Renewable Fuel Niches
Posted by Robert Rapier on September 18, 2009 - 10:23am
This is the final installment of a three-part series that examines some of the renewable energy options that are presenting themselves as possible contenders to step up as petroleum steps down the depletion curve. The previous installments were:
Today I want to talk about Biofuel Niches. Here is how I would define a Biofuel Niche: A technology that is capable of supplying, long-term, up to 10% of our present liquid fossil fuel consumption, often by utilizing specific, localized synergies.
This definition covers a great number of possibilities, and I don't pretend that I will even cover a large fraction of them. But I want to cover some specific fuels - like cellulosic ethanol - that I believe can work in a niche. If readers can think of others, let's discuss them. I want to lead off with some of the options I categorized as "Pretenders", and then discuss corn ethanol which I did not discuss in the previous installments.
To reiterate, my views are based on the following expectations: 1). That the average oil price over the next 10 years will exceed $100/bbl; 2). That biomass prices will rise in response to demand, putting a premium on efficient conversion technologies; 3). That these biofuel technologies will eventually have to compete on the basis of oil price and not government handouts. This latter point is key, because it favors those technologies that can decouple from fossil fuel inputs.
Algal Biofuel
I classified this as a pretender based on the fact that technological improvements are needed in order to make algal biofuel economical - yet the hype over algae is mind-boggling. We don't even know if it will work at scale, and yet it is going to be the solution to all our problems? Following my previous essay, I had a discussion with someone involved in testing fuels for the U.S. military. They are optimistic about the future of fuel from algae, but admitted that they were only able to secure algal fuel for testing at the cost of $100/gal! How likely is it that there will be a more than 20-fold decrease in production costs?
Having said that, there are three situations in which I think algae can work. Two of these are niches. The first is a situation in which the oil is produced as a by-product. Algae has a great number of uses in consumer products, and oil can be produced as a by-product of those consumer products. As a hypothetical, assume that algae can be engineered to produce a valuable pharmaceutical. This is certainly not science fiction; the first commercial usage of genetic engineering was to design bacteria to produce human insulin. Imagine instead algae, and oil that is removed during processing. The costs are largely born by the more valuable primary product. The problem of course is that this approach isn't scalable. Imagine again that something like insulin production is the primary role of the algae. If you tried to scale that up to a significant fraction of our fuel usage, you will have thoroughly saturated the market for the insulin. But perhaps if we can pair up a number of primary products with oil algal production, algae can make a contribution to our fuel supply.
The second situation is similar. If algae production is one step in an integrated energy complex, it could work. For instance, I was recently asked to comment on just such an approach by Desert Biofuels, a company in Arizona. Without endorsing their specific approach, this sort of approach may work. (Actually their approach is quite complex and has unique technical risks). But algae can be effective at cleaning up waste water. Imagine algal-cleanup as one step of an integrated complex, and the costs go down substantially.
The only scalable approach I can see is for algae to be engineered to excrete their oil in situ. What drives the cost of algae up so much are the difficulties of collecting the algae, separating from water, and then separating the oil from the algae. (Often overlooked is that the oil must be further processed to biodiesel or green diesel). Now imagine a pond of algae in which the oil "leaks" out while the algae grow. The process of collecting the oil would be dramatically simplified. A caveat of course is that engineered algae tend to get out-competed by native strains. The bigger caveat is that this technology doesn't exist, but companies are working on it.
The wild card out there is the Solazyme approach. Think sugarcane ethanol, except instead of yeast producing ethanol you have algae producing oil. The approach is interesting - which is why I mention it - and gets away from many of the problems inherent in trying to produce fuel from algae. Is it more efficient than sugarcane ethanol? I think it's too early to tell. But one poster at The Oil Drum indicated that during a Q&A with a Solazyme representative, he couldn't come close to a believable answer regarding scale-up costs. So while I think this one bears watching, it is far too early to suggest that this will pan out.
For a balanced overview of fuel from algae, see Biotech's green gold?
Cellulosic Ethanol
I see two major problems with the scalability of cellulosic ethanol. First, the logistical challenges of getting a lot of biomass into the plant is going to limit the size of the plant. As I pointed out in an essay on Coskata, to run their proposed plants would take the equivalent of over a million trees per year. In terms of rail cars, this is over 1 per hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in and out of the plant to dump the biomass. And bear in mind that this is really a gasification to ethanol plant, with higher forecast yields than a conventional cellullosic process (i.e., a real cellulosic plant of this size would require even more biomass).
But beyond that, the ethanol that is produced from the cellulosic process is at a far lower concentration than that of corn ethanol. That means big energy inputs in order to make pure ethanol.
A good niche application for cellulosic ethanol could be a situation in which there is a lot of waste heat available near a point source of biomass. Generally, there isn't a lot of high quality waste heat that would contribute a lot to the steam needs of a cellulosic ethanol plant. But picture something like a cogeneration unit near a collection point for woody waste. The waste is being collected and is coming in anyway for disposal, and the heat output from the cogen unit may improve the economics.
Another alternative could be if there is another very cheap source of steam around that can't be better utilized. If you had a lot of coal in the same location as a lot of biomass, again a cellulosic process might work (but I would argue that depending on the source of biomass, gasification might be a more efficient solution here).
Hydrogen
While not generally considered a biofuel, I discussed hydrogen in my "Pretenders" piece so I will address it here as well. In my opinion, the most interesting realistic option for hydrogen is as energy storage for excess power. For instance, let's say you have a neighborhood in which most houses have enough solar panels to produce excess electricity at mid-day. Once the batteries are charged, what else can you do with that excess electricity? If it can't be diverted to someplace that has a need, then it may make sense to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen. This is not a very efficient process, and not something you would do under normal circumstances, but in this case it could be the best storage option.
Once the hydrogen is produced, it could either be used to fuel stationary fuel cells for the neighborhood when the solar panels aren't producing, or it could be compressed and used to fuel hydrogen combustion engines.
Corn Ethanol
A niche, you say? Aren't we producing 10 billion gallons of corn ethanol already? True, but I am talking about something that could actually stand on its own in the long run - unsubsidized - and still make a decent net contribution to our energy supplies. In that case, producers might still be able to sell 10-15 billion gallons of ethanol a year and make a profit, but the distribution pattern would be different. In a state with ample rainfall and rich soil, corn ethanol may be able to stand unsubsidized by making and consuming the ethanol locally. Corn ethanol may be a fine solution for Iowa (although E85 is not even cornering the market in Iowa, where it should be in its optimal market). Stretching it beyond a local solution is where the economics start to break down and the scheme only works with subsidies.
Here are some examples of what I am talking about. When corn ethanol is produced far from corn supplies - like in California - the economics became difficult due to the cost of shipping the corn to the plant. I talked about that in 2006, when I warned of the potential problems of Pacific Ethanol's plans to do just that. They filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
Another example is when ethanol is produced from a state in which ethanol's energy balance is poor (e.g., parts of Nebraska, due to corn's irrigation requirements) and then shipped to California. If you look at the USDA's most recent paper on corn ethanol's energy balance (the one in which they used creative accounting), you can see from Table 2 that Nebraska's energy inputs for growing corn are about 20,000 BTU/bushel above the Midwest average. (By comparison, Iowa's are 11,000 BTU/bushel under the Midwest average). This has the overall impact of actually causing Nebraska's net energy from producing ethanol to be negative unless one adds a BTU credit for co-products. With such a marginal energy balance (and I haven't even mentioned the Ogallala Aquifer) it hardly makes sense to produce ethanol in the drier regions of Nebraska. It makes even less sense to then spend more energy shipping that ethanol far from the point of origin.
Conclusion
Those are some of the major niche applications I see, but there are certainly others. What corn ethanol could be for Iowa, sugar beet ethanol may be to the EU and palm oil may be to Malaysia: Local solutions. The key to success for any of these is not to try to scale something that should operate in a niche. When we attempt to do this, we open up a can of perpetual subsidies in order to force something that doesn't fit, and often get unintended consequences in the process.
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Thanks for pointing out these niches!
I think a lot of us remember Jason's post from a few days, pointing out that in the long run we need to get the nutrients back into the soil where the food (or biofuel) is from. Unless we have a very good fertilizer system, it seems like we are going to be severely limited in the amount of biofuels we can produce.
