Next Generation Energy is managed and written entirely by Seed editors and expert guest bloggers. Read more about them Lately I find myself nostalgic for the good ol' days when it cost about $15 to top off my gas tank. Note by good ol' days, I mean the late 1990s... sigh. And truth is, if rates continue to spike at this pace, we're all in for a bumpy ride.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start with a proper introduction... Welcome to NexGen: An evolving interactive discussion forum on alternative energy. Each week my co-bloggers and I will dissect which ideas are real contenders and what will be practical (and affordable) at the start of the 21st century. We'll separate fact from hype and ponder how the heck to get ourselves out of this pesky energy crisis and back on our feet... errr, tires. We find ourselves at a crucial point in our planetary adolescence when we have the opportunity to ensure security through sound policy and practice. Or we all lose. Globally. Big time. The important thing to keep in mind is it's not too late.... yet.
Since my inaugural post is supposed to be on viable alternative energy over the next few years, let's start with the basics: Corn ethanol isn't the solution. Instead, think of it as paving the way for alternatives.
You see, what most folks don't realize is that corn ethanol is a means to get the infrastructure in place for second generation cellulosic biofuels made from the leaves, stems, and stalks of a plant. Actually, it's estimated that about two-thirds of what we throw into our landfills contains cellulose that may be potential fuel. Sources like switchgrass are practical because they're good for the land, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and will not compete much for food resources. And get this... estimates suggest it may be less that $1/gallon on a per-mile basis and will work in today's flex-fuel vehicles already capable of running on E85.
Two years ago when I worked in Congress, cellulosic ethanol was already greatly anticipated in conversations on both sides the Hill. A joint study by the the US Departments of Agriculture and Energy reports we'll be able to grow over 1 billion tons on available farmland sustainably with minimal fertilizer. And just consider: crops are expected to yield up to 80 percent more energy than what's required to grow and convert them. While it's not available today, the first demonstration-scale plant in the US opened in Louisiana this year. Translation: We may not be there yet, but we're sure on the way.
The critical next steps are to invest more federal research funding toward development of second generation biofuels and create performance standards to encourage market competition. If we succeed at developing cellulosic ethanol, the infrastructure will follow. Of course, alone it will not be the only answer, but may eventually contribute to a significant percent of our energy budget. And that helps us along on the road toward a more sustainable future.
Environment
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Comments
I wish you well with this important new blog.
Your post this morning gives me new information which I find very interesting, and a potential new direction in which to proceed.
Posted by: Linda | July 9, 2008 10:14 AM
So what does that work out at in terms of net yield of actual fuel, and how does that compare with current and projected demand? What is the likely ecological impact of turning over CRP lands to fuel production?
Posted by: Dunc | July 9, 2008 10:30 AM
Along with the lack of analysis of the net fuel gain, I also note no analysis of net lifecycle CO2 emissions. There is no indication that 'minimal fertilizer' will not be made from petrochemicals, so there's no reason, as yet, to believe the crop will be carbon neutral.
And finally - given previous terrible articles from Wired - their products should be viewed with some skepticism.
Posted by: llewelly | July 9, 2008 10:59 AM
The sponsorship by Shell of this blog seems to be a new and unique thing here at Scienceblogs. While this is a well written and interesting post, it also happens to be exactly the direction of Shell's research as noted in the sponsorship blurb.
I have nothing against sponsorships like this, but I think it would benefit this entire blog to have one clear post explicitly saying what is involved in the sponsorship. Do the author's get any money directly from this sponsorship or do they just get pay for readership like the other scienceblogs? Are there any subtopics that are encouraged or discourage? Does Shell have any say in the content of the blog? This there an explicit policy for mediation or openness if the sponsor disagrees with a post and perhaps wants it removed?
Sponsorship means more people get paid to do good science writing, but the terms of that sponsorship need to be clear to the readers.
Posted by: bsci | July 9, 2008 11:00 AM
bsci--
The bloggers of this forum (like all of the other bloggers on ScienceBlogs) are completely free to write whatever they wish. They are getting paid by Seed, as all of our bloggers get paid. The sponsors (in this case, Shell) have no control over comments, topics, etc.
Posted by: Virginia Hughes | July 9, 2008 11:10 AM
I suspected as much, but, since this is new, a more prominent explanation would be appropriate. Who gets the money from Shell? Is it significantly more than the standard ad box? Who would lose money if Shell removes it's sponsorship and do they have any editorial control or ability to suggest topics? Will this blog or specific authors disappear if the sponsorship ends?
Posted by: bsci | July 9, 2008 11:21 AM
To support your statement that biofuel is not likely to compete with food production, you link to a report that only considers the US situation. This make me raise the question: how about the rest of the world? How will it affect the agriculture in development countries specifically? I ask because it is already being said that world food prices are going up because many farmers in developing countries are switching to growing plants for biofuel production, such as palm oil. What may be an entirely sensible choice for an individual farmer may turn into a humanitarian disaster for the world as a whole. What do you think should be done to prevent this?
Posted by: Beowulff | July 9, 2008 11:40 AM
What is your view on the engines of the future? I recently looked into the whole hydrogen/electric car argument on my blog and was surprised at how inherently inefficient combustion engines are because of the losses to heat and through the drivetrain. Do you think we are heading to an electric future and ethanol is a means to fully untilise are existing capital investment in the combustion engine or is the combustion engine here to stay or is there a third way?
Posted by: Phoebe Bright | July 9, 2008 11:50 AM
Biofuels make liquid fuels, which are incredibly useful. However, coal can also be converted to liquid fuel; and from a CO2 perspective, it doesn't matter what form of energy you generate using renewables. As biofuels are essentially just a way of taking sunlight and generating usable energy, and with the above in mind, shouldn't we instead be looking at photovoltaics (from either an energy perspective, or a CO2 perspective)?
Photosynthesis has a theoretical efficiency of 6.6% while first generation solar cells are 33% efficient, and third generation may get to 60%. Solar cells can be deployed near use (cutting down on transportation inefficiencies) and don't have to take up any land which could be used for any form of agriculture (mounting on buildings, or building large arrays in deserts).
So, my question is, why the love for biofuels, and so little interest in the far more efficient photovoltaics? This isn't a question aimed particularly at this new (and promising to be great) blog, but at society in general.
Posted by: Doormat | July 9, 2008 12:02 PM
What about the World Bank report (as quoted in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy) that says "Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%"?
Posted by: The Ridger | July 9, 2008 12:22 PM
Sheril,
Would you go over the difference between corn and cellulosic ethanol?
Posted by: Cari | July 9, 2008 12:51 PM
Biofuels have two theoretical advantages over solar cells:
1) an acre of crops is typically cheaper than an acre of solar cells.
2) biofuels can be used to produce energy for transportation. Solar cells, due to the limitations of batteries, basically cannot.
That said, almost all ethanol schemes seem to be boondoggles. An efficient plant like switchgrass might produce 500-600 gallons of ethanol per acre, equivalent to about 400 gallons of gasoline. US personal transportation gasoline usage in 2001 was 113 billion gallons. Thus, replacing transportation gasoline with ethanol would require 275 million acres, comparable in magnitude to our entire crop area.
About the only option that can replace transportation fuel with a reasonable ground footprint is algae, which (a) produces biodiesel, not ethanol, and (b) has lots of unresolved technological problems (in particular, it seems to need bioreactors, which means it's no longer cheap).
