Bringing DME Fuel to Life
We’re always interested in learning how innovative and disruptive companies come to be. Some are the result of a specific vision; others are born as the result of happenstance. Oberon’s story is the latter.
One of our founders, an investor, had been approached for funding by a company that had developed gas-to-fuel technology using biogas from a waste water treatment facility. As he and co-founder Elliot Hicks, an MIT mechanical engineer and Oberon’s COO, did due diligence on the technology, they found that the small scale process was well suited for the production of dimethyl ether (DME), a versatile chemical that had enormous potential as a fuel for vehicles.
DME can be made from a variety of gases, from landfill gas to natural gas. It is low carbon, very clean, and can deliver the kind of power that diesel can, all very useful properties for the trucking and heavy equipment industries, especially in urban regions where air quality is a major concern. But how could DME, a fuel that today’s engines do not even use, ever have an impact on our transportation system?
In November of 2010, Oberon Fuels was officially incorporated to make it happen.
One of the company’s first hires was a chemical engineer to join Elliot Hicks to further develop the technology. The early focus was on developing the process that could cost-effectively produce DME at a small-scale. By early 2011, we knew we could make DME, but we had a bigger challenge. There was no demand, no distribution system, no certification, no trucks with DME-capable engines.
No problem, said our founders.
In April 2011, Oberon hired Rebecca Boudreaux initially in a business development capacity (she was promoted to President December 2011) and tasked her with creating the strategy to bring the technology to market and the company’s vision to reality.
During the next few years, Oberon set out with a deliberate plan to address the challenges:
1) Nurture demand by securing customer interest from fleets and consumers that need a high-performing, clean fuel.
2) Build a market by partnering with the companies that can make vehicles which run on DME. These companies are also called original equipment manufacturers (OEM’s).
3) Create the regulatory framework to ensure federal and state compliance.
4) Develop the infrastructure necessary to produce, transport, store, and dispense DME as a fuel.
It is a daunting challenge to bring an entirely new transportation fuel to market, especially when you look at the coordination required for each of these steps.
However, this approach does have benefits. With a purpose-built supply chain, we can ensure new levels of efficiency, sustainability, and quality from the moment fuel is produced, through distribution and ultimately its use in an engine.
Once the strategy was set, Oberon set to work. Stay tuned for the next article in our series on how Oberon Fuels came to be, where we’ll reveal how we worked with our partners to bring the first DME-powered trucks online.