Do you think this issue will seriously limit biofuels:
1. In the short run?
2. In the longer run?
If you draw your control volume around the farms and the biofuel plant, then in theory the only outputs should be hydrogen, carbon and maybe oxygen, all of which will make their own way back into the control volume. From that perspective, fertilizer is not necessary. However, I realize that nutrient cycling inside the control volume is not necessarily possible, but is merely theoretically possible because you are not exporting any nutrients in the form of fuel.
For example, if you are using clear tubes full of growth medium to grow algae which gets turned into fuel, the fuel should not contain any of the nutrients in the algae except for hydrogen and carbon, which are both easily replaced. However, the process for turning algae into fuel might convert some of the nutrients into a state where the algae cannot re-absorb them which might require replacement or re-processing which cuts into the EROI and the economics of the algae plant.
If the fuel is destined to be burned without additional refining into a liquid fuel, then the issue is what is recoverable from the ashes, and what turns into a gas and is gone. If the main problem is nitrogen, then the nitrogen could be replaced with ammonium nitrate made using stranded wind or replaced with nitrogen-fixing plants but that will come at a cost in either EROI or duty cycle of the growing fields or both.
Certainly in the long run nutrient depletion of soils is going to be an issue. One of the points of this series is thinking things through to avoid dead ends. To be sustainable biofuel production must be arranged so that soil nutrients are returned to the producing area. This would argue that biofuels should be designed around small scale, local production.
Gail,
In the long run it should be possible to run a closed system with the nutrients. The fuels will contain carbon, hydrogen, and some oxygen but should contain no phosphorus or potasium.
The systems can be designed to capture the nutrients and return them to the soil. This reinforces Mr. Rapier's comments about transportation. For example it makes no sense to ship corn from Iowa to California process it to ethanol and then ship the nutrients back to the soil in Iowa.
The need to recycle the nutrients will in the long run be another check on the size of these plants. Ultimately sizing these plants will have to take into account feedstock transport to the plant, product transport to the market, and nutrient transport back to the soil. This is in addition to such factors as water availability and byproduct transport and marketing.
Look up the solubility product for the mineral Vivianite, which forms in the soil as follows: Fe2O3 + PO4 (aq) = FePO4 (s) + O2 You will not be able to recover the once-available soluble phosphate you have added to a soil containing iron oxides, it is effectively gone forever. The growing dead zones in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico attest to the current ineffective procedures to capture and recycle nutrients added to the midwest soils.
Just because your final end product contains no NPK (+trace metals) nutrients does not imply use of them in production is closed and 100% recyclable. Welcome to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
D3PO -
Maybe some of the ag people here could chime in, but is it not true that plants excrete various enzymes from their roots to help solubilize needed nutrients and minerals so that they can then be taken up in soluble form? I don't know to what extent they can do this with iron phosphates, but if I understand correctly, it occurs with some other low-solubility minerals.
Is not the dead zone in the Gulf just the result of agricultural runoff containing highly fertilized soil particles? Some runoff can be controlled and some cannot. It is a common problem wherever there is intensive agriculture in close proximity to natural waterways.
What does the Second Law of Thermodynamics really have to do with any of this?
Joule, I'm just a simple geochemist, so it would be nice to get some agronomists to chime in here. The solubility product (Ksp) for Vivianite is 10^-36, so good luck clever plants trying to get that phosphate back into solution!
I'm sure you're correct in assuming that some portion of the nutrients that make it to the Gulf of Mexico are particle bound. If not tightly bound, as above, the exchange from particle to solution will vary with temperature and pH, ionic strength of the solution, etc. The fact that the dead zones are there when they weren't before and are growing in size means intensive agricultural practices upstream need a lot of improvement.
"What does the Second Law of Thermodynamics really have to do with any of this?"
Entropic losses are bound to happen when there is activity or mass/energy exchange. Like moving electricity around on wires or charging batteries, driving cars, plowing fields, dusting crops on a windy day. Ain't nothin' perfect or free, or 100% recyclable.
This is faulty logic. You are taking the 2nd Law and the concept of entropy out of context and applying it to everything with very little precision.
If I showed you a picture of the galaxy 10 billion years ago and then a picture of it now, which would appear more complex? Which would be more interesting? Which would have formed a galactic disk where one was not there before? How about the Earth 4 billion years ago versus now? Which is more complex and intricate?
And yet, given only a cursory understanding of entropy and dispersion, it would appear that the newer picture predated the first. This is obviously not the case.
Thermodynamics on a massive scale are not so simple to observe. There is embeded energy in matter. Just because we can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. Who could have imagined what a small amount of uranium could do 200 years ago? What can we do by capturing more of the sun's energy? Energy locked up in the earth? It only matters that we are dispersing things if there is a small amount of it, as there is with fossil fuels.
The universe is (probably) a closed system. So is your life. So is the span of the Earth. Taken together, those facts suggest that the 2nd law doesn't really matter, except for with very limited resources, or when applied to matters of simple dispersion over space, as they are commonly understood. If we can fuel things for "a good amount of time" that's okay by me.
I'm not suggesting that the Law isn't important when talking about energy, but to use it in a way that suggests that nothing is possible just because of dispersion is shaky logic... or at least logic applied to the real world in an unsound way.
My favorite counterintuitive entropy thing is rusting iron.
Gee Andrew, I guess you and aren't going to be friends? I believe what I said is true, whether you like it or not. Entropic loss is very much a part of life, as in movement or programmed action, however you want to define life, and part of the known cosmos since the big bang. I don't believe I implied "nothing is possible" because of entropic loss, but nothing is free or perpetual or 100% because of it, and the ones with the shaky logic are those "true believers", perhaps like yourself, that think that there is so.
We have indeed fueled things for "a good amount of time". One of the overriding themes of this blog is that resources, net resources after the effort to obtain useful energy/matter from them, are finite on this planet. For oil, that period was about 150 years and now, to get and live with the remainder, is going to be a "less good amount of time" including but not limited to economic depression, social strife, resource wars, climate change, epic starvation, disease and mass death of H. sapiens sapiens.
You are a very biocentric and anthropocentic person. Try to see things as the Navajo.
It's primarily symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi that do this, rather than the roots themselves. In exchange for glucose from the plant, the fungi provide soluble P & other nutrients to the plant. There's some evidence that P fertilization inhibits the mycorrhizae. An agronomist at the institution I work for has done research on this. His recommendation is that no supplemental P be provided at all. I suppose the advisability of this depends on the particular circumstances.
darwinsdog -
Thanks. That's very interesting. One hand washes the other, even down there among lowly roots and fungi.
Accepting it as true the P fertilization inhibits this fungi-mediated P exchange, if you don't continually add an amount of P equal to the amount that is removed when the crop is harvested, won't you eventually deplete the soil of P?
Theoretically, yes. But much of the time P is there in the soil, it's just unavailable in soluble form that plants can use. The idea is that by not inhibiting the mycorrhizae via tillage & P supplementation, they will make P available for plant use.
Plants have an immune system and if the plants can get the P without giving up sugars to the fungi, then they tend to not allow the fungi to take hold in their roots.
The typical reaction that breaks down the rocks is
O2 + CH2O => HCO3- + H
My google fu failed to turn up a 'yes fungi breaks down Vivianite' but did turn up the grand man of fungi will be in Madison WI and my memory says at least one reader of these thread/regular poster is near Madison. And if anyone will know off the top of his head the answer it'll be Paul Stamets
Paul Stamets - How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World Tuesday,
September 22, 2009 10:00 AM-12:30 PM, Lecture, questions, & book
signing Promega BioPharmaceutical Technology Center
5445 East Cheryl Parkway, Madison, WI 53711
If one disturbs the soil, this causes the fungi to die. If one does not allow the fungi to exist, one cuts down on the water gathering ability for the plants as the effective 'root area' drops.
The recycling of nutrients will cost some energy. You will need to seperate the minerals from the biomass. This will show up as a lower EROEI.
At the biogas plant in Strem, Austria farmers just go and fetch the goop out of the lagoon where the spent feedstock is dumped.
"The key to success for any of these is not to try to scale something that should operate in a niche. When we attempt to do this, we open up a can of perpetual subsidies in order to force something that doesn't fit, and often get unintended consequences in the process."
How many niches do we need to save humanity?
