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The Changing Status of Renewable Fuels
Posted by Heading Out on January 25, 2012 - 3:42pm
While it may be way too early to declare a final winner in the race to find replacement renewable liquid fuels for the jet fuel and diesel that power so many of the vehicles in the world, there are some indications as to the technology that just might end up coming out ahead.
The results starting to appear also show that sometimes there is a disconnect between what the Government wants and considers possible, and the real world. The concern over climate change (not peak oil) led many governments around the world to mandate that propulsion fuels include a growing percentage generated from a renewable source. Six years ago I was in St Louis for the Renewable Energy Conference with its great emphasis on cellulosic ethanol. President Bush came to bless the endeavor, and much was made of it being the time to start building plants. A short while thereafter, I started looking into the generation of biodiesel from algae, and brought up the logical suggestion, to me, of growing it underground. (That idea still gains me the occasional pat on the head). Some of the early reviews of the technology were not good, but nevertheless, the Defense Advances Research Projects Agency began funding the development of algae, particularly as a source for jet fuel.
Time passed, and the development of the new fuels took quite different paths. In order to encourage the change to renewable fuels, the EPA mandated that motor fuel include 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2009, 250 million in 2010, and 500 million by 2013. (This is on the way to a target of around 2 mbd by 2022.) Some of the original companies to seize on this opportunity started out with too great an ambition. Range Fuels, after some $156 million of Government loans from the Bush Administration, closed its doors this past year, unable to make the product it had promised. When it became obvious that the initial targets would not be met the mandated volumes were lowered, so that this year, for example, the industry target is 8.5 million gallons. But still the Government will fine companies, for not using a fuel that doesn’t yet exist in the volumes needed to meet those quotas.
Two firms say that they will be able, in time, to produce significant volumes; POET is beginning construction of a plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa that is targeted to produce 25 million gallons a year from 700 tons a day of the left-over material from corn fields after the corn is removed. They have currently stockpiled 61,000 tons of stover for use this year. There is some concern however over the long-term Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which is supposed to help with funding. (DOE is to provide a $105 million loan). However, the Scotland S.D. pilot plant can only handle a ton a day of material (turning it into 80 gallons of ethanol at a cost of around $3 a gallon), and so the rest is to be burned as a fuel at the ethanol plant in Chancellor, S.D. (This is a corn ethanol plant.)
A second plant will be built at Kinross in Michigan by Mascoma, following an agreement with Valero, and the award of $80 million from the Department of Energy. The plant is intended to generate an annual flow of 20 million gallons (1,300 barrels/day ) of cellulosic ethanol from hardwood pulp. The process is based on the use of engineered micro-organisms to produce the necessary saccharolytic enzymes and then converting the sugars released by those enzymes into the desired end-products. The process is known as Consolidated BioProcessing (CBP). In the meanwhile, they are also licensing a technology for improving the performance of corn ethanol plants. To date, therefore, the promise of cellulosic ethanol has not been met.
Other sources for liquid fuels have been also been tested, and some – particularly the use of vegetable oils, either pre or post use in fast food chains – have found some niche in the market. Alaskan Airways are using an 80% conventional 20% cooking oil derived mix. At the moment, the cooking oil derivative is six times the cost of conventional fuel and Dynamic Fuels is the only commercial source with the plant having a capacity of 75 million gallons per year. They are now working with Solazyme to meet a target delivered volume of 450,000 gallons of renewable fuel, and that brings the focus back to biodiesel from algae.
By 2010, DARPA was already claiming that the contractors it was working with had shown the promise of producing algal biodiesel at a price of $2 a gallon. Following that step, the US Navy has begun trials with oil made from algae. In the set of agreements that have flowed out of the initial success and led to the 450,000 gallon agreement, the U.S. Navy has taken delivery of roughly 75,000 gallons of biodiesel for testing in the fleet. And while the US Air Force is continuing trials of jet fuel made from camelina as the search for replacement renewable fuels continues. Beyond camelina (which has some problems finding a suitable home for large volume growth) commercial airlines are looking at algae sourced alternatives, with a United Continental flight having used a 60% conventional 40% algal sourced mix on a flight from Houston to Chicago. The algae-based fuel comes from Solazyme, which went public last spring and the company and has signed a non-binding letter of intent with the airline to sell them 20 million gallons of bio-sourced jet fuel starting in 2014. Interestingly the plant uses “indirect photosynthesis” to grow the algae, rather than open ponds. Robert Rapier has described the technology that they use. By using algae that do not require sunlight, they can generate the fuel in bioreactors where the process can be better controlled. Gail Tverberg first wrote about the company in 2008.
Despite the opportunities that the fuel market presents, it does not, however, at the present time, provide much profit to a company, since it is costing about as much to produce a product as the market price will bear (around $3 a gallon). Thus it is still more profitable for the company to use the algal product in an earlier form as a triglyceride that can then be used in cosmetics and other chemical stocks. But, in contrast to the problems that cellulosic ethanol continue to have, I must admit to a quiet smile as I see the success that algal-derived fuels are starting to achieve.
Now if I could just get them interested in nice, constant temperature locations for their plants, with much of the infrastructure, walls, roof and floor already in place, and relatively little cost for development, my original projections just might . . . .
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Got any figures on how much energy it takes to bring food to the algae?
Or replace the corn?
AS part of my job I have to evaluate bio-feedstocks for petrochemical production and biofuels. I would be very, very cautious about the europoria over Solazyme. It simply does not add up.
Feeding algae sugar or carbohydrates is not a panacea. Some very simple maths will demonstrate the folly of this so called approach.
Using sucrose as the feed (a hexose sugar) the yield of algae oil could be estimated as follows:
Hexose (C6H12O6) -> 2 Ethanol 2(C2H6O) + 2CO2
MW 180 46 44
Weight 100 51.1 48.9
Energy 17 MJ/Kg 29 MJ/Kg
I have chosen this route as it would be similar to what would be needed to feed the algae i.e the sugar would have to be metabilised.
The above yeild is the theoretical yeild to ethanol. The ethanol would have to be dehydrated. The dehydration of ethanol would yield ethylene which is effectively the Ch2 repeating unit of fuel hydrocarbons.
Ethanol (C2H6O) -> Ethylene (C2H4) + H2O
MW 46 28 18
Weight 100 60.8 39.2
Energy 29MJ/Kg 48 MJ/Kg
The algae oil would be roughly repeating Ch2 units with a fatty acid group and some olefinic bonds. Converting the ethylene units into this structure would invove a further reduction in mass, as the algae would metabilise some of the hydrocarbon to survive as respiration. Thus the yield on algae would be even lower than
1 x 0.51 x 0.608 = 0.31. Theoretical maximum.
A realistic yield, allowing for losses and matabilism would be about 0.2 of the starting weight.
So 1 kg of sugar might produce 0.2 Kg of algae oil which would have to be further refined. The algae oil would have an energy content similar to biodiesel at about 39 MJ/Kg
Efficiency so far
Sugar 17 MJ/Kg
Algae Oil 39 Mj/Kg
39 x 0.2/ 17 = 45%
But the algae oil is not usable and would need further processing. The best option ( not Kior) would be mild hydrocracking to crack the algae into the jet and diesel range. This might produce about 65% of middle distillates and the rest light material, including CO2. The light material could be used a fuel gas(absolute necessity).
The finshed jet/diesel would have an energy content of about 43MJ/Kg
So 0.2 x 0.65 = ~0.13 Kg finished fuel
0.13Kg x 43 MJ/Kg = 5.59 MJ
5.59/17 = 32.8%
Cost of Sugar $460 pmt
Cost of Jet $980 pmt Dec 2011
Very roughly 8 Kg sugar = 1 Kg Jet
8 x 460 = $3680
Hmm. No wonder it has been slow to take off.
Of course the use of pure sugar would not the the route. Sugar cane juice could be used, but the producer would expect an equivalent net back as if he were producing sugar, ethanol or Solazymes algae. Only the US Navy is s dumb that is ploughing million into this type of crackopot idea.
Solazyme will then shift the question over to cellulosic sugars. Great. The biomass will contain something like 50% sugars but you will have one hell of a job getting them out. So far it has not be done on a commercial scale, only a comical ssale, and is nver likely to be done.
From Robert Bryce:
For years, ethanol boosters have promised Americans that “cellulosic” ethanol lurks just ahead, right past the nearest service station. Once it becomes viable, this magic elixir — made from grass, wood chips, sawdust, or some other plant material — will deliver us from the evil clutches of foreign oil and make the U.S. “energy independent” while enriching farmers and strengthening small towns across the country.
Consider this claim: “From our cellulose waste products on the farm such as straw, corn-stalks, corn cobs and all similar sorts of material we throw away, we can get, by present known methods, enough alcohol to run our automotive equipment in the United States.”
That sounds like something you’ve heard recently, right? Well, fasten your seatbelt because that claim was made way back in 1921. That’s when American inventor Thomas Midgley proclaimed the wonders of cellulosic ethanol to the Society of Automotive Engineers in Indianapolis. And while Midgley was excited about the prospect of cellulosic ethanol, he admitted that there was a significant hurdle to his concept: producing the fuel would cost about $2 per gallon. That’s about $20 per gallon in current money.
Alas, what’s old is new again.
The full version here
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/30/the-cellulosic-ethanol-delusion/
A quick comment on Kior. Paul O'Connor is the man. I think the tech is wrong. It is a cat cracker that is not ideally suited to middle distillates. It could produce gaolsine material but it would be not the best and I see many drawbacks. Hydroprocessing is better in my opinion
A few golden rules:
1. There are many things that come be done with chemistry. Not all of them make sense (especially commercially)
2. Follow the energy - keep in mind the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
3. Keep it simple - every step incurs cost and expends energy. Every step reduces the final yield of desired products.
Last but not least there is a lot of discussion on Alcohol to Jet or ATJ. The approach is to produce ethanol, dehydrate and then oligomerise. Not easy. Gevo are using the same approach with butanol. A total joke in my opinion.
Good post. Thank you.
Some comments:
Portraying the fatty acid biosynthesis as an ethylene-to-fatty acid process is highly inaccurate and understates potential yield. Triglyceride synthesis is from malonyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA using fatty acid synthases, and does not require the production of ethanol to replenish NAD supply by using up the NADH reducing equivalent. Thus, some NADH reducing equivalents go into ATP production (the remainder going into NADPH for biosynthesis). Your analysis follows a partially synthetic route instead, greatly understating the possible yield.
I will believe your analysis if you follow the correct biosynthetic route, which is far more efficient than the one you have presented here, which wastes several reducing equivalents.
Edit: I should say, though, that I still think heterotrophic culture of algae is silly; Solazyme's value proposition is not in fuels but in specialty oils for lubes and chemicals. That's how they can afford to do heterotrophic growth. If you want fuels from sugar, you may as well make straight ethanol.
Heading out didn't mention Algenol, which is supposed to be building something in Mexico quite soon, and I frankly think their $1 a gallon ethanol deal they're flogging since I was in undergrad is something of a comedy routine. I too work to assess costs of production, and there is no way in hell capital costs for their plant are that low, let alone land costs.
jtf
Whilst I agree with your comment that the route is not accurate I would disagree with some points- I tried to keep things simple. My approach was illustrative for the lay-man. It is not the real process but the result will not be very different. Somehow the oxygen in the sucrose has to be eliminated and that involves energy and entropy. Secondly I am sitting in a hotel room doing this on the hoof as it were and trying to put the full pathway into the comments box would be a challenge, for a mere mortal like myself
You will also know that the algae oil will only be one part of the full algae breakdown, which would include lipids, proteins and carbohydrates. I bundled them together and you will clearly know that the lipids are the most energy intensive portion. If anything I have overestimated each step. If Solazyme can achieve an 8:1 conversion to lipids they will have done well.
Overall it does not add up and this process will not produce fuels even close to what is affordable.
Algenol, you said it all, I could not doe better. Try Byogy. Another too good to be true.
The common denominator is cellulosic ethanol which is as elusive as rocking horse shit. Look at all these start -ups and there is one point that sticks in my mind. Financial Whizz kids and old duffers with years of "experience". All they are looking for is a fast exit after the IPO.
Solazyme is a good example. Execs leaving and share price that has sunk like the Costa Concordia, only the captain jumped ship before the sinking. Not much better with Gevo. Waiting in the ASTM spec for alcohol to jet, then all will be fine. It will be a long wait.
I'm not quite sure what you're implying; you do have to get rid of the oxygen, but the best way to do that as a simplified representation of a biological process is to represent everything as being off-gassed as carbon dioxide. You included a dehydration step on your pathway - that represents an inaccurate waste of close to 1/3 of the energy of an entire glucose molecule. Water is produced from metabolic processes only as variations on the outcome of the TCA cycle, where external oxygen is used as a proton acceptor.
Your interpretation of recent developments are really funny, considering that Mascoma has shown no sign of peacing out after their (recently announced) IPO - note Heading Out's mention of their GrainTech program to increase corn ethanol yields before they bring the Kinross plant online - and also has a business presence in traditional lignocellulosic biomass processing for pulp and paper. They bought out the successor company of Stake Technologies, which commercialized the continuous steam explosion process in the 1980s and has a proven track record of experience.
I work for a consulting firm that does frequent independent engineer work for companies getting into cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. You should meet some of these "experienced" people, who, believe it or not, have names like Bechtel, CH2M Hill, and Monsanto on their resumes. They're a lot smarter than I am.
jtf
Perhaps if you look at my crude example, I make no apologoies as it is crude, the CO2 is gassed off as a yeast would synthesis ethanol and CO2 from a glucose. Admittedly the next step is not quite biological but in practise the ethanol has to be converted into repeating CH2 units to form a hydrocarbon. In this case I have kept it simple again so it is easy to follow. What counts is the final structure and how much of it is left, from the starting material. My crude approach will not be that far out. It might even be optimistic.