Posted by: Anthony | July 9, 2008 12:51 PM
bsci said: "I suspected as much, but, since this is new, a more prominent explanation would be appropriate. Who gets the money from Shell? Is it significantly more than the standard ad box? Who would lose money if Shell removes it's sponsorship and do they have any editorial control or ability to suggest topics? Will this blog or specific authors disappear if the sponsorship ends?"
Additionally, who selected the bloggers? Who came up with the idea of doing an energy blog? ScienceBlogs, or Shell?
It seriously undermines ScienceBlogs to see a Shell icon next to articles here, and it undermines any blogger who takes part. Even if you claim to be objective, the fact is that many people will - quite rightly from past experience - simply not believe you.
Posted by: Martin | July 9, 2008 1:04 PM
@Doormat:"why the love for biofuels, and so little interest in the far more efficient photovoltaics?"
I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with Shell sponsoring the article :|
Posted by: Mike | July 9, 2008 1:14 PM
Here in Santa Cruz, CA, we're big on alternative fuels, and bio-diesel is the big one here. I have my reservations about bio-diesel, we're still talking about internal combustion and CO2 emissions, but it's a step away from fossil fuels. We have multiple gas stations in town here that sell bio-diesel, and almost EVERYONE who has a diesel car runs on it. We see everything from old VW bugs to brand new Heavy Duty Chevy trucks. Interestingly enough, they've found that Mustard, which is an invasive weed here in CA, makes great bio-diesel.
@DOORMAT
"Photosynthesis has a theoretical efficiency of 6.6% while first generation solar cells are 33% efficient, and third generation may get to 60%. Solar cells can be deployed near use (cutting down on transportation inefficiencies) and don't have to take up any land which could be used for any form of agriculture (mounting on buildings, or building large arrays in deserts).
So, my question is, why the love for biofuels, and so little interest in the far more efficient photovoltaics? This isn't a question aimed particularly at this new (and promising to be great) blog, but at society in general."
A couple comments, I do agree, but take into consideration - Photovoltaic Cells production is very expensive, uses a lot of chemicals, and bi-products are NOT environmentally sound (they are actually horrible for the environment). Granted most of the bi-products can be recycled and re-used in production, but this is expensive,and in China, where most cells are made, they don't follow recycling guidelines and dump the raw bi-product into the earth.
But... There are new solar options, even. I believe they are building one of those new solar plants here in the Mojave, where they heat a synthetic oil in a glass tube using concave mirrors. The hot oil is pumped into facility where I believe it's used to heat water and turn a turbine. Pretty sweet....
If we're talking about transportation - We'll have to get used to electric cars...
Posted by: JJ | July 9, 2008 1:15 PM
Happy to clear up these questions, as it's important for our readers to know where we're coming from.
The blog (and thus, Shell's sponsorship of it) is temporary. It will run from July 9 to October 9.
Shell's sponsorship of a specific blog is new, and part of a deeper advertising relationship they have with ScienceBlogs (Shell ads have been on the network and in the magazine for awhile). Shell pays ScienceBlogs for various advertising/sponsorship services, and then ScienceBlogs pays our bloggers.
Shell does not have any editorial control. The bloggers were all chosen by Erin Johnson and me, after we surveyed the blogosphere for alternative energy experts. Shell is not in contact with any of the guest bloggers.
Posted by: Virginia Hughes | July 9, 2008 1:24 PM
Some of the "other solar options" you describe are collectively termed "solar-thermal". They generally work by using incoming solar radiation to heat a medium and then use the thermal properties of that medium to generate power (eg. producing steam to drive a turbine). This is different from photovoltaics that use the electrical properties of different materials to generate current when light strikes them and excites their electrons. There is still significant variation in the implementation of this technology, but it's beginning to look quite promising, with a number of competitive contracts being signed.
The project in the American desert you refer to is described here.
One of the most promising leaders in the industry describes the process here.
You can watch an interesting and informative video from the BBC about a plant in Spain here.
You can read a about a very large and recent contract between the Israeli company and Spain here.
Posted by: Solomon Hsiang | July 9, 2008 1:44 PM
Like others, I'm not happy with the Shell sponsorship. It's like having a GLBT site sponsored by James Dobson's Family Research Council .
I suspect that some Shell PR guy thought that it would be a good idea for Shell to say "see, even Big Oil can support alternative fuel discussions." As a middle-manager for a largish company, my experience tells me that some senior executive can decide "that was a really bad idea, PR guy, you're fired, other PR guy, trash this blog as thoroughly as possible."
Posted by: JoJo | July 9, 2008 1:53 PM
Bio-Fuels can be a great thing. Especially second generation. Instead of having waste, you can grow the crop take the harvest AND the leftovers (which is always more then the harvest/ And convert the waste into fuel. However, alcohol while cleaner still pollutes.
I think if we had a plan of using wind mills and solar power along with hydro power to make hydrogen (water + electriciy will seperate the water into oxygen and hydrogen), that would slowly reduce the need for gasoline.
But then what do they do with the gasoline when (we still need oil for plastics and other things) it is refined? Have some vehicles still burn gasoline?
Posted by: Starbuck | July 9, 2008 1:54 PM
Thanks for your explanation. You've covered the what, but not really touched on why... it seems like a really odd move to make.
I believe you myself, but the problem is a lot of people simply won't. The oil industry has spent a phenomenal amount of money trying to influence public opinion in recent years, and a significant portion of that has been directed to bloggers. You must have been aware of the contempt with which this practice held in the blogosphere, so it seems like a bizarre idea to start up a special blog funded by an oil company. Why do it?
Anyway, I sincerely hope this doesn't tarnish the reputation of ScienceBlogs or any of its bloggers.
Posted by: Martin | July 9, 2008 2:01 PM
The news that two-thirds of our landfills may have material suitable for use as celluosic ethanol feedstocks is very good news indeed. If nothing else, just processing the existing garbage in landfills would help tide us over for a few years -- years that we can then spend getting more wind turbines and thermal-solar units set up, as well as perfecting promising nanotech to greatly improve battery storage capacity (and get us off of lead-acid batteries and onto silicon batteries).
The internal-combustion engine is on the way out, but turning our garbage into cellulosic ethanol is a good way to smooth the transition to an electricity-based transport economy and solve the problem of bursting landfills at one stroke.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | July 9, 2008 2:08 PM
Anyone know if the Sapphire Energy is realistic or woo/scam?
They claim:
Posted by: No One Of Consequence | July 9, 2008 2:14 PM
Hi, i look forward to reading your blog. Please check CNET's Green Tech blog out, too.
I can't manage to subscribe to your feed, though. Is there a technical problem?
Posted by: Martin LaMonica | July 9, 2008 2:14 PM
Just four hours in, and already so many great contributions. There are too many comments for me to address in one afternoon, but a few basics...
Cari:
Corn ethanol is made by using corn as a biomass through industrial fermentation, processing, and distillation.
Cellulosic ethanol is produced from lignocellulose--which makes up a good deal of plant matter. While chemically like ethanol from other sources, the latter requires more processing to make the sugar monomers used to produce ethanol by fermentation.
bsci et al.:
Shell has no influence on content and does not communicate with us or guide topics. I joined NexGen because a forum specifically on this single topic--a very relevant subject this summer and for the foreseeable future--offers the means for bloggers involved in the science behind emerging energies to contribute thoughts in a single place and thereby promote discussion.
Thanks to all for reading and expect full posts on some readers questions over the coming months.
Posted by: Sheril R. Kirshenbaum | July 9, 2008 2:18 PM
Even as a temporary measure, a stepping stone to a brighter future, biofuels worry me. Agriculture is responsible for more habitat destruction than any other human activity. How much more habitat must be sacrificed, even temporarily, in order to satisfy the human appetite for energy?