As I commented on a previous thread would it not occupy a more useful niche to use many of these fuels either for direct space heating, electricity or electric heat pumps? Obviously there will be cases where local for local liquid fuel production is the best option (defined as most high grade fuel saved overall) but in many cases the higher overall efficiency possible would allow a lot more oil and gas to be made available for transport fuel instead of low grade heat. Making electricity would be my first preference because this would still encourage energy efficiency and insulation which usually has the best EROEI of all options.
If the comment on an earlier thread that it is possible to make liquid fuel from electricity at ~50% efficiency is correct then this would set a lower bound - if the biofuel process had less than half the overall efficiency of making electricity then it would never be worthwhile. Indeed at the moment it would seem to make sense to look at city based electricity to fuel plants that could take advantage of otherwise wasted electricity using existing supply infrastructure once more renewables are on grid than pumped storage etc can cope with.
One issue not mentioned is leverage.
A few years ago, Ford and MIT developed an engine concept using extreme turbocharging and direct ethanol injection to roughly double the power available for a given displacement; ethanol injected directly into the cylinder cooled the charge by evaporation and increased the effective octane of the fuel. If this was used to cut the size of the engine in half, they estimated that some 30% increase in efficiency would be possible through decreased friction and lower pumping losses.
The ratio of ethanol to gasoline is quite low: about 1:20. If we compare 5% ethanol used to 23% gasoline saved, the ratio is better than 4:1. This justifies even a 1:1 ratio of petroleum consumed to ethanol produced... but only if the ethanol is used exclusively in such engines. E85 and even "gasohol" have to go out the window.
The Scuderi split-cycle engine may achieve similar results without use of octane boosters, rendering the whole issue moot. There is no point in making a fulcrum when the same result can be achieved without the lever.
Robert,
It seems like most biofuels companies are in pursuit of the holy grail (or claim to have found it)--I assume because of the demands of the venture capital environment. Do you know of any companies that are actively marketing themselves as limited/local/niche solutions only, or that are perhaps working to aggregate multiple such niches to gain economies of scale in research/engineering or to manage risk? Do you see much prospect for such aggregation or collaboration between niche players?
There is a new company in Parker, CO that is doing the niche bio-diesel thing. Here is a link to an article about them: http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=2965, and here is the link to their site: http://www.rockymtnbiodiesel.com/.
Do you know of any companies that are actively marketing themselves as limited/local/niche solutions only
No, not too many. You have a lot of people dreaming of big riches, and they are only going to achieve that by convincing people that they have the holy grail, and getting someone to fund it. I saw a company yesterday with a $8 million market cap, and they have nothing. I mean zip. They don't even have any IP. But they have been making big press release claims about what they are going to do.
Do you see much prospect for such aggregation or collaboration between niche players?
That's actually part of what I am working on right now: Tying together some niches into a bigger network.
In the past year I have seen butanol, or bio-butanol, mentioned on TOD a number of times as being superior to ethanol as an ICE vehicle fuel. Just guessing that it must be the ugly stepsister of ethanol, because ethanol seems to get all the spotlight and funding. I would be interested to learn if there are any serious attempts to scale butanol production up, what is involved in making it.
I like reading Heading Out's series about the how-its-done of getting oil out of the ground, I would like to learn a lot more about the technology details of the alternate fuels production.
As someone who spent seven years in industry making butanol, I can tell you that the bio route has some very big challenges to overcome:
The Problem with Biobutanol
.
Re: Algae
I will believe that oil from algae is a technically and economically viable route only when I see a large scale operation (say over 100 acres) in which algae is grown in open ponds at a high rate for an extended period of time in a stable and controllable manner. A year's worth of successful operation would convince me.
All one has to do is to look at the installed cost of UV-resistant clear plastic tubes and sheets to realize that enclosed transparent bio-reactors or enclosed greenhouse-like ponds are a non-starter as far as large-scale production is concerned.
Let's keep in mind that even at a high rate of production, say 6,000 gallons per year per acre, a 100-acre algae operation is only producing about 40 barrels per day. And a hundred acres of clear plastic is already one hell of a LOT of plastic!
I find this argument about the cost of plastic bio-reactors a bit hard to stomach when:
1) Tons of transparent plastic sheeting are disposed of every day as packing material. The only use made of the plastic was as a cover during shipment of a more valuable product.
2) On the island where I live plastic bottles mainly used for soft drinks and bottled water are a huge problem. They are often seen littering the coastline where they have washed back onto shore after being washed into the sea from streams, rivers, gullies or drainage channels. Obviously the food/drink industries do not have a problem paying for cheap, single short term use packaging.
3) We keep on hearing about two large "islands" of floating plastic in the pacific ocean that teams are going out to investigate.
I find it hard to believe that some plastic is so cheap that it can be used to pack something in and then be disposed of, while other plastic is too expensive as a source of bio-reactors for fuel production. Even when there are recycling programs, I get the impression that these are loss leaders aimed more at preventing plastic from polluting the environment than re-using the plastic (recovering the "valuable" plastic).
Just curious as to how much plastic is used to bottle food/drink and household products (e.g. dishwashing liquid or window cleaners) every day. How possible would it be to use some fraction of that plastic to produce x acres of bio-reactor that could be used for 3-6 months before recycling the plastic? Can UV degraded plastic be recycled?
Alan from the islands
islandboy -
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the plastics used in packaging are hardly suitable for being recycled into clear UV-resistant transparent tubes or sheets. Most of it is low-quality 'junk' plastic, which should not be surprising, given its wasteful one-time use.
Which is not to say that it couldn't have other beneficial uses, i.e., things like railroad ties, building blocks, park benches, etc. There already is a considerable market for scrap plastic. However, I strongly suspect that trying to harvest these plastic 'islands' in the Pacific would prove to be an economically hopeless endeavor. These days it's tough enough trying to harvest even high-value things out of the ocean, such as fish, but junk plastic has got to be a loser.
Ordinary plastic geenhouse film that normally lasts four or five years retails for 15 to 25 cents per square foot according to my results of a quick online farm supply search.
This would translate very roughly to somewhere around eight thousand bucks per acre and two thousand bucks per year per acre but this might be a very high figure-buying such items direct can cut costs considerably sometimes and it might last considerably longer inan area not subject to high winds.
Glass might be cheaper in the long run.
Mac, you are so right. Assuming a top and bottom layer, 6 mil, 15 cents a sq ft, we're past $12K/acre. A single hole will allow contamination, so 3 years max, or $4K per acre. At $70/bbl (More expensive oil = more expensive plastic), that means the first 60 barrels per acre each year goes toward the plastic. Recycling the plastic is at best energy neutral, the workload is significant, so no gain there. Investing in more durable plastic won't help with the numbers.
It's as if the really smart guys go along with this facade so the passionate anti-number crowd won't yell at them. The numbers don't crunch, not even close. I guess I'm just not smart enough to stay quiet. I'm not a numbers guy but I get it.
I was a believer in biomass at one time. But biomass fuel fundamentally will never work. The assumption that fuel will become more valuable than food is false. Excess food can always be burned as fuel, but excess fuel cannot be directly consumed. So food prices will always meet or exceed fuel prices. Considering the unlimited demand for fuel, this bodes poorly for the food supply.
So biomass proponents suggest starting with biomass. Hello? If a farmer can make more on biomass than food, he'll stop growing food. See the previous paragraph, re: there is no excess food. Biomass cannot be more productive than food. It is game over if food and fuel compete.
Maybe it's not so obvious to others. People so want to believe.
I like your style Mac. Everytime you post, I want to reply.
Any interest in a meetup? I understand you are in western NC. I'll be driving through there in a few weeks.
Cold Camel
I was a believer in biomass at one time. But biomass fuel fundamentally will never work.
one cubic mile of crude consumed a year and all the coal burned for heat says that biomass does work.
By your definition, I stand corrected.
Cold Camel -
I don't think that thin non-rigid film is going to do it for this type of an application. Even 1/4-inch plexiglas can't span much of a distance without sagging. So regardless of what thickness you use, when you have 100+ acres of pond to cover, you are going to have the expense of an elaborate support structure in addition to the cost of the plastic sheet or film itself.
Then we have the question of how do you manage storm water, or ice and snow that falls on the cover. If you want a sloped transparent roof, then you are going to have to have something resembling a greenhouse type of structure for the entire pond system. This can get pretty costly for something occupying 100+ acres. The only thing that I can envision of having half a chance of working is to have the pond consisting of an array of long narrow channels probably no more than 30 to 40 feet wide. Each one would be spanned transversely by an arch-like framework over which the plastic sheeting would be attached.