I am open to persuasion on my thoughts so how about proving me wrong. Show us the numbers. Convince us that my numbers are wrong with good solid pathways and yields. So far all of these companies do not want to talk about yields, (and apparently nor do you with solid numbers). Only we can produce jet fuel for $3 per gallon. So where is it? It should be a no-brainer, a done deal. Energy independence here we come. I am waiting.
I stand by what I say. Cellulosic ethanol has been promoted for 100 years, and I 'll bet it will still be a "no-brainer" (Vinod Khosla)in another hundred years.
Time will tell if I am right or wrong. If you beleive Iogen, surely you know them, cellulosic ethanol was "Ready to Go" in 2006. I have the presentation. Er, where is it then?
Interesting you mention Iogen. They were claiming to be just a few months away from building two production plants back several years ago, when suddenly they were bought out by Shell and they "disappeared". If their process was worthless, why'd Shell buy them? Something like what Shell's done to NiMH battery technology, like bought up the patents, sued Toyota on the prius, then shelved the patents? (disclaimer -- I don't believe biofuels have any future in a rational world, simply due to the inefficiency of solar energy conversion of plants, down well below 5% and PV or solar thermal electrical doesn't compete with food crops for water, fertilizer or fertile land.)
len,
A bit more on Iogen.
From a press release on Reviewing Strategic Alternatives 14 sept 2010.
Iogen Energy, a 50-50 joint venture between Iogen Corporation and Shell, is a leading biotechnology firm specializing in cellulosic ethanol, which it has been producing from wheat straw at its Ottawa demonstration plant since 2004.
From the Iogen website today : total ethanol produced to date
2005-2012 1.9 million ltres Ha, Ha, Ha,
That is 1560 mt in 6 years and it was ready to go in 2006?
When I read Reviewing Strategic Alternatives that usually spells trouble.
Reuslt- Skell and Cosan (Brazil) form a jv called Raizen and form the jv press release 25 Aug 2010 we have (drum roll please)
"The inclusion of Shell’s interests in Iogen
Energy* and Codexis** would enable the joint venture to deploy next generation biofuels
technologies in the future".
Er, one question? Just when in the future?
Some year ago an old colleauge defined a jv as two companies with financial diarrhoea coming together in the hope of becoming constipated. How right he was.
Another worthy mention is Shell's foray with Choren - the great BtL bust. Now with Shell's experience with GTL - Bintulu x 2 (the first plant was so spectacularly blown off the face of the earth that it cleared the site for second one) and Pearl ( more than $20 billion)you would have thought that they would have known that BTL was going to be a financial black hole. As soon as Shell stopped the gravy train Choren were up the creek not only without a paddle but with a big hole in the boat. It capsized faster than the Costa Concordia.
The list is endless and what amazes me is how many Big Oil co's have been suckered in. Many are only investing so that they can greenwash their image. The real investment is in the traditional oil and gas.
As far as I am concerend the numbers that matter are :
1.What is the starting material and how much does it cost a the factory gate
2. What is the finished product and how much of it from each tonne of feed.
If the value of feedstock is the same or less than the value of the product - YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.
Only Inbicon - link here
http://www.inbicon.com/Biomass%20Refinery/Pages/Inbicon_Biomass_Refinery...
have actually published any data on the egthwnol yield from straw.
They manage 4.3 kta from 33kta of straw. To be fair they also show 12.1 kta of C5 molasses which is a sugar solution. This suggests that they do not see the xylose sugars as worth fermenting to alcohol, or there is a better value alternative such as animal feed. On some rough estimates the xylose sugars could make about another 50% of the alcohol mass. Data taken from P.C. Badger 2002. The ethanol yield is vey similar to what he published for the glucose (C6) sugars.
Putting this in perspective, and considering the C5 sugars then the best yield would be about 20% weight on the feedstock.
So 5 mt straw might produce 1 mt of ethanol at $851 pmt (Platts Dec 11 average). 1mt of straw at the gate with all fixed costs the variable cost, and cost of finance included would need to be less than $170 mt. Is that possible? I do not know with accuracy but I very much doubt it.
If we consider the statement of Paige Donnelly that cellulosic ethanol could be produced for $2 per gallon, that is $644 pmt. That would require the straw cost to be less than $129 pmt. A bit harder to swallow in my opinion. If it can, where is it?
Very well, you won't believe cellulosic ethanol will succeed. At the beginning of last year, I would have agreed with you... in 2003 as in 1990 as in 1980, cellulosic ethanol has always been touted as "five years away." Now, steel is actually going in the ground. I'd still be doubtful, but it's the word of you and others that agree with you against Valero (partner to Mascoma) and DSM (partner to POET). Neither of these companies are run by chumps.
For a simplified biochemical pathway:
Gluc -> 2Acetyl-CoA + 4 ATP + + 2NADH + 2 NADPH + 2H2O+2CO2
Acetyl-CoA -> Malonyl-CoA + 2 NADH + 2CO2
For each 4-carbon subunit of a saturated fatty acid,
Acetyl-CoA + Malonyl-CoA + 2 NADPH + H2O ---> 4:0
Repeated until you get 16:0 (palmitic acid) the total fatty acid biosynthesis still yields 4ATP and 4 NADH per 4 carbon subunit, for 16 ATP total and 16 NADH total. Since each NADH counts for roughly 3 ATP in oxidative respiration, you have the cell netting 64 ATP, or slightly less than it would get just straight metabolizing 2 glucose molecules fully. This contradicts your first point, since cellular growth can easily be achieved while still fully utilizing all sugars for fatty acid production, given that yeast, which grows fine anaerobically, makes do on only 4 ATP per sugar molecule since they have to regenerate their NADH by reducing pyruvate to ethanol. Oxygen really is a game changer, biochemically speaking.
Overall reaction:
4 Gluc --> (16:0) + 4H2O + 16CO2
Which implies a theoretical mass yield of 256.4/(180*4)=~35%
In terms of actual mass yield, it's harder to say. I can cite with verifiable references, including from my own undergrad research, that it's not uncommon to see algae with close to 60% oil by mass, some even higher. I believe the species I worked with, Spirulina platensis, had close to 70%. Solazyme's publicly claimed close to 80%, but I don't believe it, so let's say it's 60%. Then naturally, the remaining biosynthetic carbon went into cellular biomass, which implies a mass yield on glucose of 35%*0.6 = 21%.
How much of the energy of the original glucose remains useful following biosynthesis? Compare the LHV of palmitic acid to 4 glucose, bearing in mind that most of the mass lost from the original glucose was the energetically useless oxygen. Here the heat of combustion is used as a proxy, given the following:
Palmitic acid (16:0): 39.1172 kJ/g or ~10030 kJ/mol
Glucose: 2805 kJ/mol
Energy yield: 39.1172*(180*4)*0.21/(2805*4) = 52.7% (if we assume Solazyme's claimed mass percent, it'd be 70%, around the same as it is for a typical ethanol energy yield)
Not bad. Note this doesn't include the glycerol backbone for a standard triglyceride that you'd find in algae.
You're also incorrect about the "best" solution. Hydrocracking to jet/diesel is silly. Transesterification is more likely, or for those who can't tolerate FAME, hydrotreating, both much less energy intensive. You forget that Solazyme's value proposition also lies in their ability not to make mixed fatty acids, but to tailor the chain length of their products. There's no need to hydrocrack if you've already synthesized to the appropriate chain length; simply blend the proper chain lengths to approximate the naphtha, diesel, or jet/kero fractions of WSR and you're set, just as a conventional refinery would. Then esterify to a short chain alcohol. It'll be an energy input of methanol that's going to be burned for heating value anyway.
I don't also want to deal with costs, but I can also note that your price for sugar is astronomically high. Where do you think Solazyme is planning on getting their feedstock from, the grocery store? Brazilian cane juice has unseparated sugar for under 10 cents a pound. It's not as if you have to put in the separation energy before fermentation.
Solazyme's got a chance, but as I said before, their value proposition is in their specialty chemicals applications, lubes, and food. Fuels will always be their marginal product.
HAHAHAhahahahaha You are expending way, WAY too much energy for a really tiny return. Seriously, I can prove that you would be far better off expending all that time and effort out back in the garden. For one thing, we can't begin to balance or even check those equations the way you "scribbled" them down up there. I assume some of those pathways are straight from a text, so we could check those. But why do you even try if you can't make it clear? Are we, me a geochemist, supposed to make sense of that?
Well pal, you asked me for a simple calculation. I gave you one, I didn't walk you through oxidative metabolism one step at a time. ALL of those pathways are as you would find them in a text, and I suppose my memory is merely a step on the way here, but if you want to check it, why don't you try the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycolysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCA_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_biosynthesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_metabolism
(n:m) is a notation for describing fatty acids, where n is the number of carbons in the chain and m is the number of unsaturated (i.e. double bond) centers.
I'm sorry, I assumed if everyone here presumed to try their hand at "proving" that heterotrophic algae won't work, then they'd have some understanding of algal yields and biosynthesis.
"Are we, me a geochemist, supposed to make sense of that?"
Yes. Carnot started talking biology, so I tried to communicate in the same language. Tough.
I didn't ask for a calculation.
I'm not saying it won't work. I'm saying that at best you are capturing a waste stream, at worst you are wasting energy and everybodies time and money and did I say energy. If you are looking for capital for your projects it's incumbent upon you to show there is a meaningful return.
Which is exactly what we are trying to discuss: fuel.
If you are trying to turn some portion of a waste stream into useful power, it's just too vanishingly small to be of significance, with maybe some rare exceptions due to geographical and geologic luck.. If you are making lipstick, well that is an entirely different story, and perhaps one for the thread debating weather or not we should be making lipstick from our food supply.. That is all.
Jtf
Well thanks those Pearls of wisdom. Onething is for sure we will know in five years on the cellulosic ethanol story.
Your very nice pathway to a theoretical yield is just that. theoretical. What is the theoretical yield for photosynthesis?
Depending on what you read it can be up to 27 per cent. What is achieved , actually that is, about 1 per cent. Maybe sugarcane, a C4 plant, can do bit better but not much.
Notwithstanding algae does not readily produce high lipid content. It only does so under stress as was pointed out in the NREL ASP, which not surprisingly impacts on the yield and not by a small amount. Follow the energy.
Had you properly read my post then you would have seen that the reference to hydrocracking was with respect to Kior. The actual hydrocracking process would be a variant on hydro treating called mild hydrocracking which would crack and hydro isomerise. By varying the conditions very high quality jet could be produced in large yields or diesel. This has the advantage of avoiding glycerol production as the glycerol is converted to propane which can be used a fuel or sold.
Only and idiot would turn alga oil into FAME. Algae oil typically has 2-3 olefinic bonds which would produce a fuel that would be very prone to biodegradation and coking. I would not put it in any engine I owned. Furthermore it would not be suitable for jet fuel. Like FAME algae FAME would have a very poor cold flow performance due to the straight chain backbone. Mild hydrocracking would give a branched product that is less biodegradable and much, much more thermal stable, with a low freeze. For the diesel fraction cetane numbers of .70+ could be expected making it a premium blendstock.
As for just setting the chain lengths how are you going to do that then without a hydrocracking step. A pair of scissors perhaps.
The sugar price came from the FT commodities. Consider you are sugar cane producer. You can sell the cane juice or you can process the cane juice. You will floow the money. Whatever is more profitable you will go after the profit. So if ethanol is more profitable than sugar you will make ethanol.
You could of course set up only as a cane processor. But you would always be looking at the other options. If you build a sugar refinery you will want to operate it.
Next problem sugar cane is only processed for six months of the year. What do you so with your solaslyme plant. Shut is down or run on stockpiled sugar. Any ideas?
You are perfectly correct on one point.Solaslyme will not be interested in fuels. It does not stand a chance, because just like cellulosic ethanol it will not be competitive.
The theoretical yield of 100% metabolism to oil was 35% by mass. I used empirical data for the rest. Commercial Spirulina operations routinely yield 60% oil by mass of the algae. The one assumption I did make that you're right to call out was that I assumed 16 ATP per glucose was enough for cellular growth. Don't know really how to investigate that.
NREL ASP was right; have you ever heard of microaerobic culture? It's used by Genomatica and Solazyme, among others. It's right there in their patents if you want to see.
IIRC algae oil does have 2-3 olefinic bonds, and I'm well aware of the oxidative degradation problem, but olefinic FAME for fuel purposes do exist. I'm also aware that NexBTL does hydrotreating followed by isom but I again don't think that's necessary for Solazyme. Their key is, again, the fact that they can specify the chain length according to the culture because they are genetically modifying the algae. Ditto with the saturation, if you believe their lubes product catalog they're able to get C12-C18 saturated fatty acids at close to 100% purity without fractionating the oil or hydrocracking.
In retrospect I agree that FAME would make bad jet fuel. Forgot about cold flow.
FT commodities sugar price internalizes heating costs as well, but since you're familiar with the sugar market I assume you also know that it's been a ridiculous bull market for sugar for the past three years. Cane price at the crusher is more relevant to this discussion.
In the crushing off season you can run on molasses, like a lot of the sugarcane ethanol plants do. Or you can run at high intensity during the crushing season; with feedstock that cheap, you can afford relatively high capital intensity. It's not as if bioprocesses have capital costs as high as in petrochem anyway, all you're building are a bunch of big buckets and three columns.