Posted by: bob koepp | July 9, 2008 2:21 PM
While I'm perfectly willing to be suspicious of Shell's motives, it's not obvious that Shell is opposed to next-gen energy sources, as long as those next-gen energy sources can be sold by Shell. What they're opposed to is things that interfere with their current product lines (e.g. global warming legislation).
Posted by: Anthony | July 9, 2008 2:26 PM
I'm disappointed in the casual assurance that cellulosic ethanol won't compete with food crops. The link provided devotes only a couple paragraphs to the question and without much analysis seems to proceed on faith.
Can the CRP land be harvested? If it is not a well-maintained field, there will be issues about road access, planting, harvesting, irregular land shape, soil maintenance, fertilization, conservation, existing contract, and so on. When all the evidence is that ethanol directly competes with food production, I would like to see some substantial work to find an alternative but right now there is nothing.
Second, a big concern with ethanol is that the energy put into growing and harvesting is not offset by the energy it produces. Cellulosic ethanol processing is more complex and more expensive and so it's not at all clear that we will be left with significantly more energy that we started with.
I understand that we're in early stages, but where are the ballpark estimates for cost and benefits? What assumptions are you working on, what pieces need to be put in place, what technological advances need to be made? You mentioned landfills taking potential material - how much is available and what are your estimates for how much can be recovered and processed with what cost?
Too much pie-in-the-sky dreaming, very little that's concrete.
Posted by: Adrian | July 9, 2008 2:29 PM
BTW: the RSS feeds to subscribe to this blog seem to be broken or non-existent. Can someone look into that? I'm interested in following along, even if the blog's life will be short.
Posted by: Adrian | July 9, 2008 2:33 PM
It should be noted that peak oil is a bigger long term problem for oil company profits than global warming legislation is. Perhaps that is the real reason they are sponsoring this blog.
Posted by: Ben | July 9, 2008 2:33 PM
One comment you made -- that we're looking for a way to get America "back on its wheels" -- has touched a nerve for me.
I think it may be more important to figure out a way to keep America OFF its wheels. I've been to many other countries, including France, Japan and England, and have been very impressed with their rail systems. I also recently took a trip from Northern California to Seattle, Yellowstone and back home. It would have been fantastic to jump on our own version of the Shinkansen for this trip.
And yes, I know it's expensive to build something like that. But with our current economy, it could be viewed as being similar to TVA or WPA. More importantly, though -- and this is a mindset missing for most Americans -- is that we must not ONLY look for oil's replacement, but we must also use that replacement in a far more efficient manner.
England has become too dependent on the automobile, so my comment doesn't apply to them. However, I'd guess that Japan and France have been less affected by high oil prices than, say, the United States has. Why? Because they're not just moving away from oil, they're using the resources they have in a far more efficient manner.
I don't want America to get back on its wheels; I want to see them move away from wheels. That will require HUGE investments.
Sorry for the long post. I wish you luck. I'll be back, because the production and use of energy is so interesting to me that I'd consider a career change to work in that field.
Posted by: MikeM | July 9, 2008 2:37 PM
Maybe direct biofuel is a better idea:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece
It is nice to have a blog about this stuff, and progress will be made, but not enough and not in time to make the huge changes we need now.
When we get really serious about global warming, there will be one policy that will work and all else will follow. Everyone gets a carbon ration, all products have carbon rating and when you run out of rations, you cannot buy anything more with a carbon negative profile unless you buy someone else's rations who happens to have a surplus (probably in the third world). Companies would immediately vie with each other to produce products with very low carbon ratings. Not easy to administer, but then rationing never is. But in times of global threat it may be necessary. Anyone who thinks we can carry on the way we are going into the distant future is dreaming.
Posted by: sailor | July 9, 2008 2:42 PM
Biofuels are useful for only two things:
1) Maintaining the method of harnessing energy through internal combustion.
2) Temporary independence from fossil fuels.
Instead of focusing on biofuels, I suggest we pull our heads from our cardiac sphincters and perhaps just to our anal sphincters, then we can see how crappy this idea really is. We would still be reliant upon production of a fuel source from a large infrastructure which requires high quantities of money for processing and distribution. Centralized energy production is what got us in price trouble in the first place.
Posted by: Jared | July 9, 2008 2:45 PM
Martin--I guess ultimately the proof will be in the pudding.
Adrian--We're working on the RSS feed now. Should be up and running soon!
Posted by: Virginia Hughes | July 9, 2008 2:47 PM
Touche MikeM. I agree. 'Wheels' seemed appropriate in context, but I am a big advocate of alternatives. Public transportation is very important and personal choices matter. Here at Duke, bicycles seem nearly as numerous as people and as long as it's not raining, I prefer to walk to work.
Posted by: Sheril R. Kirshenbaum | July 9, 2008 2:47 PM
Anthony: "biofuels can be used to produce energy for transportation. Solar cells, due to the limitations of batteries, basically cannot."
Bah! Battery technology is not (yet) at a stage where it can completely replace fuel burning vehicles, but electric vehicles using modern batteries would meet the day-to-day transportation needs of a large chunk of the population.
Certainly the batteries we have available today are far from a perfect or complete solution to the transportation issue, but to simply dismiss solar power as effectively useless for transportation...?
Posted by: Demonic Gophers | July 9, 2008 2:51 PM
Adrian,
The figure you're looking for is Energy Return on Investment (EROI). That's the ratio of energy made divided by the energy used in making it. For corn ethanol, depending on whose assumptions you're using, the ratio is somewhere between 0.8:1 to 1.2:1, so really, if you are getting energy out, it's not very much (and it's very likely that you're putting more energy in).
With some of the other 2nd and 3rd generation biofuels (like cellulosic ethanol, or algae making fuel), I've seen numbers in the area of 6:1 (which is comparable to the extraction of oil, which is about 10:1).
Posted by: factician | July 9, 2008 2:51 PM
A couple of comments from my limited knowledge on the subject-
One major benefit of cellulose ethanol is a variety of feedstocks. A large percentage of input material is currently being landfilled. The process is quite flexible too-no need for specific crops to be grown, basically any plant matter will do. Many companies are building (or trying) cellulose plants next to landfills, and that would their primary feedstock.
So something to take away from this is not the replacement of gasoline with ethanol, but rather the reduction of gas consumption by better management of our waste. This is still NOT a long-term strategy, as I doubt our rising energy consumption can be matched pound for pound with biomass. It is, however, a convenient stop gap gasoline and a new energy economy.
Other considerations: This is not carbon neutral. Preparing carbon matter as fuel never will be. At least with the growing of some feed, we are removing some carbon from the atmo.
Another thing, not mentioned at all in the article, the last I heard this process hinged on special strains of yeast than metabolized cellulose. There are genetically engineered to digest cellulose into C5 and C6 sugars, and directly 'ferment' them into ethanol. Engineered bugs are something to be weary of, especially ones that are made to metabolize stuff that don't naturally.
Finally, in regard to ethanol combustion efficient, I rarely see it mentioned that ethanol lends itself to combustion engines. 100% ethanol has an octane rating of 102, thus enabling high compression or turbo charging. In addition (especially wrt turbochargers), it can absolutely be burned at 95% (or its azeotrope, further reducing production costs). The addition water is vaporized and cools the compressed charge, improving efficiency and performance. With this relatively simple modification, ethanol can be just as efficient as gasoline on a gallon basis, or more.