And let us not forget that unless the ponds are built on very tight clayey soil, you will need to have a liner to prevent water from percolating out of the pond. Liners also cost money.
This is why I don't get overly impressed when I hear that one can produce so many times more bio fuel per acre with algae than with conventional land crops. While such statements are true, they conveniently overlook the fact than an acre of covered algae pond costs several orders of magnitude more than an acre of plain old land (which you have to buy in either case).
As I said before, I'll become a believer in algae when I see it grown at a high rate in a controllable manner in open rather than covered ponds. (I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.)
You are correct but you avoided my larger concern about biomass in general. Excepting Eric's perspective, biomass cannot work.
Oh really???? YOU can just LOOK at the plastic tubes and sheets and realize it as a non-starter???....What an eye!!!!!....What a mind!!!!...What a man!!!!
He said look at the cost of the tubes, not look at the tubes.
Don't feed the cuisine-challenged substructure symbionts. (Flag them instead.)
Hydrogen is quite an interesting fuel for airplanes. (And, despite common sense here, airplanes are quite eficient means of transportation for long distance and not very used paths.) Today, it is more expensive than kerozene, but that can change soon.
But I would bet on some heavier element for stationary energy storage, hydrogen is too hard to work with. Sodium looks like the perfect metal for that, I just don't know what to oxidate it with...
For hydrogen, I believe most of us on TOD have come to the conclusion that they will probably never become the principle fuel source for light vehicles (although I've wondered how well they'd work as range extenders for PHEVs), but I don't see why they can't be used on long-haul trucks. Seeing batteries aren't really an option for them, and seeing how they could definitely use the incredible low-end torque that electric vehicles can provide, I don't know why they wouldn't be a good alternative, assuming the price of the fuel cells can be brought down.
Fuel cells are already used in a lot of places for cogen purposes, although they are really fueled by natural gas. Hopefully they take off more in that arena, seeing as they have a tremendous advantages for those applications.
I was at the Walmart in Bethany MO on wednesday and saw a bag of fuel pellets on display. The company address on the bag was a town in Georgia. These pellets were shipped at least 800 miles just to reach the store. Absurdities in biofuels exist in the solid fuel sector also. At $6.50 for 40 lbs it would be cheaper to buy and burn locally grown feed corn this winter.
The co-product concept got me thinking. My wife grew sunflowers this year. While the seeds could be processed for biodiesel I see the stalks could be used for fuel pellets and considering the mass ratio of seeds to stalks then the pellets would be the primary product covering growing costs with biodiesel as a bonus byproduct. Just one of those niches.
Regarding plane fuel -Hydrogen is big and bulky, why not use Ammonia?
Could this not be thermally cracked before being fed to the engines as "H"? The Nitrogen is then just a waste product.
In theory if the 'Ammonia Airplane' also had an Oxygen source it could go "spatial" with the right engines...
Nick.
Edit: I just did a Google search on Ammonia Scramjet and found this: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/357/1759/2335.abstract
"Abstract
This paper gives a broad and simplified theoretical treatment of the effects on performance of a scramjet engine due to adding a precoolant to the air flow somewhere in the initial compression process. The study suggests that the largest increase in thrust can be derived from injection as far upstream as practical. In particular, it can reduce the lowest Mach number at which a scramjet can usefully operate, although at some cost in propellant (i.e. fuel plus coolant) consumption. Liquid ammonia seems a particularly suitable airflow coolant, not least in that it can also release heat in downstream combustion.
"
Kerosene has about 20,000 BTU/lb, more or less; ammonia has about 8000 BTU/lb. When every pound of extra fuel is a pound of payload foregone, do you think you can run an airliner on ammonia and make money? I don't.
(disclaimer: private pilot, single-engine land.)
Re: "True, but I am talking about something that could actually stand on its own in the long run - unsubsidized - and still make a decent net contribution to our energy supplies."
I find it bizarre that ethanol must stand on its own long run when such a requirement is currently not made of fossil fuels which are heavily subsidized:
http://washingtonindependent.com/59949/federal-government-offers-major-i...
This double standard makes it virtually imposible for ethanol and other renewables to ever succeed.
The fact that fossil fuels are subsidized is a political issue and not a requirement for success. The eroei is still quite positive and certainly was so when Spindletop blew off, long before subsidies. Ethanol on the other hand,
I find it bizarre that ethanol must stand on its own long run when such a requirement is currently not made of fossil fuels which are heavily subsidized:
As has been pointed out to you many times, the definition of subsidy you are applying to fossil fuels means that ethanol gets a whole lot more than the direct per gallon blending credit.
This double standard makes it virtually imposible for ethanol and other renewables to ever succeed.
The only double-standard is in your mind. When corn ethanol starts paying taxes on the level of the oil companies - instead of taking money to keep them afloat - then you can say that the industry is standing on its own. Let's face facts. Take away everything that you consider a subsidy for both industries, and your gas prices would go up and the oil industry would keep chugging. The ethanol industry on the other hand would simply vanish if you pulled the subsidies.
This is empty propaganda IMO.
Valero Energy is fighting a Tennessee law that would make oil refineries deliver straight E0 RFG to gas stations so people other than Big Oil/Valero could clain the 5.2 cent blender's credit. The truth is Big Oil loves their ethanol subsidy!
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssOilGasRefiningMarketing/idUSN27505119...
Under VTEEC,
the federal government charges 18.4 cents per gallon for ALL fuels of which 0.1 cents goes to a LUST(leaking gas station tax)fund, 2.86 cents goes to support mass transit and 15.44 cents goes to the Highway Trust Fund.
In the case of E10 there is a 5.2 cent per gallon IRS tax credit that the blender(Big Oil) gets for ethanol
So for a gallon of E10 who give the oil companies a 5.2 cent per gallon IRS credit so Big Oil pays 13.2 cents( paid out of the General Fund). 18.40-5.2 = +13.20 cents due to the IRS.
For E85 the blender would get a net tax credit of 24.95 cents;
18.40-.85 x 51 = ~-25 cents
The rack price for ethanol this week was about $1.80 per gallon.
The NYMEX price of RFG this week was about $2.05 per gallon. (Assume no other taxes,cost and no profit.
I agree that state and local and USDA subsidies of corn do favor ethanol but complaining about those is hopeless--who cares what kind of state taxes/subsidies Iowans want to support and you'll never get rid of ag subsidies--these subsidies won't exist with cellulosic energy crops.
Therefore with the federal tax,
straight gas is $2.05 + .184 = $2.234 cents per gallon.
E10 $2.05 x .9 + $1.8 x .1 + .132 = $2.157 cents per gallon
E85 $2.05 x .15 + $1.8 x .85 -.25 = $1.588 cents per gallon.
http://www.dtnethanolcenter.com/index.cfm?show=10&mid=32
So the cost difference between E0 - E10 it is a 7.7 cents savings, 3.4% of the whole price.
E10 has 3.3% less energy than E0.
For E85 the differences is 64.6 cents savings, 29% of the whole price.E85 has 29% of the energy of E0.
So at present ethanol and gasoline prices, the price difference
mirror the energy difference between ethanol blends almost exactly. (Fair)
If both corn and RFG prices rise by 25%
the savings is only 1% with E10 with a 3.3% less energy.(Bad for E10)
If corn prices remain the same but RFG rises by 25%
the savings is 4.3% in E10 with 3.3% less energy.(Good for E10)
The domestic oil production industry also gets a great many subsidies for
what they do--between $1 per barrel in exploration, tax deductions for leasing, accelerated equipment depreciation, oil depletion(15%), pipelines, marginal production, etc. for oil production.
Also the oil refineries get about $.5 per barrel for coke taxes, sulfur removal, etc.
The subsidies for the renewable fuels and tiny renewable energy industry is a bit less than twice the subsidies for oil.
If we can support the aging, doomed oil business, hardly noticing their subsidies a small subsidy( a few extra cents per gallon) to get renewable energy industry, including bio-fuels going that seems a small price to pay IMO.
Valero Energy is fighting a Tennessee law that would make oil refineries deliver straight E0 RFG to gas stations so people other than Big Oil/Valero could clain the 5.2 cent blender's credit. The truth is Big Oil loves their ethanol subsidy!
Give me a freaking break. Valero isn't Big Oil. Valero is a refiner only, and they recently bought a bunch of ethanol plants. So they are now also heavily involved in ethanol, and thus a very poor example for you to use in making that point.
