title CO2 Reduction Process and No. 2-253-777.
To avoid future patent infringements, the company's new strategy is to replace patent applications with trade secrets.
Q: Is the H2O Injector developed by Norman Waag and later modified by Nino De Santis a new idea?
A: Back at the turn of the 20th century, automobile pioneer Henry Ford had the idea of using alcohol and water to power his cars, but the abundance of cheap gasoline and an oil industry which was determined to maintain its monopoly on fuel supplies kept alternative fuels, such as Aquahol (a combination of hydrogen, oxygen and ethanol), from being developed.
In 1962, General Motors adapted a supplementary water alcohol system to be used with turbo boosters in its Oldsmobile model. However, the model was discontinued shortly after.
Q: Who has verified that Sweet Sorghum, which is TECTANE's preferred source for ethanol, provides a higher yield of ethanol than any other biomass source?
A: Authorities around the world have certified that Sweet Sorghum is one of the most cost-effective sources of ethanol because of its short growing season (120 days), high sugar content and adaptability to various soil conditions and climates. In warm climates, two crops per season can be harvested.
Prof. I. C. Anderson, an agronomist at Iowa State University who also works with the Iowa Energy Center, wrote a paper in which he said that "stalks of Sweet Sorghum contain fermentable sugars in the sap equal to 400 to 600 gallons of ethanol per acre or about twice that from corn grain." (Sugar cane can yield up to 400 gallons per acre.)
Peter Griffee, an agronomist with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, issued a paper in 2002 in which he said of Sweet Sorghum that "its water requirement is one-third that of sugar cane and its growing period is short enough to allow harvesting twice a year." He went on to say that farmland in 20 provinces in China is "highly suited for Sweet Sorghum."
On July 20, 2006, the Business Mirror publication in the Philippines reported that the government is "gearing up" to get involved in the growth of Sweet Sorghum as a renewable energy source for ethanol. "While sugar cane has sugar content ranging from 11 percent to 14 percent, Sweet Sorghum has sugar content of at least 15 percent up to a high of 23 percent, which means it can produce a higher level of ethanol," the story said.
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Q: How do you answer critics of ethanol who say that it is not energy-efficient to produce?
A: The U.S. Department of Energy issued a paper in September 2006 in which it said that ethanol produced from cellulosic sources (such as Sweet Sorghum) "may yield a higher energy balance than ethanol made from corn," which itself is "energy efficient as it yields almost 25 percent more energy than is used in growing the corn, harvesting it and distilling it into ethanol."
Q: How do you answer critics who say that using ethanol instead of gasoline would be of dubious benefit because the cost per gallon to the consumer would be almost the same as for gasoline but the BTU value of ethanol is lower?
A: Although the BTU value of ethanol is lower than that of gasoline, the combustion is more efficient and complete when mixed with oxygen from the water injected into the combustion chamber with the H2O Injector. This leads to more power and better mileage. Of course, one of the greatest benefits of replacing gasoline with ethanol is energy self-sufficiency and reduction of greenhouse gases which lead to global warming.
Q: Isn't an alcohol-based fuel, such as ethanol, corrosive to tanker trucks, storage facilities and vehicle engines?
A: The prevalence in Brazil of E-85 fuel, which is made up of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, proves that new flex-fuel car engines and new service station storage tanks can handle the corrosive aspect of the alcohol.
Q: Could regular car engines, as opposed to those of newer flex-fuel cars, use a high-alcohol content fuel such as TECTANE's Aquahol without being damaged?
A: TECTANE has developed a secret-formula "inhibitor" which when added to the water injected into the combustion chamber through its H2O Injector prevents corrosive damage to car engines and their various parts.
Q: When TECTANE founder Nino De Santis speaks of an ethanol "bull rush", what is he referring to?
A: Since President George Bush signed into law the Energy Policy Act of 2005, there has been an unprecedented growth of the ethanol industry in the U.S. and, by extension, worldwide. One of the major provisions of the U.S. legislation is a requirement that oil refiners use at least 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel annually beginning in 2006, increasing to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. Since the law passed, construction has begun on 29 new ethanol bio-refineries in the U.S., representing nearly 2 billion gallons of annual ethanol production, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
As a result of this ethanol activity, investors worldwide are looking at ethanol production as a growth industry for renewable energy and as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, which contribute to global warming. A report released November 14, 2006 by the U.S. Department of Energy showed that since 1990 greenhouse-gas emission levels in the U.S. are up 17 percent. The report said that in 2005 carbon dioxide — mostly from the transportation sector which relies on petroleum products — accounted for 83 percent of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2003, the U.S. accounted for 23 percent of world carbon dioxide emissions, but by 2030 the U.S. share worldwide was projected to fall to 19 percent, the report said. By contrast, China was projected to pass the U.S. by 2015 as the top emitter of greenhouse gases and would account for 25 percent of global emissions by 2030, the report said.
Q: Why has it taken so long for TECTANE to bring its products to market?