Posted by: Chris | July 9, 2008 2:51 PM
I think biofuels can be useful for farm equipment and police and military fuel and construction, but otherwise, I think we are walking. We'll never have a source or grid capable of every person in the suburbs owning two electric cars. We're already exceeding capacity in most places. It will be interesting how it all turns out, but it would be foolish to assume we'll maintain our affluence. Doomsday scenarios may not be realistic, and humans are adaptable, especially when the guns are turned 180 degrees, but we face unprecedented challenges to any child born today.
Posted by: Jonsi | July 9, 2008 2:56 PM
First off....I don't think transportation fuels are too expensive yet.... for some reason it's still less than a lot of the bottled water available. I'm somewhat heartened, actually, that people are looking at fuel economy when buying vehicles and planning trips. Good. If the price drops again.... even a little, they'll go back to the old ways.
As far as using biofuels to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emmissions... just take all those corn stalks, bundle them up, and throw them in a coal fired generating station. Or some other crop that takes little fertilizer etc.
Posted by: BAllanJ | July 9, 2008 3:04 PM
I'm not worried about the Shell sponsorship. ScienceBlogs has the kind of readership that will detect any tomfoolery in a heartbeat, and the Seed people know that. It's their brand to protect.
I sure hope Sheril's claim to "separate fact from hype" holds true. Beowulff's point about the worldwide effect of a transition to cellulosic biofuels is a crucial one and should be addressed. Ditto Adrian's remarks just above. I take this post as an introductory one and hope that more meat will be served over time.
BTW: What does "$1/gallon on a per-mile basis" mean? I can't make sense of it.
Posted by: Trinifar | July 9, 2008 3:05 PM
@ MikeM, Jonsi:
I was likewise irked by the assumption that we just need a magic bullet and then we get to buying products (from Shell, right?) that will get us right back to the destructive and wasteful car-based lifestyle. What is needed in the long term is a re-imagining of the American city, so that we no longer commute 50 miles to work and play and return to an empty suburban bedroom community at night, along with a building up of public transportation infrastructure. As our interstate system ages and decays, perhaps we should forgo rebuilding it in favor of more efficient transportation alternatives. The lack of a cheap, abundant fuel might be the greatest thing to happen to this country in this century so far, and might spur us to make the tough calls that would have never been possible in a world of ultra-cheap, government subsidized gasoline.
Having this blog sponsored by Shell does seem a little like a mouse health conference sponsored by cats... Are they even admitting openly now that global warming exists? What a joke.
Posted by: Leukocyte | July 9, 2008 3:13 PM
Posted by: llewelly | July 9, 2008 3:31 PM
On a tangent, there is talk that Toyota is incorporating photovoltaic panels into its next generation model of the Prius, a move that may be more novelty than practicality at present, but if it is indicative of a greater trend toward incorporating solar into our design approaches then I am all for it.
In that regard, I think that it is fair to suppose that vehicle transport, and thus how we design vehicles, will move in multiple directions depending on the respective uses and needs for that transport. Perhaps it will be the electric car for personal use, but what about ground shipping - are biofuels best? How are we breaking down our fuel demand, and what are our assumptions about what transportation as a service will look like in 25 years? I would love to see an analysis of fuel demand by sector, and a consideration of which alternatives best suit those respective sectors. How are those sector demands predicted to change?
One (positive) consequence of greater fuel prices may well likely be a redrawing of the urban landscape, and with that less need for personal transport. Thats not a bad thing, I grew up hoping for a bullet train up and down the California coast. My larger point is this: we obviously can't completely predict the future, but lets not repeat the past by putting all our eggs in one barrel.
Posted by: Scott MacKenzie | July 9, 2008 3:35 PM
See, I thought the reason US policy was heading towards corn ethanol as opposed to things that actually work was because of the massive increase of the farm lobby which has such a destructive vice-like grip on legislation (see every Farm Bill ever).
If cellullosic ethanol is the way forward and corn doesn't work, why are we subsidising corn ethanol production at a net carbon loss rather than R&D into cellulosic ethanol? Could it be that the government doesn't need much of an excuse to funnel tax money to the corn lobby? The same reason that corn syrup is in everything Americans eat? Maybe....
Posted by: McDuff | July 9, 2008 3:43 PM
I will hold any reservations of Shell's sponsorship in abeyance.
As an aging ex-nuclear engineer [dons Nomex exposure suit] I can remember the promises that nuclear power would solve many energy predicaments. I am quite aware of many problems with nuclear engineering, including several that are not common knowledge.
We have to make sure that possible problems and their solutions with specific alternative fuels and fuel sources are considered before committing to these fuels. Incidentally, these problems can be social and political as well as environmental and scientific.
Posted by: JoJo | July 9, 2008 4:14 PM
Unfortunately cellulosic ethanol is already a few years late. Its backers need to live up to the promises. We gave them the ethanol plants, its time for rapid move to the next generation.
Posted by: daenku32 | July 9, 2008 4:57 PM
It is not the sponsors directly having a say in the content that is the problem.
The way Shell exerts control is after a little while SciBlogs really gets used to their money. Then slowly SciBlogs start to consider what would happen if we published X article or X author is really pissing off Shell and we don't want to lose their sponsorships.
Or Shell just directly says: "We don't like X so we are pulling our sponsorship of it."
It is the same reasons companies sponsor PBS programs, one to whitewash their bad acts and two, to be able to pull the money as a way of keeping the content in line.
Posted by: BG | July 9, 2008 5:00 PM
Glad to see a new topic a lot closer to what I do for a living. A couple of thoughts to throw out:
(1) It seems to me that you get the best utilization out of cellulosics by burning them as solid fuels. Pelletized wood or grasses are easy to burn large scale in hog fuel boilers, stationary grate or fluidized. You pretty much capture the whole 6000 BTU/lb value of the fuel by doing this, and generate electricity via steam turbines. As Fidel Castro recently reminded us, and as the Brazilians are finding out on a large scale, the best way to make ethanol is to start with sugar. Breaking down starch to sugar to make ethanol is inefficient; breaking down cellulose to sugar much less efficient than starting with starch.
(2) The best biofuel is you. Walking you get about 350 miles per gallon. Biking you do better; around 600 miles per gallon (based on an all-fat diet). But you have to look out - around here you run a good risk of getting run over by 120 lb soccer moms (and dads) driving 6000 lb SUV's while talking on cell phones.
Posted by: tom quick | July 9, 2008 5:16 PM
Of course nothing will ever be good enough for the abstinence-only crowd, sanctimony being even more addictive than cheap oil was. But cellulosic ethanol is a realistic addition to a portfolio of clean energy sources. There is no single magic bullet technology. The US actually made ethanol from wood during WW1. The problem with starch is that it competes with food sources and the production methods are energy intensive. A blend of cellulosic ethanol with gasoline in a highly efficient plug-in hybrid car will go along way to both reducing carbon emissions and reducing oil consumption
Posted by: bwv | July 9, 2008 5:32 PM
factician,
Thanks for the EROI term - that makes it much easier to search for further information. If we are able to extract 6:1, clearly that would be a huge boost. Without having some practical, hands-on data, I'll reserve judgement. We've seen many examples of ideas which work well in the small but which don't scale. There are also other factors which can add to the cost or which can make the production unfeasible. In Canada, much of the scrubland which I've seen the link implies could be used to grow other crops is rocky, hilly, remote, or dry. It would not be a trivial task to grow and harvest anything in these areas.
There's also the issue of water. Much of our current agriculture is pumping water from aquifers which are not being replenished or are drawing from rivers which have competing demands. Some of the major rivers are being pumped dry to provide for our current agricultural demands. Will new biofuel production require fresh water, where will it come from, and how will it impact existing users?