In the case of E10 there is a 5.2 cent per gallon IRS tax credit that the blender(Big Oil) gets for ethanol
You said propaganda? That's exactly what this is. I have documented before XOM's CEO calling for an end to the subsidy, and American Coalition for Ethanol VP Brian Jennings screaming in protest:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/07/caught-in-lie.html
So tell me why Big Ethanol would be defending a Big Oil subsidy? Please. Not even you can be that naive, which is why YOU are spouting propaganda.
If we can support the aging, doomed oil business, hardly noticing their subsidies a small subsidy( a few extra cents per gallon) to get renewable energy industry, including bio-fuels going that seems a small price to pay IMO.
The problem with that theory is that corn ethanol is so heavily dependent on fossil fuels, that a corn ethanol subsidy IS largely a fossil fuel subsidy. It isn't the subsidy I have a problem with. It is that it is based on false promises.
One number you never seem to acknowledge is the amount of income tax paid by thousands of new workers in the ethanol industry. How much income tax does the US collect on foreign oil? Absolutely none! This is one of the reasons why the federal budget deficit is up to $4 trillion. And before you make the claim that those workers would be more productive in another industry, don't forget that the real unemployment rate is more like 16%. For all the talk on this site about "sustainability", it's rather obvious to me that US reliance on imported products and borrowed money to pay for government services is the most unsustainable situation that exists! Whatever number the US government pays out in ethanol subsidies, it collects back many times over from the industry and it's employees in taxes.
One number you never seem to acknowledge is the amount of income tax paid by thousands of new workers in the ethanol industry.
Well, if people actually believe that the ethanol industry is taking away jobs from the oil industry, it is taking away much higher-paying jobs than those being created in the ethanol industry. So the taxes being paid by the new ethanol employees would be much lower than those of the refinery employees they (theoretically) replaced.
How much income tax does the US collect on foreign oil? Absolutely none!
Of course foreign oil is taxed, because it is bought by U.S. refineries that then refine it to liquid fuels. Thus, all kinds of taxes get paid in the process.
Whatever number the US government pays out in ethanol subsidies, it collects back many times over from the industry and it's employees in taxes.
If that was really the case, then we should mandate that everyone go buy a new Ford. Think of all the jobs it would create, and the taxes that would be collected on those jobs. Sorry, mandates and subsidies don't work that way.
The domestic ethanol industry reduces foreign oil imports. The jobs being replaced are foreign. Foreign workers do not pay US income taxes.
I guess you've never heard of the buy America act provision in government contracts, because that is the way it works. But yes, imported autos are another reason for the declining US economy. Certainly by now everyone should realize that the genius economists who have been saying the trade deficit didn't matter are wrong.
The domestic ethanol industry reduces foreign oil imports. The jobs being replaced are foreign. Foreign workers do not pay US income taxes.
Once again, it isn't so simple as you wish to make it out to be. We don't burn petroleum in our cars. We burn diesel and gasoline. That is refined from petroleum, and most of our refining is done in the U.S. In addition, the ethanol industry is heavily dependent on things like fertilizer, which are heavily imported and thus produced from things like imported natural gas. So the real equation once you add up everything might look something like this: Create one job in the U.S. ethanol industry, destroy a partial (higher-paying) job in the U.S. refining industry and a partial job in the foreign oil industry and create partial jobs in the foreign natural gas and fertilizer industries.
I guess you've never heard of the buy America act provision in government contracts, because that is the way it works.
You are comparing apples and cats. We don't mandate that when Americans buy a car, some percentage must be a Ford. We do mandate that when Americans buy fuel, some percentage must be ethanol. But back to your argument. If mandates really created jobs and had all of these economic benefits, we should force everyone to buy a new American car. But people would understand that that large cost item would put a financial burden on people and cause them not to buy other things. They can't see that ethanol subsidies and mandates do the same thing, just at a slow drip. In fact, what ethanol subsidies are doing is like forcing all Americans to buy a new car and sending our kids the bill.
Certainly by now everyone should realize that the genius economists who have been saying the trade deficit didn't matter are wrong.
Just so you are clear, I am well aware of the problems caused by our trade imbalance. And I agree that high oil prices are a major component in that equation. In fact I lectured a high school class this last week and mentioned the fact that we are being held hostage by countries that don't like us, and our economy is at great risk because of our dependence on foreign oil. The difference between you and me is that I don't recognize corn ethanol as much of a solution to these problems.
The domestic ethanol industry reduces foreign oil imports.
If the goal is to employ American workers then lets look at steel. Name a 1st world nation that lacks steel production.
Robert, Done any work on Sweet Sorghum as a multi use crop, for ethanol, biomass, and grain? It has some advantages in water use and fertilizer requirements over sugar, and can yield multiple crops per year.
Sugarcane is tropical, Corn is temperate, Sorghum falls in between. All use the C4 pathway and so are thrifty with water relative to yield, but high yields always requires high fertility. In certain places sorghum yields more, but it is not a magic bullet.
Cold Camel
Robert, Done any work on Sweet Sorghum as a multi use crop, for ethanol, biomass, and grain? It has some advantages in water use and fertilizer requirements over sugar, and can yield multiple crops per year.
Have done some looking at it. One of the issues is that even though it can have multiple yields per year, the total annual biomass yield per acre is comparable to many competing sources that you only have to harvest once. Yet to get that yield of sorghum, you have to harvest multiple times, which drops the energy balance.
The assumption behind 10% biofuel is that it will be blended with the other 90% comprising petro fuels. If there were no oil and just 10% of the present volume of liquids the infrastructure would disintegrate. That is, most service stations would be abandoned. Truck stops on the highway might be hundreds of kilometres apart. Lack of repair might see the highways abandoned eventually. For example bridges washed out.
In a world of greatly reduced liquid fuels it is unclear what link there will be between the highway and local farming. Does the farmer get fuel from the local dealer who is supplied by tanker trucks on the highway? That fuel will come from a distant refinery. Or does the farmer take surplus locally produced fuel for resale on the highway?
Some thought needs to be given to maintaining transport corridors with adequate fuel supply. In that case it may be simpler to run all vehicles on a standard fuel. Rather than ethanol or different forms of diesel perhaps methane gas could be the universal fuel. That is forget 'niche' fuels. Methane can be sourced a number of ways and blended and it can also be used in different kinds of engines.
Robert,
Regarding the rail cars: one per hour is 168 cars per week, or about two trainloads. IIRC, many coal-fired generating plants manage that. I think the other end of the rail transport problem would be larger. Large-scale tree harvests are likely to happen in terrain much more difficult to deal with than that of, say, the Powder River basin. Each of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana have over a million acres of beetle-killed pine forest -- but the vast majority of it would be very difficult to get to any sort of rail.
Robert, I think that to some degree you have blinkered your argument to support your theme. Some examples that I do not see you refering to would be
http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2007/05/dedini-achieves-breakthrough-...
http://mattgoesgreen.com/2009/06/dedini-sudanese-kenana-sugar-open-19-mg...
, not to mention the successful end of cane ethanol production in Australia. It is easy to find news on the failures, but the successes tend to be heads down production with no need for flashy news casting. While the US is happy to trash any fledling enterprise attempting to contribute to CO2 emissions reductions, Dedini is quietly spreading its influence around the globe with good commonsense business based on solidly commercial production processes. It took a far sighted government, albeit a military dictatorship at the time, to provide the determination to make an initially noncommercial process into the Brazillian ethanol success story. Perhaps the US could take a page from that book and put the army corps of engineers to the task of properly kick starting a biofuel industry that everyone knows your country really needs.
Algal oil has a number of huge hurdles to pass before there will be any news worthy fuel announcements. These problems are to do with required infrastructure and water loss. I personally believe that there are very simple solutions to both of these issues, it will however take some more time for them to surface. Meanwhile algal oil is a profitable industry manufacturing the omega 3 oils that we increasing require for food production.
Dedini is quietly spreading its influence around the globe with good commonsense business based on solidly commercial production processes.
I have heard about a dozen companies make the "cellulosic ethanol for $1/gal" claim. When they build a big plant, you will know that they were for real and we can discuss. Until then, they are just a chorus of many who make that claim. Having said that, I have frequently said that if cellulosic ethanol can make it, bagasse will be the most logical way to proceed since you already have highly processed cellulose at the sugarcane plant. But the conversion costs are still too high.