"Petrochem" is THE parent process. "Bioprocesses" capitalize on the waste stream from these industrial processes. Where do you think those buckets and columns come from? And how do you think they get there? I would like to see a manufacturing process or system that produces stainless steel tanks, racks, pumps, glass, ceramic, filters and PVC of various flavours and assemble them into production facilities from "bioprocesses". Even the bolt cutters need to get to work... And don't forget rent.
In other words, NREL has a new "super efficient", "sustainable" four story parking garage for up to 1800 vehicles:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/51914.pdf
CBS4 Investigates NREL Running Empty Shuttle Buses
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2011/05/18/cbs4-investigates-nrel-running-emp...
I don't mean to pick on NREL here, but, this really illuminates a major part of the problem. Instead of more biochemistry {though I do love biochemistry and enjoy it, particularly the "older", more well known processes} and instead of bigger laboratories, maybe we need to change our collective behaviour Hmmm?
jtf
Firstly my apologies for all the typos. My last post was done on the hoof at an airport on my ipad which though good is not my preferred way of doings things.
I set about using very basic principles to estimate the ultimate yeild that could be expected for the conversion of glucose by non photosynthetic algae into usuable paraffinic fuels. That estimate was about 12.5% weight, and included all of the losses assaociated with each step. i.e. likely yields. So far you have come up with theoretical yield of palmitic acid, having not taken into effect any other considerations of plant growth, something which is available from text books and the internet.
Nor have you considered the entropy effects, which the second law of thermodynamics requires. Palmitic acid synthesis would make a more ordered structure, a low entropy fuel, which means that overall the entropy must increase and therefore the energy of conversion must be taken into account as it would be significant. ie. ATP would be consumed in powering the process. If it is not then the scientific world is going to have to rewrite the second law of thermodynamics.
I do not mind criticism but it would have been better had you made you own estimate on the yield rather than none at all.
I am not a biochemist, I am a petroleum chemist, so I will assume that you, probably being a biochemist are more learned on the intricate details of triglyceride synthesis from glucose. It would appear that you also consider yourself learned in transport fuels and that hydrocracking of algae oils is - to quote you - silly. Fine you are entitled to your opinions as I am of mine. I am only a lowly petroleum chemist after all.
FAME only exists a as trasnport fuel beacause some dumb politicians thought it was a good idea and even dummer idiots invested, sometimes their life savings, in biodiesel plants and have lost their shirts, not having the faintest idea of how the transport fuel business works.
It was interesting to note that Seambiotic stored their algae oil under refrigeration which to me indicates it is not particularly stable. Any idiot turning algae oil into FAME is likley to go out of business even faster than veg oil FAME producers. Quite simply the product SUCKS and this is why all of the majors have shield away from FAME. Moreover it is a major contaiminat in jet fuel where there are common pipelines. Generally speaking oxygens in fuels are not a good idea. Esters in fuels are an even worse idea. Esters are powerful surfactants when coupled to a lipid and they will also attack rubber seals, even nitriles.
To forget about the cold flow performance of jet or even diesel might be expected for the layman but as you clearly believe in your own wisdom of being an expert in fuels I was somewhat surprised. You obviously know better than I on fuel product specifications, and this must have been a freudian slip.
I yet remain to be convinced that algae can be grown in such a way to produce a narrow carbon number range of lipids, especially the lower carbon numbers. It simply bucks the evidence of the distribution to date.
As PDV quite rightly said the discussion is about biofuel, not the production of high value specialities. Anyone can make those products, but the volumes are minscule. We need volumes in the billions of tonnes of biofuels, I will not use the term renewable, if any meaningful impact on the problem of oil depletion is to be made. Frankly there is not a chance as we are trying to replicate what nature did over millions of years. Yesterday I looked up the total daily production of biofuels. It is still under 1.9 million bbls per day out of a daily consumption of 90 million bbls per day. In fact oil consumption is growing as fast if not faster than biofuels production.
I will not comment further on algae oil yields other than your 60% yield would appear to be a tad optimistic. Doable under stress conditions maybe: try reading page 27 of the algal biofuel roadmap
www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/algal_biofuels_roadmap.pdf
" The regulation of the synthesis of fatty acids and TAG in algae is realtively poorly understood.This lack of understanding may contribute to why the lipid yields obtained from algae mass culture fall short of the high vlaues (50-60%)observed in the laboratory".
Am I surprised? Not really. So many claims have been made about algal oil yields that most idiots beleive it. I am only interested in hard number and to date only Seambiotic appear to have taken a sceintific approach and published meaningful yield numbers and oil yields.
You question my comments on the unviability of biofuels by arguing that large companies are investing, implying that I am an idiot.Quite possibly. The company I work for is large. Every week there is some consultant in the company advising our management, because our management does not believe the employees; we are not as clever as consultants, you know. We have to have second opinions and market studies. We are not alone. We spend millions each year with the likes of M******y and A*******y and many others who bring in their suits with their shiny MBA's ( Mostly Bloody Awful) and play the game of "give us your watch and we will tell you the time". Their real skill of course is with Powerpoint and they are truly brilliant with the colour pallette.
Last year I was asked to join a due diligence team with the view to investing in a no-brainer. The consultnats, put forward "a compelling case", all in shiny powerpoint, that "this was not an opportunity to be missed". The talent development group of our company( oh yes we have one too), who put our talented future managers through INSEAD, concurred. It was an opportunity of a lifetime. Go for it. The ink on the cheque was done.
Thankfully common sense prevailed. We tripped of to *** to listen to the Targetco ply their case. What a crock. Technology that did not exist and patents not worth the paper that they were written on. I distrust many patents these days because many are regurgitated crap. After two days we folded our tent and walked, savings multiple millions. Three months later Targetco went bust.
So are big companies clever. I will let you decide. History is not on their side, especially when jv's are involved.
Going back to cellulosic ethanol on which you are apparently well versed, then please have a look at Inbicon, I would welcome your comment as an expert. On their website they post some interesting data.
33 kta of straw
4.3 kta ethanol
12.5 kta C5 molasses
30 emplyees
excess poewer exported to a grain ethanol plant providing 50% of power
The bsest bit - always at the end $75 million to construct.
Well 4.3 kta ethanol at today's prices will give about $3.6 million per year
12.5 kta C5 molasses (say $100 pmt- very optimistic) $1.25 million per year
Power export say 10 million kwh ($0.15) $1.5 million per year
30 employees ($50K) -$1.5 million per year
Net Revenue $4.85 million per year (sugar coated candy version)
With that sort of revenue stream, a bit optimistic at best, how would this be viable? I do not see it. If I went to my management with a project like this I would be laughed out the door.
As for an algae oil plant being few buckets and columns then fine. I think it will be a bit more. Dewatering and processing the algae will be a major cost. Solaslyme will need some fairly expensive kit. The sugar cane juice, will have to be pasteurised and I doubt is a continuous reactor would be possible. You would need to consider the losses with a batch system and all of the cleaning and sterilising between charges. If you went for a continuous reactor then there would need to be a constant withdrawal and means of maintaining the sugar concentration. Infection would be a real challenge. But then you are learned biochemist and you should be able to come up with a solution. No doubt you have an MBA as well.
Go for it my dear friend. I wish you luck. I was once an optimist, but then I wised up.
FYI, I'm a technical consultant. My work is technical and market analysis, value engineering, and technical due diligence, thus far mainly in bio-based chemicals, fuels and materials, but with a lot of exposure to specialty chemicals as well. I don't have an MBA. I do have a graduate level background in biochemical engineering.
Since you are not familiar with the biochemistry this can be forgiven, but the process I outlined does take into account the second law. For the synthesis of fatty acids to take place, for each 4 carbon subunit two NADPH reducing equivalents are consumed. Two NADPH is roughly 6 ATP.
When I think about FAME, what I usually think of first is the fuel injection characteristics and energy content. I don't pretend to know how the transportation fuels industry infrastructure works.
I thought FAME attacking elastomers was only a problem when oxidative degradation on beta-unsaturated centers caused the formation of hydroperoxides.
Your story about investing in a company that failed is very illustrative about the investment process. People that show up on your doorstep are likely peddling snake oil. People that go through multiple due diligences scot-free stay. Valero and Mascoma were in partnership talks for over two years; how much due diligence do you think Valero did? Fulcrum is a good example of the former; they tried filing for an IPO to finance a commercial scale plant without even building a demonstration plant. That's hilarity-inducing in and of itself, even before multiple analysts basically whispered "S-O-L-Y-N-D-R-A."
Inbicon is hooked up to the Asnaes power station, if I recall correctly. Their claim for ethanol costing is heavily dependent on the over-the-fence process heat they get from DONG Energy, their parent company. I'm familiar with them because they are also producing methanol, which will also be a higher value product than simply selling ethanol for fuel value. That being said, I'm not sure they have much ability to go forward with that business model except with the heavily EU support they will get. Recall that the EU has a renewable fuels mandate, and that the equity position of the Inbicon plant is likely much better for the company than it seems because of loan guarantees and such.
I can't be any more specific about my credulity in the bioengineering capabilities of many of these innovative companies, except to say that during technical due diligences I was truly surprised to find out what can be done these days.
Algae separation is a big problem but less so if you have an integrated sugar mill or biorefinery. Solazyme is likely doing some combination of centrifugation and air drying. Likely energy intensive, but in a sugarcane plant you have process steam from on-site bagasse heat/power plants. In a wet corn mill, stover or cobs can be burned for process heat.
Hmm. No wonder it has been slow to take off.
I think this is the main reason they shifted into cosmetics and consumer products. I agree that their costs when using pure sugar will be too high for fuel.
A quick comment on Kior.
A few months ago, KiOR was valued at $2 billion, which I thought was ridiculous. I didn't short them (this is because of my philosophy on shorting in general) but I did warn that the company would fall by at least $1 billion. Today's market cap? $1.2 billion, but it dipped to $1 billion last week. More on KiOR here:
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/10/17/why-i-didnt-short-kior/
Gevo are using the same approach with butanol. A total joke in my opinion.
I have said the same thing. A very odd, and expensive pathway.
Robert,
Total agreement.
Kior. Look at the board of directors. That is enough to put me off before I even look at the tech.
Another too good to be true was Sulphco. A real gem. The IPO suckered in investors with the promise of riches. The only one who got ricjh were the initial shareholders and $160 million of investors money was squandered. At one point Sulphco, which never sold a thing in 10 years, was valued at $1.2 billion.
Many of these biofuel start-ups are Sulphco in drag. Do not believe what you are told. Drill down and do your homework.
...and how much will a metric tonne of sugar cost to produce when we have to use horses to Plow the sugar fields -or tractors using synthetic FFs at 5x the current price?
Carnot, great post.
I will see your 1921 quote and raise you to a 1907 quote;
All this comes from a very interesting book - Commercial Peat: Its uses and possibilities, 1909, of which the first chapter is "Alcohol from Peat"
Peak Oil, back in the day...
It goes on to specifically mention peat, and then gets into familiar territory...
So there you have it claims that, if just mandate the use of ethanol, the tech will develop to bring the cost down to be competitive with gasoline. Same line for over a century now!
They even argued for the excise credit back then, though in more eloquent words than is done today...
And specifically on cellulose;
Just for interest, there is a company today, called Inbicon, that is based near Copenhagen, and report on their website that they can make 1.4m gals of ethanol from 33,000 tons of wheat straw - a yield of 42.4 gal/ton!
So a century later, and a 5% improvement, and still a "pilot" plant
Cellulosic ethanol has been the "next big thing" for longer than nuclear fusion. While it is technically possible, and has been for a century, it has never been, and likely never will be, economical.
Paul,
I think you post bettered mine. I knew that cellulosic ethanol had been around for more than 100 years but I could not find the reference.
In some work I did for a well known aviation magazine I referred to cellulosic ethanol as Nuclear Fusion Mk2 - perpetually nearly there.
I now realise that Nuclear Fusion would better better described as Cellulosic Ethanol Mk2.
Just like you I think it will be a long, long wait for cellulosic ethanol. I just cannot believe how dumb some of our politicians. are. They are not fit to run a bath let alone a country.
Thanks for the Inbicon link. 33kta of straw yields 4.3 kta of ethanol. That is about what I would expect. 12.7 % conversion to ethanol
Look up some of the crap published by the cellulosic ethanol lobby and yeilds are supposedly double that figure. I have seen numbers as high as 28% conversion or 0.28 kg ethanol/ Kg of Straw. The word fantasy rings loud.
On another front, we looked at the conversion of wood chip to butanol. A 30 kta butanol unit required 600 kta of woodchip. That is not an error. 5% conversion which is not surprising.
Cellulose to liquids? Why bother? Just burn the cellulose in a closed cycle brayton- rankine power plant, take the high efficiency result, turn it into stored energy (batteries), heat (phase change) and coolth(ditto). Then set up charging stations. You pull into the station, get a fresh battery, a heat or cool pill as season requires, and scoot away refreshed.
Simple! Any cellulose will do. Right now.
What’s the matter with you guys?
Heat or electric output does not much help the as-is liquids fueled transportation industry.
The as-is liquid fuel way to go has gotta go. What I said is a way.
No, as-is liquid transportation does not have to go, only fossil liquids have to end eventually. Electric power is not much of way for very long distance shipping, trucks, or aircraft, unless you also have an idea for a better battery.
Aircraft can't carry a lot of batteries, but trucks and ships are fleet operations - setting up dedicated battery swapping infrastructure would be reasonably straightforward.
Large batteries could be recharged at frequent port stops, as used to be done with coal 60 years ago (that's why the US wanted the Philippines' military bases, and why they're not needed in the oil era). Let's analyze li-ion batteries: assume 20MW engine power at a cruising speed a speed of 15 knots (17.25 mph) or 20MW auxiliary assistance to a higher speed, and a needed port-to-port range of 2,000 miles (a range that was considered extremely good in the era of coal ships - the average length of a full trip is about 4,500 miles (see chart 8 ). That's 116 hours of travel, and 2,310 MW hours needed. At 200whrs per kg, that's 11,594 metric tons. The Emma Maersk has a capacity of 172,990 metric tons, so we'd need about 7% of it's capacity (by weight) to add batteries.