These are big issues and the sources in the article don't appear to have dealt with them.
Posted by: Adrian | July 9, 2008 5:36 PM
However, Sheril personal choice is often hijacked by a lack of public or instituational will. The Duke campus has great potential to be a pedestrian and bicycler's paradise, but the lack of maintainance and the incomplete transportation system leads many students to bring their cars onto campus. The bike lane on campus drive is incredibly old, and poorly maintained - there are points where it disappears or encroaches on the lane width that make the trip from east to west perilous for freshman and grad student bikers. Similarly, on both east and west campus theres a major shortage of accessible bike racks throughout the residential and academic quads, and many areas that are difficult if not impossible to access because of a lack of ramps. Then, there is a fantastic bus-system on campus that is still serviced by 20 and 30 year old buses, when the continous short-circuit would be perfect for service by electric buses. As the years go by, parking lots take up more and more space on campus, because theres so mmuch land, why not? The administration has never thought to take a stand and tell students that maybe they are better off with a bicycle or in a carpool (though that should change this year, finally). The worst part is integration with the DATA transit system. It was only this year that the administration began experimenting with once-a-week buses to off-campus locations. As often as we complain about the town-gown divide in Durham, being physically cut-off from the city by a lack of transportation options exacerbates the problem more than many recognize.
I could go on, but I don't want to just be some guy rambling about Duke. My point is that transit systems are only as good as they are integrated with each other. Integrating mass transit with individual commuter traffic inevitably leads to one or the other sacrificing efficiency and capacity, and in most settings, whether its a college campus or a metropolitan area, this usually means inadequate and inefficient public transit. I'm all for personal choice, but until there is an institutional push to serve the needs of the growing number of people who rely on public transit, we'll be mired in poorly executed solutions to a serious problem. Having companies like the sponsor of this blog lobbying to keep Americans driving cars is just one of the major obstacles to this sort of change.
Posted by: Alex | July 9, 2008 5:49 PM
I think this is the first time I've seen corn ethanol presented as a stepping stone to cellulosic ethanol, rather than merely a bad alternative. But I wonder if the corn lobby sees it that way?
Posted by: Nemo | July 9, 2008 6:27 PM
@Nemo-
Corn ethanol is available now and cars on the road are able to use it. When cellulosic ethanol is ready, these same cars will be able to use it. Therefore, yes a stepping stone.
I'm very pleased Sb has introduced this energy blog.
Posted by: Dory | July 9, 2008 6:33 PM
At least in the western part of the US, water is a huge part of the equation in considering production of biofuels. Sugar cane is an excellent biofuel crop for Brazil, but it requires a subtropical/tropical climate, and a substantial amount of annual rainfall. It's grown in Louisiana, Florida, East Texas, and Hawai'i, but land is at a premium in Hawai'i, and most of the Southwest is far too dry. That leaves Louisiana and Florida, so better not jettison them from the US for their religious wackaloonery just yet. Sugar beets tolerate a much colder climate, but require irrigation in many of the US regions where they're grown (Colorado, Nebraska, California, for example).
I think you're in denial if you fail to recognize how water-intensive crop production is, in the American West. Most of California is pretty dry, and those nice fruits and vegetables from the Central Valley -which I'll bet most people here consume frequently, whether they'll admit it or not- required a good deal of irrigation.
Posted by: Barn Owl | July 9, 2008 7:54 PM
The June 21, 2008 issue of the Economist (an issue with a special report on the future of energy) suggests that plug-in cars could be more quickly disruptive, with an equivalent charging price of 25 cents per liter of gasoline, in which case ethanol doesn't play much of a transitional role. Their articles include an excellent summary of what's being developed in biofuels (ethanols from sugarcane, corn, beet, wheat, lignocellulose, trees, and modifying algae cells to produce fuel, biodiesel from vegetable oils, fuels from "syngas"). It also includes articles on plug-in hybrid cars, wind power and conversion of the transmission grid to DC for long haul transmission, carbon capture and storage for existing coal plants, a variety of forms of solar energy (thin-film PV, systems that focus the sun's rays with mirrors and lenses to drive generators), engineered geothermal systems, and new forms of nuclear power (Toshiba's nuclear batteries, simplified boiling-water reactors, pebble-bed reactors). The report suggests the transition for powering the grid will go nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | July 9, 2008 8:00 PM
Let's not limit ourselves. We should be questioning the sanity of fighting to secure our position behind the wheel of an automobile. I weigh 160 pounds but to get to work I have to take along almost 3,000 pounds of metal, glass, plastic, and rubber. Does this make sense?
Before I'll be optimistic about cellulosic ethanol, I'm waiting for an explanation of how converting the countryside into a big switchgrass hayfield isn't going to result in massive habitat loss. Remember, to cultivate crops for ethanol is extra acreage over and above what we currently use to grow food. And if you think that using "unused" portions of current crops is an entirely benign activity, then you're overlooking the importance of maintaining organic matter in the soil.
Posted by: colluvial | July 9, 2008 8:39 PM
I scanned the existing comments for the answer to this but didn't see it. However, I've been known to be a poor scanner so my apologies if this has been answered.
As I understand it, switchgrass is better choice than corn for a bio-fuel yet corn is/was considered a bridge or better way to start with the infrastructure. Why is that? Why not just start with switchgrass?
Posted by: rmp | July 9, 2008 9:45 PM
How about if we divert all of the money that would be spent on biofuels, all types of biofuels, and put it towards batteries (and battery-like technologies) and solar cells?
At this point, doesn't the most ideal situation involve powering are vehicles from the sun (or wind or wave)? Why not work directly towards that goal NOW?
Posted by: mlf | July 9, 2008 10:32 PM
Posted by: llewelly | July 9, 2008 10:57 PM
Jared way above me has it right. Ethanol in any form is just prolonging the slow death of the internal combustion engine. There is no reason to cheer for this.
It's like kicking a heroin habit with morphine.
The ICE served us wonderfully, now let's retire it and move forward. Just as fast as our 100-year-old technology incandescent lights got replaced with CFLs we can move from 100-year-old ICE's to next generation engines in many forms and fashions, and while we're at we can redesign all of our transportation choices.
Posted by: Mike | July 10, 2008 1:44 AM
Without wanting to bless the weird US corn subsidies,I really hope cellulosic (and algae, and bio-engineered bacteria, etc ) work.
But having grown up on a farm (and having planted and harvested corn), let me describe the infrastructure requirements of corn ethanol versus {switchgrass, or maybe miscanthus}, from front to back, as that may explain why people don't instantly switch:
1) CORN
Corn is a highly-evolved crop that bears little resemblance to its old ancestors, and of course, has been bred for centuries to be good as a *food* crop.
a) Corn-planters exist widely. Each year, farmers choose what to plant in a field based on a host of factors, and they can change their minds each year. Corn is an *annual* crop they plant via seeds.
b) Combine harvesters exist widely (and are long-evolved serious machines). They cut stalks (corn, wheat, etc), thresh it, separating the grains from the stalks. The grains (a small fraction of the volume) get saved; the stalks (by far more of the volume) are often shredded and left on the field.
c) Standard grain trucks haul the corn kernels (a tiny fraction of the total crop volume) to grain elevators, which already exist.
d) The elevator operators sell the corn to whoever buys it, whether for cereal, HFCS, or ethanol. Trains take the corn there, in this case to an ethanol refinery.
e) The ethanol is produced and distributed. ethanol has issues with water in pipelines, so this is often by truck.
f) The ethanol is either blended with gas in modest percentages (as in CA), or in higher percentages, which at some point requires *flex-fuel* vehicles. Making a vehicle flex-fuel costs maybe $70-$100, but obviously most of the existing vehicle fleet isn't flex-fuel, and there's the usual chicken-and-egg problem.