Perhaps the US could take a page from that book and put the army corps of engineers to the task of properly kick starting a biofuel industry that everyone knows your country really needs.
Just because you need something doesn't necessarily mean you will get it. We aren't in the tropics like Brazil. There just isn't much of a biofuel industry that can really scale up and take much of a bite out of our petroleum consumption. We are going to need a combination of higher prices and lower consumption before biofuels can make an impact, and then I think it will be something like pyrolysis or gasification.
It might not be glamorous,clean, or convenient in its present stage of development but wood a gas generator is simple enough that it can be built in a decently equipped farm shop or garage and there is no doubt that it will convert wood to ice fuel well enough to meet enable a farmer to get his crops in or a truck to haul a load of produce to town.
Lots of them were built and used in Europe during WWII.
This bodes well for the eventual success of scaled up pyrolysis. If a good use can be found for the waste heat from the engine and/or the process can be adjusted to pull out good quality charcoal for smelting,heating, or use as a soil amendment.
Wood is VERY EASY to store ,really all you need is space to pile it and a cover to keep the rain off.
So if a wood gasifier can be scaled up to the size that would produce enough heat for a green house, scholl, or apartment building located in the outskirts of town,it could be a financial be winner between the heat and the electricity that could be generated when ff supplies get really tight.
A unit of this size could be supplied with waste wood or purpose cut fuel wood harvested within a few miles in many places,solving the fuel transportation to a large extent.
Such a unit might need a full time employee or two but jobs of any sort are likely to be scarce by the time we need this.
If anybody here is working on one or has one I would like to get in touch.
I am gathering materials to build one myself. If the ELM is correct-and I can see no reason why it is not- I think I will need it before too long.
There is such a device developed in Australia. This is a downdraft gassifier. The outputs from this unit are hydrogen, carbon monoxide and biochar. The output gasses can be fed directly into any stationary engine with the appropriated air mixing facility. The unit can be built in a range of scales. Its fuel is any bio fuel mix with a suitably high moisture content. This unit is perfect for forestry operations where the debri from logging is ideal. Australian industry interest is high. A unit is currently being instrumented for properly quantitative evaluation and verification. I am watching developments here very closely.
oldfarmermac, a month ago or so David Fridley and I went to check out this outfit that makes gasifiers:
http://www.gekgasifier.com
They said they had shipped 80 of them so far and many people are starting to modify them (the plans are open source so contributions back to the community are encouraged).
They are the outfit behind this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JyazgRBtq8&feature=related
They were also testing their measurement and control unit at the time we visited:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o8WS5IQF8c
To that I would say that enough of the US is tropical enough to make an impact. Someone recently reported that no cane in the US is used to produce ethanol, and there were reasons cyted. My recollection is that the reasons were all situational or political rather than commercial.
But here is another potentially ground shifting biofuel initiative from Europe...
http://www.gizmag.com/vw-enters-the-home-power-market/12842/?utm_source=...
...spot the twist in thinking. This is an incredibly clever take on an old idea.
This is an incredibly clever take on an old idea.
I happen to work for the person behind this. I had some info on this on my blog two weeks ago:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2009/09/soliciting-reader-input-for-bioe...
Don't know about Germany, but the biggest crop we have in the US is lawns, 26 million acres. Grass can be fed into digesters, no tillage is required. Effluent dumped back on the lawns closes the loop for nutrients. 7,250 USD, but how much solar PV gear can you get for that, or what does a 10KW wind turbine cost?
Meanwhile algal oil is a profitable industry manufacturing the omega 3 oils that we increasing require for food production.
While I understand that the Omega 3 in the food chain comes from plants - plants like algae - part of me looks upon the sugar production from corn expressed as High Furcutose Corn Syrup and I have to ask 'how exactly will the industrial manufacturing of Omega 3 be screwed up?'
I think the flaw in both wood gas engines and harvesting of grass is the internal combustion engine. For high power to weight applications you need clean fuel, not full of dust, tar, CO2 and nitrogen. That clean fuel should be able to be stored in a compact tank on tractors and mowers. Either that or burn the biomass in a steam engine and charge batteries or compressed air tanks. However I don't see either battery or wood gas powered combine harvesters operating out in the treeless prairies. As I've said before we'll be eating less store bought bread more backyard potatoes.
A path to clean fuel may be to start with charcoal or nearly pure CO2 as the feedstock then combine that with a hydrogen source. However the pressures and expensive catalysts needed may cut out small scale operators. Maybe DoE should fund some experiments in small scale hydrogenated synfuel.
But farm applications aren't really don't need that high of a power to weight ratio. The new 2010 honda accord has an option available with 271 hp, a tractor with 271 hp is huge. Have you ever seen how big a 40 hp steam boiler is? The engine is small, but the boiler is several tons.
I believe the two factors that will kill broadacre cropping are inability to recycle phosphorous and the power requirement of large machines*. A big combine harvester typically has a 200hp/150kw engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_harvester
* slight problem with mass starvation however
I've got a post on exactly this subject that is nearly finished. The power (energy) requirements don't look that bad to me, but maybe you can find holes in my analysis.
Edit: It's done.
Edit #2: It's posted at The Ergosphere for those who want to beat the rush and pick it apart before it appears here.
A possible use for dirty fuel is the stirling engine, which does not need high quality fuel for mobile or CHP applications.
And when you can find a bulk maker of stirling engines, do let us know.
http://www.cleanergyindustries.com/index.html
They got all the tools for a production line but I dont know how the ramp up is going.
Your logistic problem is very much over-rated.
The EIA says that it takes 6000 BTUs per $ for wood products( sawn lumber goes for $30 per ton). If a ton of biomass produces 50 gallons of ethanol, that's 5% (6000 x 30)/(75700 x 50)=.048
Coskata actually claims about 100 gallons of ethanol per ton of biomass, not 50 gal/ton.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mecs/iab98/forest/intensity.html
According to nrel cellulosic ethanol does require more energy to
process than corn ethanol.
Corn ethanol produces 1 BTU of ethanol from .75 BTU of fossil fuels distillation-processing, .2 BTU of fossil fuel non-distillation and .8 BTUs of corn energy, if we exclude co-products.
This is if you consider corn as purely an energy crop(as R2 does) and throw out the coproduct. This seems to me to be illogical because legally the amount of corn ethanol is limited to 15 billion gallons(5.8 billion bushels out of a +10 billion bushel crop) and since every bushel of corn that goes to ethanol also produces 1/3 of a bushel of DDGS animal feed this food aspect of corn ethanol can't be ignored IMO.
Cellulosic ethanol produces 1 BTU of ethanol from .2 BTU of fossil fuel non-distillation and 2 BTU of biomass feedstock for processing.
So, yes, cellulosic ethanol uses much more energy for distillation 2 BTU per 1 BTU of fuel(50% efficiency) versus .75 BTU distillation plus .8 BTU of corn energy for chemical change per 1 BTU of fuel for corn ethanol(64.5% efficiency).
Compare these to high temperature gasification of coal to (simpler but less desirable) methanol which is ~52% efficient.
http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/DOE/DOE_reports/1962/ap_1962_sec01.pdf
Therefore distillation/bio-chemical ethanol is about at least as efficient as gasification of coal to ethanol(50%).
R2, I don't think you are talking about gasification to methanol. I would expect complex FT diesel and bio-gasoline to take more energy than simple methanol.
For some reason methanol doesn't get much notice.
Hydrogen has some definite advantages.
DOE says 1 ton of coal can produce .132 ton of H2 which has the energy equivalent of 107 gallon of gasoline, including compression energy.
We can convert 1 ton of coal to 190 gallons of methanol which is equal to 95 gallons of gasoline equivalent(LPMeOH).
Both methanol and hydrogen can be used in efficient fuel cells without inefficient reformating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_methanol_fuel_cell
Coskata actually claims about 100 gallons of ethanol per ton of biomass, not 50 gal/ton.
The same Coskata said that they could make cellulosic ethanol anywhere in the world for $1/gal. Guess what? They exaggerate. You are better off sticking with numbers from POET. This is the problem with all of your cellulosic scenarios. Nobody has actually built a real plant. Nobody has published a true energy balance. The only ones out there are based on models - which as we know are always exactly right. So you are left to speculate, and as we have seen previously your speculations tend to make favorable (but unwarranted) assumptions on ethanol's behalf.