So, li-ion would do. Now it would be more expensive than many alternatives that would be practical in a "captive" fleet like this - many high energy density, much less expensive batteries exist whose charging is very inconvenient, but could be swapped out in an application like this. These include Zinc-air, and others. It should be noted that research continues on batteries with much higher density still, as we see here and here, but existing batteries would suffice.
Hydrogen fuel cells: they can't compete with batteries in cars, but they'd work just fine in ships, where creation of a fleet fueling network would be far simpler, and where miniaturization of the fuel cell isn't essential. If batteries, the preferred solution for light surface vehicles, can't provide a complete solution, a hydrogen "range extender" would work quite well.
Hydrogen has more energy per unit mass than other fuels (61,100 BTUs per pound versus 20,900 BTUs per pound of gasoline), and fuel cells are perhaps 50% more efficient, so hydrogen would weigh less than 1/3 as much as diesel fuel.
Electricity storage using hydrogen will likely cost at least 2x as much as using batteries (due to inherent conversion inefficiency), but will still be much cheaper then current fuel prices. Fuel cells aren't especially heavy relative to this use: fuel cell mass 325 W/kg (FreedomCar goal) gives 32.5 MW = 100 metric tons, probably less than a 80MW diesel engine.
Hydrogen would have lower upfront costs versus batteries, and a lower weight penalty, but would have substantially higher operating costs. The optimal mix of batteries and hydrogen would depend on the relative future costs, but we can be confident that they would be affordable. Here's a forecast of affordability in the most difficult application, automotive.
I suspect that container shipping will be able to out-bid other uses for FF, like personal transportation, for quite some time. We'll see the gradual addition of direct wind propulsion, like the Skysails, along with engine electrification and the addition of PV.
Continued at http://energyfaq.blogspot.com/2008/09/can-shipping-survive-peak-oil.html
Hydrogen as H2 needs to address concerns listed here http://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.asp
Hydrogen as H2 used in fuel cells need to address experts in the field who say it is a non-starter
http://www.thewatt.com/?q=node/78
eric,
I'm not talking about H2 for small, personal vehicles. I'm talking about using H2 as a range extender for large commercial fleets. That's very different.
Then do explain how H2 used in that manner addresses the concerns of not only the fuel cell researcher but of the inventor Mr. Lancaster. You know, the links I provided which I'm sure you read.
I've read them thoroughly, but I don't have time to spell them out in detail.
First, consider the difference created by a small fleet infrastructure. Then, consider the difference caused by using much larger vehicles and vessels which are insensitive to weight.
These people are addressing H2 for personal transportation - they don't apply here.
I don't have time to spell them out in detail.
Both Lancaster and Dr. Bossel make good points and you are not the 1st to claim they are wrong, yet I've not seen a debunking of their positions beyond handwaves or 'I'll get to it later'.
First, consider the difference created by a small fleet infrastructure.
Things like less road wear? Less energy to transport from A to B?
Then, consider the difference caused by using much larger vehicles and
More road damage, more energy to move from A to B.
vessels which are insensitive to weight.
What kind of vessel is insensitive to mass?
These people are addressing H2 for personal transportation - they don't apply here.
Really? Ok - show the math. Show actual data. Because statements like "Ulf Bossel: There is no future to a hydrogen economy because it is much too wasteful. We cannot solve the energy problem by energy waste. The energy losses are all caused by laws of physics. If you go through the entire hydrogen chain starting with AC-DC conversion, electrolysis, compression, or liquefaction, transportation, storage, re-conversion the electricity by fuel cells with subsequent DC-AC, there are additional losses in every process stage. These are all related to physical processes. This is physics, not poor handling, and as the laws of physics are eternal, there was no past, there is no present, and there will be no future for a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen economy is a structure of mind, which has no backing by physics." - you are claiming this changes somehow with a larger vessel. So show it.
Things like less road wear? Less energy to transport from A to B?...More road damage, more energy to move from A to B
If you read what I've written above, you'll see that I'm not talking about ground vehicles.
Again, Bossel et al are talking about light ground vehicles. Please, read what I wrote before you demand that I respond to something (especially when it's not relevant).
you are claiming this changes somehow with a larger vessel. So show it.
That's easy: I'm not talking about the entire economy, I'm talking about a small subset that is much less sensitive to fuel cost.
but our NiCad system manages only about 15 minutes of 27 MW, weighs 1500 tons (not metric) and the system cost $35 million--granted its early 21st century tech and has a big inverter that wouldn't be needed on a ship but the cost of a battery system on transocean cargo vessels would be high and they would still have to have some sort of ICE backup-at the very least some sizeable diesel powered charging capabilities.
Completed in December 2003, the BESS is one of GVEA's initiatives to improve the reliability of service to GVEA members. In the event of a generation or transmission related outage, it can provide 27 megawatts of power for 15 minutes. That's enough time for the co-op to start up local generation when there are problems with the Intertie or power plants in Anchorage.
Your calculations have a Li-ion system less than 10 times as massive as our Ni-Cad battery deliver power for 400-500 times longer. I hadn't heard batteries had improved that much of late. It doesn't seem our losses converting DC to AC should suck up that much power.
Note maximum for BESS was 46MW for five minutes. It is a real battery with real world performance numbers.
Yes, I'm baffled by the cost and weight of the BESS system. 1,500 tons for 27MWhrs for 15 mins is 3M lbs for 6,750 kWhs, or 444 lb/kWh.
For instance, the Tesla battery pack holds IIRC 52 kWhs, and weighs 900 lbs. That's about 17 lb/kWh. The Volt's about 450 lbs and 16 kWhs, for about 28.
The Tesla pack costs about $20k, for about $400/kWh vs the BESS at $5,200!
We know these numbers are in the ballpark, because we know the total weight and cost of these cars...
The 20-30 year life expectancy might have something to do with it. That might add weight to the design and unlike with car batteries weight is not an important factor for BESS. Could be that when you start getting into MW battery calculations are not as straight forward as well..just guessing. I'd like to see an electrical engineers run your numbers, larger batteries would have to kept cool and on ships they likely wouldn't have the large surface area to stored power ratio Tesla batteries have. Lots of ships out there, any idea how many millions of tons of li-ion batteries they would require even if your numbers are correct? Seems it might just add a tad of strain to the market.
But you may be one of the only people in the world talking about powering transocean shipping with batteries--nukes are already proven at sea, and nuclear 'batteries' may well become plug and play someday...yes I know how irresponsible that sounds proliferation wise, but like you say transocean shipping will be able to out bid other oil uses for quite a long time...things could smooth out by then...or they could get a lot worse.
The big factor is the high discharge rate: one wouldn't normally discharge full capacity in just a few minutes. The actual capacity is probably much larger than the nominal calculations.
The system has 13,760 Cells, Weighs 1,300 Tons slightly smaller mass than I read elsewhere
The big factor is a real world 1300 ton battery actually produces 27MW of power for fifteen minutes. Your calculations have one about ten times that size producing 20MW of power for nearly 500 minutes. I've a real strong feelings the 200whrs/kg numbers don't scale up in a straight line when cooling is factored in.
Back to BESS:
Lets see During a test of its maximum limit, it discharged 46 megawatts for five minutes
It is expected to produce 27 MW for fifteen minutes in operation
so lets half the discharge to 13.5 MW and triple the time to 45 minutes, lets be nice and say it could produce this power for an hour. That's still all the 1300 ton real world battery can do. You want a more than 120 x that at 20MW out of a battery less than 10x the mass. Something is not computing. But BESS is a bunch of individually cased battery cells •13,760 liquid electrolyte-filled Ni-Cad cells
•Each battery is roughly the size of a large PC and weighs 165 pounds
--that could be part of it-lots of air around the racks for cooling. It seems all the batteries of this size are of similar design right now-all are part of grid back up systems-I'm guessing you are talking about something that has never been even seriously drawn up in the real world...and it's long way from initial drawings to a real product.
Back to the boat, from wikipedia:
Emma Mærsk is powered by a Wärtsilä-Sulzer 14RTFLEX96-C engine, currently the world's largest single diesel unit, weighing 2,300 tons and capable of 109,000 horsepower (81 MW) when burning 3,600 US gallons (14,000 l)[19] of heavy fuel oil per hour. At economical speed, fuel consumption is 0.260 bs/hp/hour (1,660gal/hour).
Unfortunately this doesn't give the MW at economical cruising speed, just fuel consumption. Straight line calculations, which may of may not hold true (just like in sizing batteries upwards), the Maersk engine uses 46% of the fuel at economical cruising speed it uses when producing 81MW so lets say it produces 37KW when cruising- near double your 20KW number-so better double the battery size. That battery keeps getting bigger and more costly and it keeps displacing more revenue generating cargo while sucking up more juice and time while charging in port. Economical cruising speed is of course a bit of black box, but it can't be reduced past a certain point when hull design, winds, tides, time (which of course figures into return on investment) and many other factors are thrown in.
Yes, batteries under high discharge rates put out a lot of heat. Liquid cooling systems are reasonably straightforward - the Volt uses one. OTOH, the Leaf doesn't, and Nissan isn't trying for quite the same lifetime.
I suspect that the BESS system's capacity is quite a bit larger than a simple watts x time calculation. For instance, the Prius battery never discharges more than 25% of it's capacity: the other 75% is used to provide high power input/output, and guarantee a long lifetime.
I'm guessing you are talking about something that has never been even seriously drawn up in the real world
Very large ocean going extended range electric vehicles are a very old technology: diesel submarines.
economical cruising speed
I used a speed well below any normal cruising speed, which would use much less fuel: fuel consumption per ton-mile is the square of velocity. So, reduce speed by 50%, and reduce fuel consumption by 75%. Of course, hull design would have to change, and it's very unlikely that energy will become costly enough to require such a drastic reduction in speed - but it's illustrative of what's possible.
good you should mention the Volt. It has a 450 lb battery that can run it 43 miles at 15 mph in downtown Ann Arbor. Lets figure regeneration makes up for some of the acceleration losses and that the Volt can run about four hours off its 450 lb battery at a steady 15 mph.
How big a battery would it take to run it 120 hours? God only knows as the bigger battery would yet require a bigger battery to carry the additional battery weight. But let's say the additional battery weight was magically transported. Even with that caveat it would take a battery 30x450 lbs or 13500 lbs to move the same Volt along at 15mph for 120 hours. Interesting--now just add on how much more battery it will take to move the extra battery--remember every time you recalculate you have to recalculate again to carry the extra battery weight, kind of like compounding interest. The Volt with a couple occupants weighs in a about 4000 lbs and goes 4hrs at 15 mph. Ready, set, start compounding to get to 120 hours. Kind of funny looking at it that way ?- )
We were talking transocean shipping completely on battery range--pull those diesels off the sub and those batteries don't take it very far.
illustrative of what's possible?!?! I have real major doubts about your battery weight numbers for a cargo ship making 2000 mile jumps between charging stations...we haven't even begun to talk about charge time in port or generation requirements to make that port power available...
compounding to get to 120 hours.
It doesn't work that way. For ground vehicles, increased mass increases the power needed for acceleration, and therefore increases braking losses. OTOH, vehicles with regenerative braking greatly reduce that factor. The Prius recovers about 70% of braking energy, and newer hybrids/EVs do even better.
Ships don't brake much - their primary loss is friction with the water.
Nick I'm not going to quibble about the gain backs of regenerative braking relative to acceleration losses. Lets just say the Volt can run a steady 6 hours at 15 mph. I'm guessing that is super generous. It would still take a battery more massive than the stock vehicle itself to move that same vehicle for 120 hours without a charge. The picture you get when looking at changes in battery size alone it would take to move a production vehicle for 120 hours are worth keeping in the mind's eye. It takes a pretty fair fuel tank to run that vehicle that long as well, I expected you might give me those numbers back as a reply. Then the juxtaposition of the two do give a fair notion of gasoline vs. battery stored energy density in a current production vehicle which uses both.
Both Falstaff and I have given you the numbers elsewhere for large ships.
Yes, it would be difficult to give a personal vehicle a range of 800 miles. I don't understand what you're getting at.
2,300 tons / 81MW? I missed that interesting fact. Electric motor power density with regular conductors reach about 4kW/kg, i.e. a 21 ton electric motor could replace that monster diesel. The diesel is 1.5% of the dead weight, so shrinking it doesn't help much. Replacing the 2300 tons with batteries only buys enough energy to move a Mærsk ~2 km fully loaded, at a cost of ~$184 million.
Replacing the 2300 tons with batteries only buys enough energy to move a Mærsk ~2 km fully loaded, at a cost of ~$184 million.
Did I read that right 2km? So 4000km would require 2000x2300 tons of batteries?
No, I was wrong there, sorry, I fumbled the figures. More carefully:
2300 mt = 2.3e6 kg. With 5 kg/kWh batteries, that is 460e3 kWh. Efficiency of a Mearsk like vessel is about 0.015kWh/ton-km, but an electric Mearsk we hope is 0.0075 kWh/ton-km. So 2300 mt of batteries delivers 61.3e6 ton-km. Then a fully loaded (DW=157k tons) Mearsk travels 390 km on 2300 mt of batteries. Per the my earlier ship post (below), which is correct, expanding batteries to 10% of the DW (15.7k tons) takes the E-Mearsk ~2700km. The batteries do cost $184 million at $400/kWh, though I doubt that existing 80 MW diesel is cheap either.