2) SWITCHGRASS (or MISCANTHUS (ELEPHANT GRASS)
These are *perennial* plants that can be cut, then regrow from their existing root structure, like your lawn. With existing plants, it can take a while to establish the plants well, and of course, they do not yet have centuries of breeding as fuel crops.
a) Commercial seeders can be used to seed switchgrass, but it takes work to *establish* switchgrass. Google: switchgrass establishment
b) Commercial harvesters can be used to harvest the grass, but note that the end product is not dense corn kernels, but bales of grass.
c) One could burn the grass locally for heat, or for power (perhaps alongside coal), and at least the first could be down at each farm. For anything else, the bales have to be put on trucks and taken to a cellulosic refinery. As far as I know, there isn't yet a lot infrastructure equivalent to grain elevator+trains, although there is no reason that makes it unbuildable. However, remember that the product being transported is grassy cellulose, not dense corn kernels.
d) Grass gets to cellulosic refinery, whose front-end, at least, is different from corn ethanol refineries. Refineries burn some of the grass to help drive the reactions.
e) Ethanol is produced and distributed.
f) Vehicles use it.
3)INFRASTRUCTURE COMPARISON
SO: for corn ethanol:
a-d is long-established infrastructure, corn markets are well-established, farmers know very well what it is.
e certainly exist
f conversion of vehicle fleet happens over time, but only if there's enough ethanol around to keep flex-fuel interesting.
WHEREAS: for grass-based cellulosic:
a is OK, but a farmer is taking a risk
b is OK, although stalk-volume increases transport costs
c needs work
d very few cellulosic refineries exist
BUT
e, f have hopefully been kick-started by corn
If a farmer can make more money via switchgrass/miscanthus, they will change from corn, but no sane farmer would plant fields of it without an expectation of a complete production chain. Right now, if you plant corn, you know you can sell it. If you plant switchgrass, it's not yet clear, because you need a cellulosic refinery close enough to keep the transport costs down.
4) BOTTOM LINE
cellulosic has much potential, but industrial farming has long value-chains, and nobody invests money at the front to dedicate fields unless they expect to have good markets for the crops. One might say there were many chicken-and-egg problems, but htat's a different kind of farming :-)
5) WHY THIS IS NEEDED
We already seem to be in the Peak Oil Plateau - it is unlikely that the world production of conventional oil will ever be significantly higher than it is right now. [Maybe we'll get a few million barrels/day, or maybe not]. Then, within a decade or so {see The Oil Drum, the long slide begins.
Assuming we eliminate a lot of inefficient travel, electrify most cars and light trucks (either BEV or PHEV) and as much farm machinery as possible, it's hard to see how that works with heavy farm machinery and Class 8 trucks, for example, unless there are incredible breakthroughs in battery energy density.
A typical farm combine might have a 60-gallon diesel tank feeding a 400HP engine, and being a hybrid doesn't help it too much, as it tends to just go all-day. At least farm machinery stays close to home, and maybe switchable battery packs help. Note that a farmer with a 600-acre mid-west farm doesn't consider running combines to be an optional activity.
One would expect in 2050 that a typical big farm will have windmills on 3-5% of its area, solar panels on the barn, lots of electrified machinery ... and still need some fuel, after petroleum production is down to a tiny fraction of that current. In the US, it will take a long time to electrify the long-distance locomotives, and although true-hybrids are on the way [for regenerative braking], many will still need fuel. Ships will need fuel. I suspect bulldozers and other offroad vehicles will need fuel. PHEVs will need fuel. Any airplanes that are left will need fuel.
Coal->synfuels has serious CO2 problems.
Hence, there are very strong reasons to want to make {celluloisc, algae biodiesel, or some of the more exotic bio-engineering methods} work, hopefully before petroleum takes its dive, and even with all the waste-reduction, efficiency, and electrification we can do.
Posted by: John Mashey | July 10, 2008 2:31 AM
In reply to my own earlier comment:
I've decided to do the necessary calculations myself, working from the data presented here (and using a density of 0.789 g/cm^3). From that, I calculate that 1 billion US tons of cellulosic feedstock will produce approximately 193.3 kilolitres of ethanol, which is equivalent to 34.21 billion US gallons of gasoline. This is approximately 25% of of the 136.95 billion gallons of gasoline used in the US in 2005.
But wait a minute - that's gross production. If we accept the EROEI presented above ("crops are expected to yield up to 80 percent more energy than what's required to grow and convert them" - or an EROEI of 1.8:1) then your net fuel production is only 55.55% of gross, which is 19 billion gallons or 13.88% of 2005 usage.
It's a step in the right direction, but it doesn't really look that great when you put it in those terms, does it?
If somebody else could double-check these figures from first principles, I'd appreciate it. Converting from US weights to SI weights, then to SI volumes, and then back to US volumes makes me nervous that I've done a NASA somewhere...
Posted by: Dunc | July 10, 2008 5:37 AM
I'm going to harp on the Shell sponsorship one more time here. In academia, it is now fairly standard procedure to make terms of a corporate sponsorship openly available. Not making them available make the organization seems incompetant or implies theres something they don't want people to know. In earlier comments, I've asked a bunch of questions and others have asked questions too. Either a mainpage post or a link under the Shell sponsor needs to be added.
Virginia and Sheryl make it seem lie this is not that different than other advertisements on the page. If that is true, how does the cost of buying the title banner ad on the blog for the duration of the sponsorship compare to the cost of sponsorship. If they are roughly similar, then there isn't much of an issue and this should be stated. If the sponsorship is larger than that, then scienceblogs really needs to publicly address the deal.
Posted by: bsci | July 10, 2008 8:01 AM
Of course nothing will ever be good enough for the abstinence-only crowd, sanctimony being even more addictive than cheap oil was. - bwv
Difference being, of course, sanctimony isn't changing the climate. But what the hell - your right to drive and fly as much as you like is more important than other people's right to eat, heh?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 10, 2008 8:18 AM
But how many people depend on the economic properity generated by modern tranportation to eat, clothe themselves and obtain medical care?
Posted by: bwv | July 10, 2008 11:18 AM
Dunc,
Your numbers look roughly right. I think most energy consumption calculations demonstrate that neither solar,wind, nuclear or biofuels will be sufficient for future energy consumption.
Indeed, we will need *all* of them.
You can find an interesting discussion of this here:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/cft.pdf
Posted by: factician | July 10, 2008 11:51 AM
I'll try to push towards a technical point again, using a little data from WIKI, which reports 323 million tons per year of cellulosic material discarded every year. My estimate is that this represents around 200 million tons of coal equivalent heat value (I've upped my lignocellulosic fuel values to around 8500 BTU/lb with coal at around 13,500 BTU/lb), or about a billion barrels of oil. At 60% conversion efficiency this represents about a billion megawatt hours of electricity ready for use in battery powered cars, home heating, or whatever. Counting it only as cars, my estimate is that this would fuel about 40 million.