Compare these to high temperature gasification of coal to (simpler but less desirable) methanol which is ~52% efficient.
This really gets tiresome. First, you are comparing a hypothetical to something that actually exists. That's your first problem. Second, you never seem to understand the cogeneration aspect of gasification. With cellulose, you have to consume the lignin to produce heat which is used simply to remove water. With coal/gas/biomass to liquids, you create excess power. So when you see a reported efficiency as they calculated in the paper, it is merely the % of BTUs in the final product as a percentage of what you started with - and not really an overall efficiency based on energy inputs and outputs.
Regarding methanol - I am all for methanol. It can be produced at a very high overall efficiency (much higher than the 52% you quoted) from gas, coal, or biomass. We just got in a big debate on my blog over methanol, where your old friend kdolliso told us that methanol would make us all blind and poison everyone's water (which is ridiculous because it is rapidly metabolized by microbes). Best to stick to ethanol was his advice. And he wonders why I think he is an ethanol lobbyist.
At the end of the day, you have to apply some common sense here. I have appealed to you for that before, but let's try again. When you combust biomass, you produce heat. That heat can be exported. The syngas you produce can be reacted to produce products that aren't aqueous.
When you produce ethanol from cellulose, you require heat (i.e., loss of thermal efficiency). When the ethanol is produced, it is a dilute solution in water. It takes a lot of energy to get the ethanol out (more loss of thermal efficiency). Now if you want to continue to believe that the latter process is more thermally efficient than the former, be my guest. But I think it's a ludicrous position.
This is if you consider corn as purely an energy crop(as R2 does) and throw out the coproduct.
I was tired last night and this didn't really register. Your statement above is completely false. I have always given credit for co-product. If I didn't, I would have stated that the energy balance is 1.1 instead of 1.3. But co-product does open the door to shenanigans. The USDA changed the way they accounted for energy allocated to DDGS, and they turned that 1.3 energy balance into a 1.67. As I have pointed out, all you have to do to boost ethanol's energy balance even higher is just allocate more energy inputs to the co-products.
For the long haul, biogas from crop feedstocks is a more serious contender in the arena of biofuels than the airtime it gets would suggest IMO. Energy yield per unit land area looks better than most of the other contenders, feedstocks do not require tropical climates to grow, growth of feestocks do not require tillage, nutrients are still in usable form after fuel extraction, capital costs are low enough for cooperatives in farm country to pursue at smaller scale than various other XTL schemes. Methane has its drawbacks because it gas and not liquid, but it is somewhat versatile in that both gasoline and diesel ICE's can be retrofitted.
Just for the record, I consider bicycling a niche non-oil alternative (up to 10% of gasoline is quite possible) and electrified rail a viable contender (replacing over 20% of transportation oil use).
Best Hopes,
Alan
Very rarely do I hear anyone talk about Canola Biodiesel. In my opinion, Canola makes alot of sense. At 44% oil, canola is the highest yielding oilseed crop that will grow throughout North America. Canola is a winter crop, planted in October and harvested in June, so it does not compete with primary food crops, such as corn and soybeans. One major potential benefit of using winter canola for biodiesel is that it could achieve significantly greater greenhouse gas reductions compared to soydiesel. In order to qualify for the Renewable Fuels Standard-2 (RFS2) mandate, biodiesel must achieve a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. A recent EPA analysis reported that biodiesel made from soybean oil does not meet the 50 percent reduction due to the effects from indirect land use change. In the case of winter canola, indirect land use change may not be a major issue. The competition for land is not as great in the winter months because it is not the typical growing season for most crops, therefore growing winter canola may not require much additional land.
Canola uses conventional row crop equipment, so entry costs are low. It should also be noted that Penn State University has successfully planted several hundred acres of canola with an airplane.This has far reaching consequences for two reasons; 1) the canola was planted before the soybeans were harvested. After harvesting, the residue from the soybeans were sufficient enough to get the germination process started. This takes it one step further than No-Till. 2) Soybeans are a legume, so no nitrogen was added at the time of planting. These two factors will have significant implications on the energy in verses the energy out debate.
Most of the Mid-Atlantic states are meal deficit states…meaning the majority of the meal is brought in from the Midwest. When meal is grown locally and in quantity this would have significant reduction in feedstock cost for dairymen and cattle farmers. Likewise, as fuel prices increase this could have profound effects on the regions food prices.
When managed to optimize fertilizer efficiency, Canola can also act as a cover crop that reduces erosion and nitrogen leaching from the fields into the Chesapeake Bay. The meal by-product has a 32% Protein Value.
Few people realize that Canola Oil has 93% of the BTU value of conventional diesel. As crude oil becomes more difficult and expensive to extract, the value of this commodity will only increase in ratio to the price of crude. Unlike crude, however, this commodity is renewable and will be available hundreds of years from now.
Canola Oil is by far the healthiest oil for human consumption. Rich in Vitamin E and A, low in saturated fats, and high in Omega-3 fatty Acid. Walt Disney World just recently converted all of their fryers to Canola Oil.
Canola Oil has the lowest gel point of all vegetable oils. Going forward this will be extremely important in winter conditions when making biodiesel. Canola Oil can also be used as a substitute for home heating oil. And the farmers, if we got into a crunch with supply, could run their tractors on this oil. I've done it!
In Europe they have experienced high fuel prices for over 20 years and their crop of choice is rapeseed, which is canola. Seems we should learn from their experience.
You almost sound like you went and read my blog post.
I do have a few issues with your characterization of canola as a panacea:
Total US consumption of motor fuels (gasoline and diesel) is around 180 billion gallons per year. Canola isn't a bad thing (I cook with it myself), but it is only going to be a niche player as fuel no matter how aggressive we get with it.
Maybe, Engineer-Poet, six niche players will make up the entire 180 billion US gallons required. It is probably time to recognise that replacing oil will require a family of energy solutions. The combination of ethanol (from a range of bio sources, both sugar cycle and cellulose, such as cane, palm, beet, grasses, corn, biomass), methane gas and liquid, bio diesel from canola and algae, hydrogen, and electricity from CSP and wind.
It is pretty obvious that there is no singular solution. But then again oil is not a simple fuel either. The oil industry over 120 years has made the end refined result seem simple, with advanced highly specialised engineering.
It is time to start adding the bio solutions together to see how they stack up as a combined flexible solution.
It won't because it can't. There isn't enough Net Primary Productivity in the USA even if all cultivated land grew nothing but fuel crops. Carbon-based fuels in general are limited to a small fraction of today's total consumption (absent a breakthrough in e.g. algae); the only choice we have is to convert most things to non-carbon energy (electricity, ammonia, etc.) or accept a radically smaller transport and industrial sector. I don't think we could manage the latter.
Let me put it another way, Engineer-Poet. This is a site that talks at length about the reality of peak oil, with a subtopic of peak CO2 emissions, the US is going to have to find a way to live with out oil.
Just because petroleum supplies will inevitably shrink does not mean that arbitrary alternative X is capable of filling the gap. No amount of wishful thinking can override physics and biology. Further, if we need a given amount of material as e.g. chemical feedstock, that material is unavailable for energy production. The problems have potential solutions but those solutions are not necessarily obvious and are certainly not going to be easy.
You clearly missed the very important X component of electricity in making the above comment. We have mismatched view points here, and I believe that this is because we have different base planes. I operate from a "function as usual" platform where you, I suspect, operate from a "consumption as usual" platform. I believe that what is important to people is that they are able to maintain the pace and flow of their lives as the world changes around them. You appear to require that nothing change at all, function as usual...method as usual.
As a consequence of the first oil shock in the 70's legislation (US) was passed that limited the size of personal vehicle engines to 5 litres. It was newsworthy because Rolls Royce sought, and got, an exemption. I don't know how many hours this directive lasted in practice, but it is a shame that it did not survive. Had it survived we would have had superior ultra high efficiency engines and hybride engine electric combinations several decades ago. I will be amazed if this legislation does not reappear in the next 10 years.
I don't think that there are too many people who seriously believe that there is not substantial change ahead. We, as engineers, have the opportunity to steer that change. How would you like to see things develop?
You don't know my corpus of work at all. Wade through a few of my stories and wander my blog, then come back.