A: In 1991, Nino De Santis commissioned a study by Pricewaterhouse in Los Angeles on the feasibility of marketing his Aquahol fuel system based on the H2O Injector and the processing of ethanol from Sweet Sorghum. The answer he received was that ethanol production — and by extension the marketing of his Aquahol fuel system — would not be commercially viable until laws were passed in the U.S. mandating the use of energy alternatives to oil and gas. That happened in 2005 when President Bush signed into law the Energy Policy Act. (See previous Q & A.) With oil prices hovering at about $60 per barrel as of November 2006, PricewaterhouseCoopers had this to say about alternative fuels:
Oil and gas prices are at record highs, and are not expected to decline given the growing demand for these resources. Replacement reserves are located in more challenging locations, including deeper offshore waters and more remote onshore locations. Emerging markets, including China and India, have among the fastest growing consumption rates for hydrocarbons. Energy companies are diversifying their product mix, as non-traditional fuel sources become more price competitive, and alternative fuels are gaining interest. New investment in LNG, oil sands, oil shale, ethanol and other sources and products are showing rapid growth.
Q: What makes the TECTANE method of processing Sweet Sorghum into ethanol different from how other companies do it?
A: First of all, most ethanol producers use corn or sugar cane to produce ethanol, rather than the Sweet Sorghum favored by TECTANE and proven to be a richer source of ethanol than either of those other two crops (see Q & A above). TECTANE relies on a splitting technique developed in Canada in the 1970s — as opposed to the traditional method of milling or crushing the plant stalks — to get at the sugar content which is then fermented into ethanol. The splitting technique leaves other parts of the plant intact to be converted into valuable by-products which can be sold commercially to bring in additional revenue streams. Most importantly, TECTANE has developed specialized tools under its SoloTech Program which allow the harvesting of Sweet Sorghum on a manual basis, which is ideal for developing countries which want to create employment while avoiding heavy capital outlays for mechanized equipment.
Q: What are the by-products (mentioned in the preceding answer) that TECTANE can bring to market?
A: The stalks from Sweet Sorghum can be turned into wood chips to create heat in the generation of electricity or they can be converted into chip board for construction materials for housing. The flower tops from the plant can be used to make flour for human consumption or for animal feed.
Q: Has TECTANE performed any experiments which show that such by-products are feasible?
A: Yes, since 2002, TECTANE has grown Sweet Sorghum on an experimental basis on land in upper New York State belonging to Boralex Inc., which operates twenty power generation sites in North America and France. Boralex is a pioneer among producers of green and renewable energy. The project with TECTANE produced both ethanol and wood chips, which could be used by Boralex as a wood-residue energy source for any of its five thermal power stations in the states of New York and Maine.
Cascades Inc., with 140 production units in North America, Europe and Asia, is a major producer of packaging and paper products made of recycled fibres. Cascades, which holds a 43 percent interest in Boralex, signed a Development Partnership Agreement with TECTANE in 2003 to do research into using the fibre of Sweet Sorghum to produce pulp and paper.
The report's conclusion was that pulp and paper could be produced profitably from Sweet Sorghum as a by-product of ethanol production. The study also concluded that the BTU value of the Sweet Sorghum fibre was comparable to that of tree fibres. As of November 2006, TECTANE and Boralex were studying the feasibility of a co-generation plant whereby Boralex would use wood chips from TECTANE's Sweet Sorghum to make electricity, and the waste heat from that process would then be used to distill ethanol — saving one-third of the heating costs involved in ethanol production.
Q: What is TECTANE's Program for Nations about?
A: Founder Nino De Santis has long been involved with ecological issues. In the 1990s, he was an adviser to the United Nations for Earth Day International as it pertains to promoting new and environmentally sustainable technologies. In bringing its Aquahol fuel system to market in the near future, TECTANE hopes to have the opportunity to work with developing countries to address issues such as auto emissions, deforestation and lack of affordable housing. Through its Enviro Progam, TECTANE employees in the various countries where the company launches will work with officials from those countries' departments of agriculture, energy, environment and transportation to solve such humanitarian issues.
Q: In which countries is TECTANE planning to launch in the near future and what will be their business model?
A: Nino De Santis has held talks with publicly-traded companies in Canada, Mexico, India, Thailand and Trinidad with a view to forming mergers in those countries whereby TECTANE would transfer its know-how and technology pertaining to its Aquahol fuel system and the processing of Sweet Sorghum into ethanol and other by-products such as wood chips, fibre board and flour. While each new company formed in this manner would be independent and would trade on the respective stock exchange of the country in which it operated, TECTANE officials, including De Santis, would work with them on implementing the various facets of the TECTANE project including the Program for Nations. The Philippines is a country with the marketplace infrastructure and socio-economic conditions which are conducive to a TECTANE merger in the near future. Talks were being held with business people and political leaders in that country in late 2006. On November 14, 2006, the Philippine Daily Inquirer published a report that the country's Congress, made up of a House and Senate, were pushing to reconcile two different versions of a proposed law to force oil refiners to blend 10 percent ethanol produced locally into all gasoline for use in that country. The new Biofuels Act was expected to be passed into law by Christmas 2006, the article said. "Ethanol has been found to boost the octane rating of gasoline and has been proven to make burning complete and, therefore, reduce polluting emissions..." the newspaper article concluded.
Q: Had TECTANE formed any mergers as of November 2006?
A: On May 18, 2006, TECTANE signed a merger agreement with a Hong Kong public company. Normally, such agreements can take between six months and one year to implement in conformity with stock exchange regulations and with the laws governing commercial affairs in The People's Republic of China. More announcements will be forthcoming when all regulatory conditions have been satisfied and the new public entity is ready to launch.
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