I can't imagine how this much wood/straw material would be burned, but I'm used to thinking in terms of old 25MW stationary hog fuel boilers (it would take 4500 of these to burn that much stuff, each providing enough energy for about 1000 cars). But I also know that this is a tried and true route, and can be practiced on a very local scale wherever there is cellulosic waste. I've seen it used to burn hogged wood, bark, sludge, old tires, pallets, nut shells - even whole demolished houses. The elecricity runs into the common grid (which might need modernization to take this much new load), so point generation is simple anywhere. A ton of wood waste burned in New Hampshire arrives as useable energy in Chicago and delivered in my garage with only incidental line losses, without having to go out on the highway or onto the railroad in a tanker. Cellulosic waste is never abundant anywhere, so small scale local (25-100MW, burning what's available in a 50 mile radius) makes sense to minimize shipping costs on the other end, too. Point source environmentals are also a lot simpler. It's easier to scrub the stack on a 25MW boiler than clean up the exhaust gas from a thousand cars burning liquid fuel out on the highway.
Can anyone compare the impact of this approach (economic, technical, etc.) to cellulosic ethanol? My personal experiences with cellulosics over the years lead me toward solid fuel and structural uses due to the heterogeneity of the material. From the start it's 20-30% non-sugar polymerized phenolics. These have tremendous heat value, but they're not fermentable, very viscous if broken down to the point of solubility, prone to fouling up even the brute inorganic chemistry used to solubilize them, and only labile to biological attack by a select group of fungi (which also tend to be very specific to the plant which produced the lignocellulose). Once past this, the sugars themselves are a heterogeneous mix and are much more highly polymerized than starch. On the face of it turning lignocellulose into ethanol is a daunting task. But maybe someone out there can enlighten us on how it can be done simply, and at what conversion efficiency.
And check my math please.
Posted by: tom quick | July 10, 2008 12:49 PM
I'm late to the discussion and many important points have been made.
One upside to cellulostic ethanol production which often gets missed... it captures a 'waste' resource and so, in some sense, is 'free' from a resource perspective. I'm specifically talking about the use of agricultural waste here. Even if cellulostic ethanol cannot provide all the transportation fuel we need, is still seems pretty silly not to pursue better methods to utilize ag waste.
I am opposed to retooling the transportation infrastructure to primarily depend on ethanol (or any other fuel). Flexibility and the ability to substitute in the economic and practical sense or the words is critically important. Unfortunately, for the moment, we cannot replace liquid fuels for many transportation jobs... however, we can use electricity (with great flexibility of generation) the majority of the time. Which bridges to the next post on plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Posted by: travc | July 10, 2008 2:56 PM
"But maybe someone out there can enlighten us on how it can be done simply, and at what conversion efficiency."
From what I've read in "The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible" and "The Lore of Still Building" (available from http://www.breworganic.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=322, the easiest way to turn cellulose into ethanol (or at lease for those who do not have the chemical ability to mash cellulose) is to take the 'woody' portions of plant material, introduce either a bacteria or enzyme that breaks down the cellulose. Next yeast is used to ferment the mass into a brew, that is then distilled.
This is essentially how beer and whiskey is made, only barley contains alpha and beta amylase, which break down the complex starches into fermentable sugars, but not the cellulose.
Note: This is far from a new idea. These books have been around for quite a long time. and mention making ethanol from scraps for energy uses.
Posted by: jj | July 10, 2008 3:08 PM
I think the answer to my question on direct burning vs cellulosic ethanol is in dunc's post:
"I've decided to do the necessary calculations myself, working from the data presented here (and using a density of 0.789 g/cm^3). From that, I calculate that 1 billion US tons of cellulosic feedstock will produce approximately 193.3 kilolitres of ethanol, which is equivalent to 34.21 billion US gallons of gasoline."
My own calculation for solid fuel burning is 323 million tons of cellulosic waste yielding 1 billion gallons of oil equivalent as electricity. On comparing dunc's numbers, I'd rough out the whole cellulose ethanol enterprise as having about 70% lower energy efficiency than just burning the lignocellulose.
On a basis of scale, hog fuel burning could also have some advantages. A 1 million gallon/year cellulose ethanol would fuel about 1700 cars for a year, about the same as a 40MW hog fuel operation. And the hog fuel operation make the 40MW the day it started up. No experimentation with an unproven technology.
Posted by: tom quick | July 10, 2008 4:07 PM
correction: 323 million tons of cellulosic waste yielding 1 billion BARRELS of oil equivalent.
jj, that's interesting info on the biofermentation of wood. I'd never heard of that as a way of making whiskey, but there are strange things done in the midnight sun based on what I saw up there. You still have to distill it, which is a huge energy killer for all alcohol projects. 8-9 pounds of water have to be evaporated for every pound of fuel ethanol. So you spend about 8000 BTUs in evaporation energy to get a fuel containing around 12000 BTUs.
That's one reason whiskey's so expensive.
Posted by: tom quick | July 10, 2008 4:29 PM
Well, whiskey is made by taking Barley (which contains the enzyme for braking down starch) corn or other cereal grains, heating to 149 - 155 degrees F, and allowing to "mash" for around an hour. Your not using the cellulose, just the starch, but it's the same general principle. Take a long chain of organic mass and cut it up until it's fermentable.
Posted by: jj | July 10, 2008 5:57 PM
@Tom
I would Imagine that upon distillation of ethanol from a naturally derived (fermented I mean) source would probably offset the energy gained by quite a bit, mostly making it useless (of course, you could use a solar powered heating element... You could argue then why not go solar, but with current technology ethanol gives more bang than carrying around batteries)
Posted by: jj | July 10, 2008 6:07 PM
Also, on the direct burning question, the things I find against that are the environmental impacts, as I believe, but am not actually sure, but burning ethanol is less damaging to the environment. Also, using as a mobile fuel (assuming we are not using plug in transportation) ethanol would be an easier, light form of fuel. But that's going off of assumptions...
Posted by: jj | July 10, 2008 7:10 PM
As per Joe Romm's post here (and frequent posts elsewhere), we *have* to go to BEV and PHEV for every vehicle for which we can make that work, and hopefully, over time, that's a increasing percentage of each vehicle class.
The problem is the vehicles for which, at some technology stage, battery energy density and/or swap-infrastructure just isn't good enough. Those vehicles go away without some liquid fuel. BEV/PHEV cars and light trucks are relatively easy, as are light tractors, and all have existence proofs.
I'm not saying combines and Class 8 trucks are impossible without fuel, but I don't know how to do it, and I haven't yet seen existence proofs. As a minor issue, most American's food has those vehicles in the production/distribution chain somewhere, and some people do like to fly occasionally. If someone wants to say let's not do those things, that's OK, but so far, I've rarely heard people say "I want to be part of the 10-20% of the US that has to move back onto farms to make up for farm machinery that can't be used any more."
Since farmers can grow fuel crops, they are *not* going to simply say "diesel is really expensive, and I could grow ethanol at a profit, but I won't, I'd rather go out of business." It doesn't matter if it would be more efficient to burn the cellulose, if they need liquid fuel, somebody will grow it.
For example, it is instructive to read what the Iowa Office of Energy Independence says, especially their Plan.
[Iowa is a big state for ethanol and biodiesel. The plan emphasizes efficiency. They like wind. They'd like to use less coal, gas, and oil, most of which are imported into the state.]
Posted by: John Mashey | July 10, 2008 9:55 PM
BTW, even if we could do a direct 1-for-1 replacement of gasoline by ethanol, we wouldn't want to do it.
In CA, at least, we have local conditions that *really* want less fuel-burning vehicles on the roads, period.
See Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson, who has done a lot of good work, but especially see: Effects of Ethanol (E85) versus gasoline vehicles on cancer and mortality in the US. Result: not necessarily good, due to ozone effects, especially in already-polluted areas; at least, likely to cause as much health damage as gasoline fleet.