You're one to lecture me about steering change, since I've got historical records that I was discussing plug-in hybrids (as a realistic alternative to California's ZEV mandate) in nineteen-ninety-fscking-two. I'm well aware of the time lost, both the mis-steering forced by CARB and the deliberate destruction of the PNGV, and what it has cost us. CARB was mis-steered by ideologues and PNGV was destroyed by monied interests, not engineers; unless you have a way to hold the wealthy to account, don't look to me for what I can do personally except by buying the best thing I can get my hands on (which I did) and telling the world what we could have instead (which I do).
I'm happy to accept that your long lonely battle is entirely true and worthy of recognition, EP, but having done so I have to point out that
"does not mean that arbitrary alternative X is capable of filling the gap"
is not true, because the US contains the area to produce all of America's energy needs in the form of CSP electricity 100 fold. So work backwards from 100% electricity to find the viable mix balance of energy sources, including oil, and I believe that there will be plenty of land to spare without impinging on land assigned for food production, while balancing CO2 emissions.
CSP electricity (or PV, or wind, or nuclear) is not an arbitrary choice; it's a pick from the menu of options known to be capable of supplying sufficient TWH/year for the job. Cellulosic ethanol, algal biodiesel, etc. are not on that menu.
If you search for the phrase "the future of ground transportation is electric" you might get an eye-opener.
The resources required to build that many sq miles of concentrated solar power, and the ecologically devastation (almost as bad as parking lots) make CSP a niche player in the desert SW.
Solar flux where I live (<30 degree latitude) is MUCH reduced by humidity in the air. Clouds and a near constant haze. The CSP potential is not as you claim.
The location of a trial CSP was recently moved due to environmental objections.
Alan
The area required to supply all of the worlds electricity needs is about the size of Australia's Tasmania according to the German government agency designing these systems. Small interest objections to the placement of such infrastructure will become a progressively less affordable luxury as time goes by.
CSP is not a niche player at all. China has just announced the building of a trial 2 gigawatt installation, the worlds largest single commitment to date. It will ultimately be the main electricity source until some new more efficient deliverable technology appears.
The resources? The most voluminous material in a CSP installation is glass, manufactured on site for large installations. True there is disruption to the desert floor during installation, but once the operation of the facility proceeds, with time much of the desert life will continue as normal, with the added bonus that there is more shade.
Siting proximity is less important as power from such facilities will be transmitted to the national grid with high voltage direct current power lines. So if where you are there is permanent haze, that is obviuosly not the right spot for such installations. I suspect that the ideal locations for the US will be along the Mexican border where these ficilities will provide an economic barrier to migration from that country (cheaper labour).
accept a radically smaller transport and industrial sector. I don't think we could manage the latter.
First, industrial use is not that much. Just found (EIA June 2008) that 45% of US industrial electricity is used in Texas & Louisiana. Most of that is oil related industry that will shrink.
I think we can manage a radically different transportation structure. From 1897 to 1916, a much smaller and MUCH poorer USA (w/o advanced technology) built streetcar lines in 500 cities and towns (plus subways in larger cities & interurbans) with "coal, mules and sweat".
We did it then, we can do it again !
Alan
Industrial use of petroleum (not electricity) accounts for nearly a quarter of US oil consumption. Aside from products like pavement, roofing and chemicals, I doubt that much of that is for raw materials. The part that's used for energy has potential substitutes, and we're either going to have to use them or suffer.
A lot of that "LPG" or "Other Petroleum" is feedstock for plastics. Ethylene and ethane in particular but a number of others are used.
Pet coke is just carbon, high quality coal can do the same job. NG can easily replace residual fuel oil except for ship bunkering.
Alan
You raise a few interesting points. I have literally presented our business model to 1000's of folks and would say you are as educated as anyone I've spoken too. As a matter of fact, I was at the White House less than a month ago talking about this very issue, Canola.
Yes, it will compete against winter wheat. However, when we compare the two the most important factor is.... which one produces more protein? Canola easily wins this debate.
On your second question, on average canola requires around 60-100 lbs of N per acre (southeastern US. As I stated in the earlier post that Penn State University has successfully planted several hundred acres of canola with an airplane.This has far reaching consequences for two reasons; 1) the canola was planted before the soybeans were harvested. After harvesting, the residue from the soybeans were sufficient enough to get the germination process started. This takes it one step further than No-Till. 2) Soybeans are a legume, so no nitrogen was added at the time of planting. These two factors will have significant implications on the energy in verses the energy out debate and the amount of fertilizer that is required. It could change the whole complexion of energy crops.
On your third question, with canola you recover 2.5 gallons per bushel. A bushel is 50 lbs.We are typically seeing around 60 bushels to the acre or 3000 lbs. Now I've spoken with some farmers in ND that have grown canola for years and they have developed a means of drying the seed down from 20% moisture. This is huge because it would allow you to harvest before the seed starts to shatter in the field which decreases your yield. I think you could add another 15% to your yields with this method.
As far as the amount of fuel we use in this country currently, it's absolutely insane to think we would ever be able to continue this trend. Einstein once said." We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." We have got to think differently!Do you know that trains get 150 MPG on diesel? They are a hybrid...a diesel generator powers the electric motors that turn the wheels. Why can't we use this same technology for our vehicles? They do it in Europe.
They do it in Europe.
What they do in Europe is electrified trains and Urban Rail. Plus more bicycling than the USA. That is the best path forward for a variety of reasons.
- Mature Technology, no technical uncertainty
- Very energy efficient (both directly and in the way it drives living patterns)
- Fuel/energy can be sourced from a very wide variety of sources, many of which can only be used as electricity
- Improves public health via air pollution & reduced accidents
- Enhances livability and space for humans vs. cars
Best Hopes,
Alan
Trains don't get anything like 150 MPG. They average around 8 gallons per mile. Electrification won't save a whole lot of fuel on an absolute scale, but freeing an entire transportation sector from petroleum would be a huge step.
Diesel-electric locos are not hybrid (except for the new GE models and the Green Goat); they have no energy storage. The classic diesel-electric is just a way to get rid of clutches and mechanical linkages in the power path from the engines to the drive wheels. This was originally used only for switch engines, but was adopted for over-the-road locos despite the power losses because the simplicity and lower maintenance was worth the extra fuel.
It's not worth it for cars unless you go to a series PHEV scheme. At that point you can get rid of the transmission and even move to in-wheel motors, which gives huge freedom in the layout of the vehicle due to elimination of axle shafts.
Anyway, canola meal isn't usable for the same things you can do with wheat. Animal feed. Protein isolate used as a stretcher in processed food, perhaps? Then there's nitrogen runoff and the like. It's something that isn't as useful and may have flaws we don't know about yet (we keep finding new problems with HFCS), so my enthusiasm is going to be highly restrained.
Direct electrification using grid electricity is quite energy efficient. Add to this the lower rolling resistance of steel on steel vs. rubber on concrete or asphalt (about 5:1 per 3 year old TOD discussions) and regenerative braking.
For double stack (more aerodynamic efficient than single stack) container freight, going from truck to electrified rail is roughly 20 BTUs of refined diesel to 1 BTU of electricity at end use.
Alan
Anyway, canola meal isn't usable for the same things you can do with wheat. Animal feed.
Canola meal is a wonderful source of protein for dairy cows. Most of the dairy farmers in our area are experiencing 10-15% more milk production with canola meal.
http://www.canolacouncil.org/uploads/canola_meal_research/presentation8_...
Canola or Rapeseed is superior in retaining nitrogen that might otherwise be leached as nitrate.
http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/cgi-bin/CCrop.exe/show_crop_11
http://www.chesbay.state.va.us/Publications/nexgen%20biofuels1.pdf pages 25-26
There is one other very important point to note with this discussion, and that is that bio fuels are not "alternative fuels", they are "complementary fuels".
The true EROEI cost of fossil fuels must include the cost of providing environmental balance. Our planet steadily tucks away carbon extracted from the atmosphere via a broad number of mechanisms. Our civilisation is exceeding that natural process 40,000 fold. So in order to use liquid energy at the rate that we are, if balance is to be maintained, and if a fossil fuel component is deemed necessary, then the costing of that fossil fuel must contain some or all of the cost of providing what ever additional ingredient is required to achieve the environmental balance. Lets assume that 15% of an energy consumption can be accommodated as fossil fuel from a CO2 global balance view point, then the EROEI cost of that fuel has to considered in conjunction with what ever environmental CO2 neutral fuel EROEI that the fossil fuel is compatible with, for the 85% balance.
That is the true calculation. Anything else is a misrepresentation of reality.