Maybe I was hasty in writing off motor replacement. I wonder other mass significant aspects of the propulsion system vanish in an electric ship?
Well 2700km doesn't do much when trying to cross the Pacific
roughly
Tokyo/Honolulu 6200 km
Shanghai/Honolulu 7900km
Manila/Honolulu 4600km
Honolulu/San Francisco 3800km
Honolulu/Seattle 4300km
Those batteries keep getting bigger and all shipping is going to have to port in the Hawaiian Islands to recharge. Things are looking up for Hawaii (and likely Manila too) and all that port time for the crews as their batteries charge--sailors will have a woman in every port again. Hmm wonder what all that down time in ports just to charge up is going to do to rate of return on investment. Of course Hawaiian electrical power isn't cheap and it still comes mostly from Alaskan oil these days...that has to change but they certainly aren't envisioning having to charge the batteries of every freighter crossing the Pacific at this time. Wonder what that extra demand will do to the home grown renewables dreams they have.
Don't take away too much of the extra weight for battery/electric yet, you are still going need some kind of backup. The Maersk has generators plus two 9MW electric motors hooked to main drive shaft and it has multiple diesel thruster engines as well. Lots to fiddle with. And back to the batteries-they likely must be oversized as well for the same reason car batteries are--since we a now traversing the Pacific and it looks like Manila/Honolulu is the shortest hop from Asia your 10% of DW just went to 17% and spare capacity required for safety, charge cycle/battery life etc. might easily double that to 34% or even quadruple to 64% of DW. I think we just put weight of the diesel engine back in the boat, not sure about the fuel though. This battery is certainly getting expensive if nothing else. Your 10% DW battery cost $1.2 billion right?
Sails are starting to look good ?- ) Lots of potential combinations but some sort of fuel powered energy generating plant will remain on tranoceanic shipping in my opinion. But maybe they can just have big algae tanks onboard and make their own biofuel enroute--thought I'd bring us back to the main post with that bit of nonsense.
Coaling ships had to stop a lot - that was why the Philippines were important, pre-oil.
Port stays wouldn't be delayed: they'd swap batteries.
I'd expect that ships would have smaller diesel engines with fuel, as a backup. I'd also expect that wind and solar would be maximized.
that was why the Philippines were important, pre-oil.
Coaling only accounted for the smaller portion of the time window for which Philippines were important in trans Pacific shipping. In the months long voyage sailing days provisions, some of which were fresh (as in produce and live goats, beef, whatever they carried on deck), and fresh water made the islands important. You might not be aware that Spain kept their discovery of the Philippines secret for, if memory serves, the best part of a century or even better in order to give themselves a leg up on the competition in the Chinese trade--which Spain based out of Mexico. The British, French (and possibly the Dutch and Portuguese and I don't recall) had a policy of immediately publishing their discoveries to the world, which would give their colonial claim rights a stronger standing but the Spanish kept this particular find (and possibly others, they were the first European power to visit the Alaskan coast by a goodly amount of years-thus names like Valdez and Cordova are still found on Alaska's ice free southern coast) under wraps as long as they could.
And by the way just stopping at a port only to swap batteries is a huge delay in and of itself. Cargoes between Shanghai and Long Beach would need a minimum of two stops if minimum sizing of batteries were the critical cost factor (you started the battery only discussion, I'm just trying to give it full real world parameters). Ships like the Maersk have no problem with 10,500 km nonstop cruise these days.
I do agree that as oil gets more expensive all sorts of power augmentation methods will be economic to add to the ships--the process is in its infancy just yet. I expect we really only have the vaguest guess as to what shipping propulsion will look like in a century--though the doomers do have a very vivid picture in mind. Give doom its reign for a couple/few centuries and Dennis Hopper praying to Captain Joe on the Exxon Valdez (Waterworld, released 1995) is a fun scene to have the memory drag up. ?- )
Thanks for the fun info on Spain's colonial strategy.
stopping at a port only to swap batteries is a huge delay in and of itself.
Sure. Still, it worked reasonably well for coal. Is it optimal? Very likely not - I'm just trying to establish a baseline that shows that water shipping will clearly be viable post-oil.
Since the entire construction cost for the Emma Maersk was $145,000,000+
I think we went way past viable, much less optimal when the $1.2 billion battery left our ship dead in the water halfway between trans Pacific ports...
...and that was battery cost before adding extra battery capacity needed to make swaps and extra capacity that engineers will find optimal for overall battery performance.
That is as about as viable as a Volt with a five ton battery...my point with the Volt by the way. Easier to visualize the extra Volt battery mass than the money mass the ship battery required. But then establishing that battery power alone will likely never supply the lion's share of energy needed during trans Ocean transport is a useful excercise.
No reasonable person with any sense of history will doubt that water transport, which has always been the most efficient mode for transporting bulk between places with good access to the same body of water, will become less viable. Do you have an real good first hand operator articles on those solar sails or cargo ship kites you mentioned below? That kind of stuff stirs the imagination, but not without a bit of heavy weather clouding the edges.
Since the entire construction cost for the Emma Maersk was $145,000,000+ I think we went way past viable
Have you tried to calculate the lifetime fuel cost of the Emma Maersk??
That is as about as viable as a Volt with a five ton battery.
Ah. The difference: the Emma Maersk would discharge the battery every week or so - that makes all the difference.
have you calculated the interest on the $1.2 billion battery?--actually more likely $3-6 billion when you try to get it to do what the Maersk actually does and likely needing at least to be one and a quarter batteries per ship when swaps are added in (yes they could be composed of universal series connectible mods that would fit multiple sized vessels, I understand that)... Those batteries don't charge up for free either--you'll have to have a pretty low interest rate on the money used to buy the batteries in order to make that plus charging costs balance with diesel fuel costs. 5% of of $1.2 billion is $60 million dollars interest the first year, and that battery just left you dead in the water in mid Pacific. You ain't getting paid for that trip. Looks like you might be paying $200 million interest the first year on your batteries by the time you have sufficient range and swapping stock to operate the super freighter. Be a while before you pay that principal down enough to get interest down to the $30 million yearly fuel cost Falstaff calculated and we haven't started to add in charging costs yet. Interest really makes piles of money stack up.
Oh I never answered your question. Well lets give the battery a 30 year life-generous no, or at today's prices $900,000,000 lifetime in fuel (Falstaff's numbers). But we have established that the $1.2 billion battery won't get us across the ocean, it doesn't even make Hawaii and is at most 1/3 of what we need to maintain a transoceanic schedule. So even if fuel quadrupled in the thirty years (assume straight line price rise) it wouldn't cost as much as our minimum of $3-4 billion dollars needed for batteries. Fuel would have to average $100 million to $133 million a year the whole thirty years just to match the original battery cost--now you have to add the interest expense on the batteries and the electrical charging costs on top of that...
This is the wrong vessel to be attempting battery power, pure and simple. Go to the less glamorous Mississippi tug/barge operations, where grid access is plentiful and lead-acid battery loaded barge mods towed by pusher tugs could be changed on the fly. Make that work and work your way up, don't start at the top of diesel shipping world and work your way down. Shipping very much lives in a time is money environment, always has...and huge amounts of money up front speed up the turnaround times needed for the freight being hauled to pay the bill. Other systems will prevail on the open ocean.
have you calculated the interest on the $1.2 billion battery?
Sure. A rule of thumb: a 10 year payback is roughly equivalent to a longer lifetime(20 yrs plus) which takes into account interest and time value of money.
actually more likely $3-6 billion
No, I think they'd use the full capacity. This isn't like the BESS, which required very high rates of discharge. It's also not like a consumer vehicle like a Volt, which has to take into account consumer perceptions - these are commercial buyers, who understand technical specs.
the $1.2 billion battery won't get us across the ocean
We're talking shorter trips, as done with coal.
Other systems will prevail on the open ocean.
I think that you've got a point. I was trying to establish a baseline with current tech. The future will look very different.
I agree with Nick that E-ships would almost certainly swap batteries, not charge them in place. Nevertheless a large ship would still lose several days maneuvering in and out of harbors and dockside.
Yep, at today's $400/kWh and 5kg/kWh. Obviously not going to happen with these long range vessels and current battery tech. Short range Gulf and Mediterranean hoppers might do it, as they're less efficient than a Maersk and could improve 3:1 (like cars) from going electric instead of 2:1.
River barges could have entire barge units of relatively cheap lead-acic batteries swapped in and out relatively easily. I'll let you run the numbers there. If they don't pan no battery tech out there now will make the money work--that is my take away from this excercise so far. The Emma Maersk full construction cost was $145,000,000+...about 12% of the cost of the battery that left us dead in the water in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I think that slipped a decimal...
2,300 tons at 250Whrs/kg = 534MWhrs.
523MWhrs / 80MW = 6.5 hrs @30 knots.
534MWhrs / 20MW = 26.1 hrs @15 knots.
Thanks for the interesting reply.
Actually I see some possibilities in a decade or so for electric aircraft, again just not for long range. The maximum range of a battery - electric ducted fan jet should be about 800 km (500 miles) with current top end 250 Wh/kg batteries, using Rmax = (Cbatt/g)*(L/D)*battery mass fraction* propulsion efficiency [1]. Cbatt=0.9J/kg. C/g = 90km. Typical glide ratio (L/D) of 20:1, propulsive efficiency 0.9 (battery * e-motor * fan) and a battery mass fraction of 0.5 (high, but same as 747 fuel load). So double the current battery energy specific density and we have a 1000 mile electric regional jet that travels for half the cost per mile and relatively quietly. This is plausible because aircraft can and do fly both technically and economically with up to half of gross weight dedicated to energy storage. In my view this is not currently economically possible with ships, as I'll explain.
Several points:
1. I think the assumptions above are optimistic by a factor of three or more. I could not check since that link was broken, but suspect the Maersk must use much more than 20MW of its 110MW power plant to cruise at 15 kts. The best energy intensity I see in commercial shipping is 0.015 kWh/ton-km, with many ships at 0.08 kWh/ton-km [2]. Your figures give 0.005 kWh/ton-km.
2. DW vs GW. The dead weight (~cargo + fuel) of the vessel is the figure of interest (DW=157k-ton Maersk class), not its gross weight, since to tell an operator he must add X tons in GW is not possible, instead he's forced to displace the DW cargo by X tons to accommodate the new 'fuel' mass.
3. Efficiency. Using engine output power vice fuel consumption rate assumes a 100% plant efficiency. These vessels apparently operate at (an impressive) 43% efficiency, and I'll grant an electric system might double that.
4. DW fraction dedicated to battery. Assuming a battery electric drive that halves the 0.015 kWh/ton-km to 0.0075, and 5kg/kwh battery tech:
Note the electric motor would be substantially lighter than the diesel plus exhaust system per unit power, but I don't expect that would cut much into the battery mass at this range.
5. Cost. With fuel and electricity both ~$0.10 per kWh, the 2X efficiency cuts the cost per distance traveled in half. However, 10% of a Maersk class DW is 15,700 t, and at $400/kg battery cost is $1.2B. With this battery cost I can't see a pay off even in several vessel lifetimes.
I also like the idea of battery swaps for fleet transportation, but I don't think slicing up the distance with port hopping works for ships to cut energy storage mass given the substantial time it takes for a large ship to make port (unlike trucks and ~aircraft). Unlike your example in the days of coal, ships now carry cargo (e.g. foodstuffs) that must reach destination in a few days. If that time was extended appreciably then the time critical cargo is simply forced back to air transport at much higher energy intensity and cost.
Regarding metal-air battery technology, no doubt it will come, eventually. Current problems are hard and include: 1) low power density. They typically max out at discharge rates 10 or 100X lower than Li Ion. 2) Low recharge efficiency, ~50%, which would return energy intensity back to the combustion heat engine efficiency range.
[1] http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cC/page_276.shtml, C.32
[2] http://www.containership-info.com/vessel_9168831.html, Max power 48.6MW, DW 63.4k tons, max speed 24.5 kt (45km/h), assume 50% efficient.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c15/page_95.shtml
Good thoughts. I'll have to take a bit of time to digest them and respond.
A quick thought: energy consumption per mile for water shipping goes up much faster than velocity. The Maersk normal cruising speed is much higher - if it were driven at 15 knots it's power consumption would be greatly reduced. Of course, it would never be driven at that speed today, as it would very far from optimal.
Which link was broken?
More thoughts on aviation: http://energyfaq.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-aviation-sustainable.html
This one:
...full trip is about 4,500 miles (see chart 8 ).
Googling for the pdf occ_55.pdf in context also turns up other dead links.
Check the volume density. H2 can't touch hydrocarbons. Highly compressed H2 is ~8X less energy dense by volume than diesel (24X less w/ typical 3000psi tanks). And liquifying only improves density by 2X. Again for short or middling range a compressed H2 tank serves, but for legs to cross the Pacific the tank will become the ship by volume, even if the fuel is lighter than diesel. So you have to liquify and incur that loss, in which case non-fossil hydrocarbon fuel or ethanol was a better bet originally.
A quick note before I take time to consider this: efficiency is much less important for a range extender when it's used rarely. I would expect ships in an era of high priced liquid fuels to maximize wind and solar, use batteries secondarily, and leave high density expensive stuff for backup.
Exactly. For that reason I favor non-fossil hydrocarbons for the longer term, but rare, backup up of a solar/wind electrical grid for that reason. Use grid batteries like the ones discussed elsewhere in this thread only for the regular or overnight backup where efficiency counts.
I've wondered about the use of wind in modern shipping. I know at the close of the age of wind the large (for that era) clippers were generating 8-9000HP from the wind. I surmise that, given modern shipping has not picked up wind as a ~free boost, the 20-40% (?guessing) extension to crossing time is not worth it given the investment in the ship.