Posted by: John Mashey | July 10, 2008 11:18 PM
My thesis on ethanol from wood/straw is that it's much more efficiently used as fuel directly than by making it into a liquid. In effect you double or triple your greenhouse gases (mostly in evaporation energy, but also in transportation and conversion energy) to get the same fuel energy This is a pretty strong argument against sugar and starch-based alcohols, but it becomes overwhelming when you look at alcohol from cellulosics.
If the government is investing in this, they would get a better return on their money by subsidizing home heating (modern pellet stoves with catalytic converters) or local hog fuel burning than by subsidizing ethanol schemes.
To do this right and on a large scale, you have to start with a huge pulp mill (something like the old Alaska Pulp at Ketchikan or Rayonier Fernandina) to make feedstock cellulose of high and consistent purity. This product (which by this point already has a cost somewhere north of $200 per dry ton more than the cost of the starting cellulosic matter), is now missing at least 30% of its weight in phenolics and some of the easily solubilized short chain cellulose. This cellulose then must be be broken down by some as-yet-undefined large industrial process (please, someone describe what this process is going to be) to short enough sugar fragments to make the "mash" for fermentation. This is the cellulosic front end. This is what it will take to get you to point where you start with corn right now.
This is not easily practiced on a local scale either. Small straw pulp mills used to be common in central Europe and in the US. The entire industry has disappeared for good reason: it was an environmental nightmare. The 30% dissolved non-cellulosic material from straw cannot be evaporated and burned because of its silica content (this is not a problem with wood). Millions of tons of biomass from dissolved straw poured down Romanian, Polish, Russian and Hungarian rivers untreated, up into the 1970's (the same thing used to go down the rivers of Illinois and Indiana, too, but stopped earlier).
Not to mention the billions in capital needed to do all this. All so that we have a little more ethanol for our cars. It COULD work, but I can't conceive of many liquid fuel schemes with a lower level of sustainibility. IMHO, those billions would be better spent on solid fuel burning and development of better batteries.
Posted by: Tom Quick | July 11, 2008 11:24 AM
I've given a little more thought to that intermediary stage between cellulose and fermentable mash. The industrial process that seems most applicable is what is used to make rayon and cellulose acetate. Cellulose is depolymerized in very strong alkali and goes into solution, then is extruded into an acid bath to make yarn or film (some old Celanese chemist could correct me if I'm wrong - and fill in some more dirty environmental stories, too - you have to get rid of that spent alkali somewhere). So this would be one industrial route to mash, and probably a more economic and proven one than anything involving bacteria or enzymes.
And it leaves me thinking that the material going into the fermenter will have a value upwards of $1000/ton.... Turning lignocellulosics into ethanol to fuel a car is looking more and more like the kind of alchemy that could turn gold into lead.
Posted by: Tom Quick | July 11, 2008 12:52 PM
Cellulose is depolymerized in very strong alkali and goes into solution, then is extruded into an acid bath to make yarn or film (some old Celanese chemist could correct me if I'm wrong - and fill in some more dirty environmental stories, too - you have to get rid of that spent alkali somewhere). So this would be one industrial route to mash, and probably a more economic and proven one than anything involving bacteria or enzymes.
Proven, yep.
Economical, nope.
Turning cellulose into ethanol has been easy for decades. Doing it economically has been the challenging part.
In the coming decades we're going to see the carbon in cellulose used to make much higher value carbon feedstocks - from plastics to pharmaceuticals. But for now, they're going for the lower value, easier fermentations - like ethanol.
Posted by: factician | July 11, 2008 2:06 PM
Sheril's opening statement implied $1/gallon gasoline equivalent fuel via a cellulosic route. Let's see if that makes sense for a couple of pricing scenarios for the cellulose.
A ton of wood contains about 17 million BTUS. Gasoline contains about 20,000 BTU/lb, or around 140,000 BTU/gallon.
So a ton of wood contains the energy equivalent of 121 gallons of gasoline.
If you could convert $70/T wood chips directly into gasoline it looks really good: 57 cent per gallon gasoline.
But it doesn't look so good using a fermentation product of a high cellulose market pulp, followed by alkali cellulose depolymerization, followed by fermentation, followed by distillation. I'll be very conservative and say that this gasoline equivalent would cost $1000/T:
$8 per gallon gasoline. This makes more sense to me, and it's a lowball estimate.
Let's say that price still sounds OK. Now let's look at scale. A big pulp mill produces 400,000 TPY of the pulp you need for your ethanol plant. The heat value of pulp cellulose when you burn it for fuel(I can't really believe I'm even thinking about burning it)is much lower than wood itself because the phenolics are gone, so I'll estimate that it will yield 100 gallons of gasoline equivalent per ton. One big pulp mill would produce the equivalent of 40 million gallons of gasoline. Enough to fuel about 70,000 cars.
So for every city the size of Fort Wayne you'd need a mega pulp mill/alkali cellulose plant/brewery/distillery (read $1 billion plus) and enough lignocellulose to feed it.
Posted by: tom quick | July 11, 2008 3:02 PM
So, is this blog ever going to review methanol as a biofuel?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_economy
Posted by: Derrick Gibson | July 11, 2008 11:23 PM
rather than using energy to break down cellulose into sugar to be turned into ethanol - why not just take the whole plant using the "Anything Into Oil" process & turn it all into oil? for that matter start digging up landfills & use all the plastics & other carbon based items & also take all the solids from sewage treatment systems & grow weeds like hemp on marginal farm land like Wyoming & algae & kelp - well you get the idea - anything carbon based can be turned into oil - thus gas - no I dont work for them - but I should
Posted by: dialtone | July 12, 2008 12:20 PM
I posted these to the wrong thread yesterday, and it looks like I am a bit late for this one, but here goes, with my two semi-serious ideas on this subject.
There is a plant known as "furze" or "gorse" - Ulex europaeus. On the Oregon coast it is a common invasive weed that is very difficult to eradicate. It is also very flammable, and made the 1936 fire in Bandon Oregon very destructive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandon%2C_Oregon
I have read that the extreme flammability of this plant is due in part to oils in the spiny leaves. I have not burnt any in a campfire to observe this myself, but assuming this is the case, could this plant be a source of biodiesel? Has anyone with access to the right kind of laboratory tried this? In any case, it would make good "hog fuel" as someone mentioned above, and it might turn the expense of controlling a weed that won't go away into a profitable activity.
My other semi-serious idea along these lines is to compare the efficiency of growing crops for motor fuel vs. growing pasture for horses. Ask the question, "How many ton-miles of freight hauling capacity per year can I get from an acre of land?"
It would obviously vary with geography ( and from horse to horse, of course, of course ), but has anybody run the numbers on this?
What if you consider taking the inevitable manure and turn that into ethanol, or consider how much energy is saved by using manure instead of artificial fertilizer? Would that be enough to make the whole process more efficient than growing crops for motor fuel?
I must admit that I have no particular interest or expertise with horses, but I understand that they come equipped with a trainable automatic navigation system, and an expert can even operate one after having consumed some corn based ethanol themselves.
In any case, it would seem that there will be no single process for utilizing biofuel energy, and the successful schemes will vary depending on local conditions.
Posted by: mark_the_hiker | July 12, 2008 6:10 PM
Mark, I've read about the Bandon fire, too. Here's a link to some information on gorse, which says that oil content is 2-4%:
www.co.lincoln.or.us/publicworks/pdf_veg/gorse.pdf
That's pretty low oil compared to soybeans, but high for a grass/shrub. I don't know how it would do as a crop, but it might make sense locally in areas where it grows well.
Posted by: thhq | July 13, 2008 5:00 PM