I favor non-fossil hydrocarbons for the longer term, but rare, backup up of a solar/wind electrical grid for that reason. Use grid batteries like the ones discussed elsewhere in this thread only for the regular or overnight backup where efficiency counts.
I agree completely. But, that just deals with the grid, not water shipping. If non-FF hydrocarbons are expensive, say $2.5/litre, then shippers will want to minimize them.
modern shipping has not picked up wind as a ~free boost
Wind tech has gotten better, and liquid fuels have gotten much more expensive.
Kites mounted on the ship's bow have been shown to provide 10-30% of ship's power - this is cost effective now. See an early article the leading company, Skysails, a followup article showing a commercial implementation, and the Skysails website. These are retrofits: it is likely that far more wind power could be harnessed if the ship were designed to accommodate kite assist (stronger more integrated ship structure to tug upon) rather than merely retrofitted with it.
It's astonishing what can be done with modern materials, computer-aided design, and electronic control systems, to turn the old new again.
Solar: The first question is: is it cost effective? Sure - it's just straightforward calculations: PV can generate power for the equivalent of diesel at $3/gallon (40KWH per gallon @40% efficiency = 16 KWH/gallon; $3/16KWH = about $.20/KWH, or $4/Wp, which large I/C installations have already surpassed.
Ships, trains and planes are outside all of the time, so they'll have a decent capacity factor. Grid tied systems have to deal with Balance of System costs, but a panel in a vehicle should be able to eliminate most costs: it's manufacturing, which is far more efficient than grid-tied systems that require field installation; redundant support structures; and dedicated power electronics. If a vehicle can add a panel for $1 per Wp, and get just 5% capacity factor, it could achieve $.15/kWh.
Let's look at the Emma Mærsk . With a length of 397 metres, and beam of 56 metres, it has a surface area of 22,400 sq m. At 20% efficiency we get about 4.5MW on the ship's deck at peak power. Now, as best I can tell it probably uses about 10MW at 12 knots (very roughly a minimum speed), 20MW at 15 knots, and 65MW (80% of engine rated power) at 25.5 knots (roughly a maximum). So, at minimum speed it could get about 45% of it's power for something close to 20% of the time, for a net of 9%. Now, if we want to increase that we'll need either higher efficiency PV, or more surface area from outriggers or something towed, perhaps using flexible PV. You could add a roof, or you could incentivize 10% of the containers to be roofed with PV - they could power ships, inter-modal rail, inter-modal trucks...
Here' a fun example of a boat that's 100% PV powered, here's a company selling a general approach, and here's a nice pure-electric
"Solar-powered sails the size of a jumbo jet's wings will be fitted to cargo ships, after a Sydney renewable energy company signed a deal with China's biggest shipping line.
The Chatswood-based Solar Sailor group has designed the sails, which can be retro-fitted to existing tankers.
The aluminium sails, 30 metres long and covered with photovolatic panels, harness the wind to cut fuel costs by between 20 and 40 per cent, and use the sun to meet five per cent of a ship's energy needs.
China's COSCO bulk carrier will fit the wings to a tanker ship and a bulker ship under a memorandum of understanding with the Australian company, which demonstrates the technology on a Sydney Harbour cruise boat.
"It's hard to predict a time line but at some point in the future, I can see all ships using solar sails - it's inevitable," said the company's chief executive, Dr Robert Dane.
Once fitted, the sails can pay for themselves in fuel savings within four years, Dr Dane said. They don't require special training to operate, with a computer linked in to a ship's existing navigation system, and sensors automatically angling the sails to catch a breeze and help vessels along." Source
The EM's engine runs most economically per the Wiki at 1660 gallons/hour which is where I'd expect they operate. That's a fuel consumption rate of 58MW, but a motive output power of ~25MW, the latter is the figure to use for an electric motor. Then PV panels deliver 4% of average motive power? I guess the fuel budget is $30 million a year (~200 days/year of operation @$4/gallon), so PV offers to save $1-2 million/year at a cost of, what, $18 million for 4.5MW panels installed?
For perspective, at noon it requires 20% PV over an area six times the deck area of an electric Maersk to operate at cruise, and 30 times the deck area to operate around the clock. Looks like these ship mounted wind sails would have to carry most of the load.
$18 million for 4.5MW panels installed?
I think we could easily cut that to $2/Wp, for an OEM manufactured product. No field installation, no framing, little additional electrical: very little BOS cost.
**Edit
That's a fuel consumption rate of 58MW, but a motive output power of ~25MW
I believe that when the engine is rated at 80MW, that's output, not input. Europeans like to use electrical units as a universal unit of energy, which is confusing to people used to separate units for electricity, heat, kinetic energy, etc.
Like it or not, small fission reactors will be what is pitched and then used.
That's what I was thinking. Just one of the two nuclear reactors on a modern US aircraft carrier could drive the Emma Maersk at 25 or 30 knots, with over 20 years between refuelings. The reactor would cost a large percentage of the value of the ship, but it would probably be more cost-effective than all the batteries you would need for an electric ship.
This may well be the way of the future for huge cargo ships and tankers once oil becomes too expensive.
I agree, if things go well that is. I pitched the 'plug and play' nuclear 'battery' way upthread and kept the option on the table later on
Lots of potential combinations but some sort of fuel powered energy generating plant will remain on tranoceanic shipping in my opinion
It would work, though I would be skeptical that it could beat the alternatives on cost or speed of deployment.
Don't forget that commercial nuclear plants are built as large as possible to maximize cost-effectiveness. The US Navy doesn't have to worry about cost-effectiveness - it chooses nuclear not on a cost basis, but on an operational effectiveness basis (maximium range without refueling).
The US Navy maintains a rigorous, labor intensive, costly safety program. Per Wikipedia, "A typical nuclear submarine has a crew of over 80. Non-nuclear boats typically have fewer than half as many." The Emma Maersk, the largest container ship in the world, sails with only 13 crew members!
My litmus test for nuclear proposals is their effect on weapons proliferation, especially relative to the complete fuel enrichment cycle. Per Wikipedia, "reactors used in submarines typically use highly enriched fuel (often greater than 20%) to enable them to deliver a large amount of energy from a smaller reactor." This doesn't seem encouraging.
What about the NS Savannah?
It was designed as a show vessel, not a workhorse, but it was only a few years after it was decommissioned as "uneconomic" that oil prices shot well above its parity point.
That parity point compared operating cost (excluding 1950's era capital costs, maintenance and disposal, etc) of nuclear to conventional operating costs, including fuel oil at $80/ton in 1974 dollars. Non-oil alternatives will be more competitive.
Your position assumes the present model where the transport carries the energy for motion.
Things like RUF or electric trains with a 3rd rail show that the energy can be provided to the transport to provide the motion.
the energy can be provided to the transport to provide the motion.
Sure. Have you read the whole thing?
I would think this in part why a direct solar fuel approach using engineered organisms like Joule's is the last man left standing: no biomass to transport, direct production of hydrocarbon (or ethanol), no fresh water requirement. If they yield anywhere close to 20,000 gallons of ethanol, then direct solar fuels could not only replace existing fossil transportation fuels but replace all energy sources, or consume all existing CO2 emissions (on 47 million acres for the US share)*
*2 moles of CO2 per mole of ethanol (C2H6O, 46g/mole, 0.79kg/l). 1 acre of Joule bacteria consumes 115 tons/year CO2. US emissions 5.5 billion tons/year => 47 million acres.
Ditto. Thanks.
Ethanol maker won't need U.S. loan guarantee
POET-DSM Advanced Biofuels
Ask POET Episode 7 -- Biomass for Biofuels
Poet will not be using the DOE loan guarantee, forming a partnership with DSM instead.
A company to watch is Kior. They have a catalytic pyrolysis technology which has seems to be able to produce biofuels with a lower capital cost investment. High capital costs are a hurdle for any of these plants to get off the ground.
... from 700 tons a day of the left-over material from corn fields after the corn is removed.
If the "economics" of this end up working out, it will be a huge environmental catastrophe. Iowa could just kiss what's left of our soil goodbye before it ends up at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Corn stover -- that "left-over" material -- left in the fields from the corn/soybean rotation is currently helping our soil erosion look slightly less grim. It also puts organic matter back into the soil, which if this works is going to end up being relentlessly mined out of it.
Keep in mind, too, that the gathering and hauling of these "leftovers" will require mechanized, fuel burning, equipment.
Stover harvest has been going on in Iowa for a long time; I believe current USDA surveys indicate it's been going on at 30% for a while, and no one is suggesting a 100% harvest in any rate for precisely the reason you say.
Both assumptions are inaccurate. USDA studies have proven only 25% of stover must be left in a typical corn field for soil stabilization and to replenish nutrients. The POET harvest plan is to only utilize corn cobs--which are most easily seperated by a harvester due to their uniform size and density. This will remove less than 25% of the stover from the field, leaving a more-than-adequate buffer with the rest of the corn plant. [Disclosure: I do not work for POET, or cellulosic ethanol companies.]
Your second objection was about additional fuel consumption via "another pass through the field". Poet has already addressed this issue by working with farm implement manufacturers to develop cob trailers that simply are towed behind a combine during the harvest. Collecting two crops with one pass = increased profitability and efficiency for the farmer. It's a win-win-win (farmer, consumer, environment). Don't forget that all stover left in the field also decays there--adding more useless CO2 to the atmosphere without providing any further benefit to mankind.
Yes ethanol production was often done wastefully during its infancy. But the ethanol industry is gaining efficiencies each year as the industry matures. It uses less water, less fuel, and has achieved greater outputs of fuel per acre. Adding cellulosic will cause it to leap again. American ethanol is a very innovative industry, not the static, backward industry often protrayed by critics.
Again, this is an example of gathering a waste stream that would otherwise be "landfilled". It is good, but realize that this is NOT a source of energy and is certainly not "renewable". Paraphrasing, It is mearly capturing a waste stream that would otherwise be landfilled....
EDIT to say that some wise souls do not "landfill" so much as compost, reuse return. see below...
Again, this is an example of gathering a waste stream that would otherwise be "landfilled".
There is a reason the cobs are 'composted'. Shipping it off the land to be processed - what's the plan to return the post-processed material back to the land?
Don't forget that all stover left in the field also decays there--adding more useless CO2 to the atmosphere without providing any further benefit to mankind.
Not quite. The decaying stover feeds all sort of soil fungi and bacteria, creating humus and organic aggregates - the main water holding and nutrient storing media in the soil. Remove the stover, and the soil fertility starts to degrade, and must be repalced by synthetic fertilisers - which would be the corn industry today.
And fertile soil is a *definite* benefit to mankind.
Can waste products from the algae be returned to the fields?
NAOM
Yes, if this is going to work you have to look at every step in the process and optimize it, and that includes all the product streams.
"Optimization" far more often than not comes at the expense of redundancy and loss of robust. That is to say, the more "optimized" the system, the less perturbation it takes for failure in one or more components, with fewer back ups. Otherwise insignificant failures in seemingly obscure process streams can much more easily lead to astonishing modes of system failure. If all the steps in the process are "optimized" then there is an increased chance for cascading failure, or sequential failure leading to overall systemic failure. To paraphrase Captain Scott, Star Trek Movie who said it well, "the more complicated the plumbing the easier it is to plug it up"....
This is a word salad.
Someone please explain how one can "renew energy", and please restrain yourselves to the laws of thermodynamics. In particular Gibbs free energy.... Delta S, T
Ya know, ya'll think this is nitpicky and trivial it is not.
It's like you completely ignore energy flow, natural systems and impose totally artificial boundary conditions. Hmmm.
We can't renew energy, no, if you want to get technical. Ultimately "renewable" generally means that it does not have a finite and depleting supply. This does not imply that renewable sources are not bounded, only that they do not deplete.
Or are you implying that we should be worried about peak solar output, which ought to occur in, uh, a few billion years?
No, "if you want to get truthful" is more like it. It doesn't matter if it's ten, hundred, thousand, million, billion years.
What I am implying is that you should speak specifically and not generally, otherwise you loose trust. That is because, technical or not, it is true that you can not "renew energy", but that is precisely what the general population believes, and apparently many scientists and engineers as well. Scientists and engineers who use the term "renewable" should be more precise in their language.
From the other perspective, I argue that you lose trust and interest of people if you feel like you get hung up on semantics. We all know "that guy" who tries to correct everybody when they say common colloquialisms, and we all know to avoid him or ignore him. Who would you rather connect to?
Its not semantics at all, nor is it a "technicality". Perhaps a review of thermodynamics is in order?
Perhaps using "so called" in front of "renewable" or something like that. For instance: "so called renewable resources". You could even be more precise than that and not use the word "renewable" at all. People who haven't had the thermodynamics you presumably have are bamboozled by the term "renewable energy", especially if its connected at all with an IPO or some other plea for "investor" or public capital....
Much of what is being discussed in this thread isn't even a source of energy, much of it is merely capturing waste streams from highly inefficient industrial processes. Critically, many of you you are using the wrong metric to measure "success", otherwise known as "profitability" or "costing out" or whatever; its the same: the metric is money. That wont work {Some one find me the conversion factor for going from money dollars to btus}. We have to use some other metric, I suggest one based on thermodynamics, an energy unit, not a money unit like "cents per kilowatt hours" or other nonsense. And we should stop calling it "renewable energy", we should call it "diffuse, low quality, low out put energy sources" or something IF its a source and if it isn't a source, its a sink.
For more on "energy sinks", see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested
Of course it's semantics! It's the difference between "annually renewable" and thermodynamic argument you are making! I don't disagree with you about the technical aspects of your proposition, I just disagree with you that it is bad policy to maintain a definition that may be technically correct but not widely understood. There is no way in hell you're going to be able to shift the tone of the debate just by going into a nerd rage, so you might as well speak the same language as everyone else.
No it's not . It is a physical LAW and I am starting to think you are a promoter. I am a scientist and I would like to know what science "renewable energy" falls under. Perpetual motion machine?
These threads attract an enormous amount of "hey check out this company" traffic instead of discussing the topic, eh?
Yup. I just checked my thermodynamics and mineral equilibria text from ages ago and the world did not turn upside down since I finished my graduate work~ and no room is given for "renewable energy". The text assumes the second law to hold true, and "renewable" energy clearly falls into the "back to the drawing board" file.
AS in: if you think you have discovered/developed/dreamed up a "renewable energy" then, it's back to the drawing board for you...
Here ya go, even better. Text from wayyy back:
"Thermodynamics of Natural Systems", G.M. Anderson, 1996
Also, "Thermodynamics in Geochemistry", same
Quote:
p.23, Anderson, 1996
"Renewing energy" infers that you can change state with out loss of equilibrium, which is not possible, not real.
You are not understanding the difference between open systems and closed systems perhaps, or where to "draw the box" maybe?
I been thinking about this some more {maybe I shouldnt huh}...
Here is an other analogy:
The world is flat. Well, not really but for most of you it is, so you can assume its flat and whoever says its round is a nerd.
Could you imagine if Gibbs or Helmholtz or Boltzman or Maxwell or Heaviside or .. showed up on the scene today only to have some engineer or scientist tell them we have "renewable energy"? HAHAHAhaha They would wonder what magic trick you came up with to do away with their lifetimes work HAhaha.
You have been a member for two days and one hour? HAhahaha I should check these things before I engage. I hope I haven't wasted my time.
It doesn't matter if it's ten, hundred, thousand, million, billion years.
hmmm. Something that lasts 10 years on one side of the scale. Something that lasts for a billion years on the other side of the scale. Which should I choose? hmmmmmm.
I don't think you'll find a significant number of scientists who agree that something that lasts 5 billion years can't reasonably be called renewable. Perhaps 1 in 10,000...
It cant be called "renewable" if it isn't "renewable". How about: "diffuse, low quality, low output" energy source, or "highly diffuse, low quality, low output" energy source or something more precise like that. You could leave the word "renewable" right out of it.
Other than that I'm all for sources of energy.
It cant be called "renewable" if it isn't "renewable".
Sure, it can. It's renewable on any scale that matters to humanity. For example, my life insurance is generally described as "renewable" - everyone understands what that means, and there's no disagreement or confusion. Very few people think I'll be renewing it 1,000 years from now.
"diffuse, low quality, low output"
That's highly inaccurate. Wind and solar aren't diffuse: the US has 500,000 producing oil wells, and millions of dry holes. I'd call that diffuse.
Photons are very high quality. I'd call the solar insolation of 100,000TW very high output.
It's time for us to think outside the Fossil Fuel box, and kick the FF habit. ASAP.
"Wind and solar" is EXTREMELY diffuse source of energy try putting a handful of air and sunshine in your car
And the term "renewable" is a marketing term.
Your fossil fuel "box" is right out there on the road.
"Wind and solar" is EXTREMELY diffuse source of energy try putting a handful of air and sunshine in your car
Try putting a cubic meter of oil source rock in your car. It's the same thing.
On the other hand, try charging a Leaf or Volt with wind generated electricity - it works quite nicely. In fact, wind power tends to be slightly stronger at night, when most EVs will be charging. A nice synergy.
the term "renewable" is a marketing term.
That sounds a lot like something from an Exxon/Mobil PR campaign.
Your fossil fuel "box" is right out there on the road.
True. it's time to get retire it.
I can walk down the hill just a ways and scoop a handfull of black, gooey crude right from a crack in the shale. I've got some in a tupperware somewhere around here for dog and pony shows. There are several places you can do that, "scoop it up", the local Ute and plains tribes used it for a number of things for a long time. You can light the stuff on fire; it will burn ;}
True, but you can't put it in your car.
And, the sun is 95% of what keeps your house warm. 90% of the energy we "use" on a daily basis is solar.
It's all in your perspective.
I'm not sure you understand the problem, what you are referring to is "residential" energy use here's a diagram:
http://www.energyliteracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/USenergyflowGW.png
It shows that "transportation" eats more energy than "residential" and if you count some commercial and industrial as being part of the transportation infrastructure, which it is, the number is even higher.
What it shows is that the primary inputs like petroleum, gas, coal, hydrocarbons, fossil fuels, are an order of magnitude, maybe two orders of magnitude, greater than "renewables", nukes and "others" combined. Solar input is vanishingly small and in fact 100 percent dependent on fossil fuel inputs.
What will happen when the petroleum inputs start to decline is that more demand will be placed on other primary sources in a feed back loop leading to effects on the right hand side of that flow chart. Things like "transportation" and "commercial" and "industrial" will shrink proportionately. The decline in petroleum inputs will be relentless and somewhat self reinforcing as we will loose the capital to initiate and complete many of these alt.energy projects.
what you are referring to is "residential" energy use
Right:
Ah, you replied too quickly - that was just a quote from your comment. Here's the full comment:
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what you are referring to is "residential" energy use
No, it's really not. The surface of the earth would be, what, 100 degrees below zero without sunlight? Solar energy is by far the primary source of energy for humans. It's much larger than fossil fuels.
What will happen when the petroleum inputs start to decline is that more demand will be placed on other primary sources in a feed back loop leading to effects on the right hand side of that flow chart.
Yes, wind, solar and nuclear will need to expand.
Things like "transportation" and "commercial" and "industrial" will shrink proportionately.
Not really. Heck, US oil consumption is lower than it was in 1979, and GDP is 2.5x as large, Vehicle miles traveled is IIRC 25% higher, manufacturing is 50% larger. Global oil consumption flattened in 2005, but GDP is what, 20% larger today?
Again, we need to think outside the oil and FF box.
You are missing the point completely HAHAHAhaha,
I do agree with your plea to,
Anyway, really it's not so much a shortage of resources as a longage of....
~:
missing the point
I'm talking about total energy - that diagram is talking about "manufactured" energy. It's a different point of view.
How much of your daily light comes from the sun, vs artificial lighting?
longage of expectations?
We can and should have very high expectations.
I do agree with your plea to,think outside the oil and FF box
That's great. Time to kick the habit!
I agree with you Nick, and because the topic of this thread is "biofuels", and that "biofuels" are in no way "renewable" or "sustainable" and in fact and in general represent an increasingly futile effort to cling to our previous investment of car and truck centered infrastructure which will either be decommissioned, recycled, reused, retasked, salvaged... or will rot in place. What comes out the "otherside" of the money/energy transition will necessarily be smaller in scale, both in energy "footprint" and physical "footprint". I think the biomass could be put to better use than burning in an internal combustion engine of some sort {really, with a few exceptions mostly due to geographical proximity, it is better to use fossil fuels for that as bad news as that maybe} and seeing as though combusting industrial biomass on a large scale actually represents a diminishing return on an increasingly very expensive investment...
I agree. Biofuels are a niche product. Electric vehicles make much more sense.
Now, biofuels could be used in a range extender EV. If every vehicle on the road in the US was replaced with a Volt, current ethanol production could provide all that was needed to drive as many miles as people do today.
Electric vehicles transfer the thermodynamic costs to coal generating plants. They are the only thing other than nukes that will run your fleet of electric cars. You need to get out of the cars and into some other mode of transportation I suggest more walkable cities.
Wind power works quite nicely.
Wind is a little stronger at night, and EVs mostly charge at night. Plus, EVs can time their charging for low-cost periods, thus providing a nice sink for wind over-production, and a place where demand can drop during lower production periods.
OTOH, both solar and nukes will work, if necessary.
Walkable cities are wonderful - I live in one - I only drive about 1,000 miles per year. I use electric trains for most of my miles traveled - I highly recommend them: safe, quiet, fast, chauffered....
OTOH, most people can't afford the very large premium required to live in a walkable city - EVs are far cheaper.
You are confusing money with energy. Find me a conversion factor for going from dollars to BTUs.
You are confusing money with energy.
No, I'm just pointing out that wind production is a bit higher at night, and demand is lower. EVs help fill that gap quite nicely.
Infers that you have a "conversion factor" for going from dollars, or "money" to energy. Now, What would that be? Everybody else here, including me uses it.
This isn't trivial because, ultimately the metric being used here is inadequate for proper accounting of energy flow. For instance, EV, as you call it, just passes the energy expendeture "down the line". What your not accounting for are the powerplants at the other end, a trivial amount contributed by so called "renewable" resources. Thats the way it is, as you know because petroleum, crude, and products, gas ... and coal represent a very dense, very energetic source of easily transportable and storable energy.
Infers that you have a "conversion factor" for going from dollars, or "money" to energy.
There are many conversion factors, as there are many different forms of energy - care to be more specific?
What your not accounting for are the powerplants at the other end, a trivial amount contributed by so called "renewable" resources.
I don't think Nick, or anyone else here, has ever claimed that EV's weren't powered by somesource of generation at the other side of the plug.
Yes, renewable sources are a small, but growing part of the electricity supply. They are growing because people demanded them enough to make governments start to subsidise/mandate them. Some customers are even prepared to pay a premium for them - the only source of electricity where that is the case (who ever heard of utilities offering programs to buy nuke energy at a premium?)
Thats the way it is, as you know because petroleum, crude, and products, gas ... and coal represent a very dense, very energetic source of easily transportable and storable energy.
In the case of an EV the storage and transport aspect is moved on board the vehicle - it doesn;t really matter then where the electricity comes from, how diffuse it is or not, how dense the fuel is etc. The most dense fuel there is - uranium - has never yet powered a land vehicle.
Increasing the supply of renewable electricity is relatively easy - though not dirt cheap. Increasing the supply of fossil sources of electricity is, with the exception of natural gas - quite a bit harder. Go and propose a new nuke or coal plant within 50miles of any city and see how popular you are.
Charging EV's at night actually makes the whole electric system more efficient in its operation - there are far worse things we can do in terms of energy use reform.
We are back to the debate about do we change our cities, or do we change our cars?
While I think we can all agree that changing the cities is the better long term solution, we can probably also agree that - like biofuels - this isn;t going to happen on a scale large enough or fast enough to make any real difference.
EV's could make a change large enough, but the fast enough is the real question. The Leaf and Volt are both off to a very slows start, and many other attempts (Aptera, Think, Zap, Zenn etc) have failed.
There are more EV's coming out, but they all suffer from the problem of being too expensive in a depressed economy.
We will end up with all avenues being pursued - biofuels, EV's and transit/rail/city reform - sometimes to the detriment of each other. But at this point I don't think we can declare any winners. Increasing oil prices favour all of them, except that said oil prices seem to depress the economy further, reducing the appetite/ability of governments to fund major changes. And for the private sector, the best (short term) strategy for most companies is to just carry on, and avoid spending scarce capital.
While Nick has often pointed out that EV's have competitive life-cycle costs with ICE cars, there are very few buyers who make there decisions based on that alone, if at all. There needs to be a compelling case for change, and right now, the high sticker prices are turning buyers away. When the buyer thinks they have a non-zero risk of losing their job and/or house, or even being relocated, the smaller sticker price of the ICE's starts to look pretty good.
Theres a third one, called "change our behaviours", too, I think.
Ha!
Having worked in doing water conservation stuff for the better part of a decade I can tell you that getting people to (voluntarily) change their behaviour is almost impossible. It is -generally -far easier to change the "equipment" they use (be it toilets, cars, fuel, or trains) than their habits.
This is especially true if the change is in any way an inconvenience - they won;t do it, unless forced to by mandate and/or price.
So, the pace of change of behaviour is glacial, and if the pressure comes off, there is a partial bounceback. Someone who changed their suv for a hybrid has made a permanent reduction, but the person that couldn't afford to make that change, and just drove as little as possible, night do the long delayed road trip once the pressure is off - either from lower fuel prices OR getting a better job etc. This is why an economic recovery is a double edged sword, as many people will then just pay higher prices than make "inconvenient" changes.
The trebling of gasoline prices over the last decade, with minimal real change in vehicle purchasing patterns, is testament to that.
Yeah, change is hard.
That's why regulations like CAFE are probably essential.
CAFE is necessary but not sufficient. The car makers have said - many times - that a gas tax is needed to go with it. Currently, they spend a lot of money developing fuel efficient vehicles, but for the buyers the payback is not there. Witness the growth of large PU sales while midsize ones have shrunk.
Here in Canada we have gas taxes out the ying yang (fuel is $4.80/gal here), but the Fed gov made one smart move - they created a "gas tax fund" and that money is paid out to munis for infrastructure projects. Of course, there is all the normal issues with feds handing out money for applied for projects, but every town know that if the gas tax went away, so would this money - my town has just got $8m for a new sewage plant.
I would like to see a CAFE tax at the point of purchase. Some sliding scale where the vehicle gets taxed more for higher fuel consumption - NGV's, EV's and any non oil vehicles are exempt.
Of course, this will never happen, so they subsidies instead, which is fine, so have a subsidy then for all vehicles based on mileage. $2k for 40Mpg+. $3 for 45, $4 for 50mpg, $5 for 55 and $6k for >60 mpg (incl all EV's and pure NGV's). A multi fuel one gets the average subsidy for its different fuel modes (based on 50/50 split), so if a Volt is under 40 mpg on fuel, the subsidy is half of the $6k, but if over 40 then it would be average of 2 and 6=$4k, and so on.
Then have the class of small urban vehicles - equivalent to the Japanese Kei cars - getting the same subsidy, and they become *really* affordable.
It would only be a matter of time before Apple teamed up with someone to have the iCar - would a be a funky multimedia centre/office/music studio on wheels, which would become a "must have" for the young set. The same can;t be said for any of the cars on the road today.
Some real innovation is needed, but neither the fed gov or the mainstream automakers have good records for that. Nor, presently, do they even have a good business incentive for it - this is what needs to change.
I suspect eliminating the subsidy - the gas/oil industry depletion tax break - would be sufficient, no tax increase at the pump required.
changing the cities is the better long term solution
Many people don't like dense cities, especially for raising children. How do we convince them?
Won't dense inner cities always be much more expensive places to live?
There are more EV's coming out, but they all suffer from the problem of being too expensive in a depressed economy.
The Leaf is less expensive than the average new car. The Volt is only slightly more expensive. At this point, Nissan and GM are selling all the EVs they can make.
Many people don't like dense cities, especially for raising children. How do we convince them?
We can't "convince" them in the marketing sense, the only to is to actually show them that they are better, by doing it.
Won't dense inner cities always be much more expensive places to live?
Not necessarily, some inner city areas are very cheap - because no one (with any money) wants to live there.
The key is to create dense neighbourhoods that combine lving and working - they do not necessarily have to be inner city. As the white collar jobs start to become more mobile and/or dissappear, there is less need for many people to go to the inner city. The real thing is to start having more "mixed use" developments, where you have multi level housing above/behind streetfront shops/offices. Have good community parks, that people actually want to go to. The obsession with backyards is everyone wanting their own private park If you have a world class park (doesn;t have to be huge, just good, and safe) within walking distance, why bother with your own? When you have good clusters like this, so that people do not need a car to get to work every day, things start to change.
So, I would call it redeveloping the satellite communities, not just the inner city.
One of the worst offenders has been the suburban office parks. Bakersfield, Ca has it's core almost deserted because all the employment spread out, leaving only gov stuff in the downtown. Hard to reverse the office parks, but cities control the land use laws, so they can require them to be really dense, or adjacent to shopping/living areas, etc.
But even then, "shopping areas", of all types, are becoming an endangered species as people buy less in general, and more of it online. It is becoming a case where communities can get all the services they need while employing far less people than they used to. What then do all those other people do?
This is the real dilemma for city planners - no one really knows what and where the jobs of the future will be, except that it easier than ever for them to be somewhere else.
I will return to a theme I have put out before, for a class of urban electric vehicles, that do not have to meet all the rules of today's cars, but are a bit more robust than the glorified golf carts of the NEV/LSV's. With their smaller batteries, they would also be a good candidate for a Better Place style of system, though I remain unsure if that will ever really be practical.
the only to is to actually show them that they are better, by doing it.
Hmmm. Where I live, many young people graduate from college, live in the inner city for a few years, and move to the suburbs when they marry and have children. These people have lived in dense areas, but they don't want to raise children there.
some inner city areas are very cheap - because no one (with any money) wants to live there.
But when they were built, they were expensive. And, if people want to return, they will become expensive again.
Look at NYC, downtown Boston, Chicago, etc. The areas that begin to make car ownership optional are very, very expensive.
The real thing is to start having more "mixed use" developments, where you have multi level housing above/behind streetfront shops/offices.
High rise construction is substantially more expensive per square foot. I'm not sure why - do you have any concrete info on that?
If you have a world class park (doesn;t have to be huge, just good, and safe) within walking distance, why bother with your own?
Safety. The ability to have dogs, easily. Convenience: walking 5-10 minutes to a park is a big problem for parents: small children are a lot of work to wrangle. In my neighorhood we have a world-class park in 5 minutes walking distance, but every family wants to have a yard anyway, but if they can't afford it (and most can't, despite having much higher than average incomes), then they buy in a protected development where kids can play in the driveways/inner private roads.
Where I live, many young people graduate from college, live in the inner city for a few years, and move to the suburbs when they marry and have children. These people have lived in dense areas, but they don't want to raise children there.
If they have the money to do that, then they will, but not everyone can afford that, and even some that can, choose not to. Here in Vancouver - the median price for a house with a yard is $686,000, so, not surprisingly, many young couples are raising their kids in townhomes and condos - it is all they can afford.
Look at NYC, downtown Boston, Chicago, etc. The areas that begin to make car ownership optional are very, very expensive.
And I am saying don;t look at the downtowns of those cities, start to look at the satellite centres - how can they start to turn themselves into places where people eat, sleep, work, school and play within their area. You can't have everyone working downtown, and I'm certainly not suggesting that everyone live downtown. The key concept is try to have the places of employment and living close together. Most post war city planning has been about separating those functions.
High rise construction is substantially more expensive per square foot. I'm not sure why - do you have any concrete info on that?
HIg rise construction will always be more per sf - you have detailed engineering, complex mechanical systems, elevators etc. BUT the land cost per SF is lower than with single family - and land costs rise m,uch faster than construction costs.
That said, I am not advocating "high" rise development at all. I favour terrace (row) housing and low rise developments (three storeys, no elevators needed). The costs of building and operating these are less per sf for row housing (much less exterior walls to build and lose heat through) and not that much greater for the low rise.
Done properly, these create neighborhoods that are almost as dense as high rise, and much more pleasant and liveable. I used to live in one in Sydney, it was great. I was a single guy, but the families on either side of me loved it too.
An interesting example and calculation of potential density is here;
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/040311.html
The key point is you do not need Manilla style sardine can density, but you do need more than typical suburbs. Just replacing houses with townhomes doesn;t do it either, you need to make the neighborhoods walkable. when people spend less money on their cars and yard maintenance, they have more for other things most noteably services be it the coffee shop, the restaurant, the tax agent etc. And if they are walking to them, then they are, by definition, spending local.
These communities do not need to be downtown, they just need to be.
Safety. The ability to have dogs, easily. Convenience: walking 5-10 minutes to a park is a big problem for parents: small children are a lot of work to wrangle. In my neighorhood we have a world-class park in 5 minutes walking distance, but every family wants to have a yard anyway, but if they can't afford it (and most can't, despite having much higher than average incomes), then they buy in a protected development where kids can play in the driveways/inner private roads.
This points to failures in town planning. why a e the neighborhoods not safe? The protected development is a case of people planning what they want because the town didn;t. Amazingly., people in Europe have been having kids and dogs and living in yard-less townhomes for centuries.
They also live with owning less "stuff", which makes a big difference. The younger generation today are decidedly people of "less stuff" (except an Apple product), even when they marry and have kids, they won't be/aren't looking for single houses with yards - they'd rather save their money to spend on good food, clothes etc, and not take on as much debt in the first place.
The same argument goes for cars. For many young people, cars have gone from being a status symbol to being a financially burdensome utilitarian item. They are looking for ways to not have them, or have less of them, and the areas where they live become the vibrant communities. I'm not saying suburbs will be abandoned, but I think they will stagnate in many cities.
I will return to my economic theme - cars represent a real financial drain for most cities. 90% of the money that is spent on buying, insuring and fuelling them leaves the city and does not return. Even the Volt is the same, it just trades lower fuel for higher purchase, but unless you are in the city where they are made, 90c on the dollar leaves town. When people are able to reduce that spending, they have more to spend on other things, and are more likely to spend locally. That in turn makes the local economy better and brighter, and that is why people love living in such enclaves.
It is just that the developers have not worked out how to make money off that sort of development yet...
Well, I like living in high density areas, so I'd be delighted to find ways to make them cheaper. I have a hard time envisioning high density enclaves in the suburbs. I've seen senior communities that look something like that, but they don't have to go to work.
I'll have to look at the link...
*edit
start to look at the satellite centres - how can they start to turn themselves into places where people eat, sleep, work, school and play within their area.
I don't get that - how are we going to move work and home together, except possibly by telecommuting?
I favour terrace (row) housing and low rise developments (three storeys, no elevators needed). The costs of building and operating these are less per sf for row housing (much less exterior walls to build and lose heat through) and not that much greater for the low rise.
Actually, existing multi-unit construction is less energy efficient than existing single family construction, and new SF construction can be made as energy efficient as desired.
The younger generation today are decidedly people of "less stuff" (except an Apple product), even when they marry and have kids, they won't be/aren't looking for single houses with yards
Have you seen real data on this?
I think that you need to reconsider the economic theme. First, PO won't raise the cost of vehicles - as we've seen, EVs aren't more expensive over their lifecycle, even if buyers aren't financially sophisticated enough to see that immediately. More importantly, it's easy to reduce the cost of vehicles: most of it is the capital cost.
That capital cost can be reduced very easily by keeping cars longer. In the US, as a practical matter cars are thrown away after about 12 years, when they have a useful lifespan about 2.5x as long. My last "new" car was a 7 year old "near-luxury" vehicle which only cost $12k - I'm extremely happy with it, and it's low cost transportation. I only bought it because it's predecessor - a 20 year old vehicle - was hit by a tree*.
Also, I have a very hard time visualizing a medium-density community in which personal vehicles are not needed. I commute by electric train, only drive about 1,000 miles per year, and live in a very dense inner city, but life would be much harder without access to a car. There are very, very few places where one can really live without a car, at least now: mass transit is grossly inadequate for ad hoc trips. Even if it is expanded to a point at which it becomes very, very expensive - 24-hour, 7 day service to all points every 5-10 minutes - it still can't provide convenient point-to-point travel.
I'd be happy to see car sharing services like Zipcar.com change that, but they'll have to expand a lot. Maybe Google's autopiloted cars will help...
* yes, you heard that right - high winds toppled a tree over on the car! It couldn't be salvaged for a reasonable price, though the body shop guy I sold it to was planning to refurbish it on his own time for his daughter - he thought it was a low mileage creampuff. The car before that was 23 years old when a $900 repair made it uneconomic, but I gave it to a homeless guy, who got off the street because he could use it to make a living delivering food, so AFAIK it's still on the road...
Well, I like living in high density areas, so I'd be delighted to find ways to make them cheaper.
There are a few ways to do that. Actually, there are two part to this - building them for less, and preventing them from rising in "value" too much.
Building them cheaper means not building luxury apts etc, making them not rise in value means having such that people with lots of money wouldn't want to live there, so they won;t bid up the price. We want the community equivalent of a mid range Chevy, not a fully loaded one, or a Cadillac..There are also some serious discrepancies in the municipal maintenance costs, per capita, for dense and sprawled areas. The length of road and pipe per capita is much greater in less dense areas.
Actually, existing multi-unit construction is less energy efficient than existing single family construction, and new SF construction can be made as energy efficient as desired.
Well, they can all be built as energy efficient as desired. What has happened in the past is that developers builiding anything only build to minimum codes, which are not that energy efficient. All MF is built by developers, but at least some housing is built by owners - that will be the more efficient stuff. But given any set standard for energy efficiency, it will be easier to achieve that in (E-W) row than single housing. I will also add, that since row/Mf housing is generally less sf per capita than sf, the energy per capita will also be less (all else equal). Certainly the energy efficiency of the operating community will be less, as people and goods have to travel(drive) less, just to get from hub to home
Have you seen real data on this?
NOt official, but lots of observations, from people I know, to what prop developments are actually selling and to whom. There are fewer young buyers of detached houses in the cities/suburbs than in the past, and more of them looking for two or even three br condos and (especially) townhomes. I would say the townhome is seen to be the affordable compromise - kinda like the mid range car... Problem is, many of these families will likely not make/save enough money to trade up to SF. The high value jobs are shrinking in number - many will dissappear when their current occupants retire and are not replaced.
My economic theme isn;t about the cost of vehicles per se - it is the fact that almost all the money spent on vehicles leaves the local economy - that won;t change. Even if the useful lifespan is 30 yrs, by then they are very obsolete (elec cars certainly will be), and long before then maintenance costs start going up ( look at the shop rate for any repairs to see what I mean) and reliability starts going down. if you are correct in that new car prices will keep decreasing, then I just see the trend of shorter car lifespans increasing. Make the cars smaller and simpler (the kei cars) and this is not a big deal.
Also, I have a very hard time visualizing a medium-density community in which personal vehicles are not needed.
To be clear - I am not saying it would be a car-less community. But it could be one where the amount of car ownership, and miles driven is much lower. if you don;t need a car to get to and from work, then two car families can become one, or some (I know of them) went zero, and rent cars when needed for road trips. These car-less families bike a lot, own a lot less "stuff" and seem top have more money to spend on other nice things...
You are correct about cars being inconvenient for ad-hoc trips, so you don;t do them as often, and if your community is good enough, you don;t need to.
Such communities also support transit better, especially simple things like buses/trains from one hub to another. The "last mile" problem is largely resolved, because so many people live within a mile of the hub.
Even if it is expanded to a point at which it becomes very, very expensive - 24-hour, 7 day service to all points every 5-10 minutes - it still can't provide convenient point-to-point travel.
True, but who needs 24/7 service? Even the London Underground doesn;t do that (and London is actually, only a "medium" density city - there is almost no high rise residential 9or commercial) there. All that is needed is regular service between the hubs. more there and less on the collectors to them. After 1pm, take a cab or don;t stay out so late. There are not nearly as many all night/shift jobs as there used to be int he days of factories, so the requirement for this is less. Hospitals are an exception, but they should be near hubs anyway, and the most of their staff can afford the drive.
A change in municipal rules to allow private operation of bus services would help - a lot. There is lots of room for innovation there.
With more jobs going from mfring to retail and the like, there is not the need for the separate zoning that there used to be. White collar jobs - ordinary ones,- are quite compatible in mixed communities. Sure the big corps don;t want to be there, but they are employing less people all the time.
What I'm seeing is that median wages are shrinking, and more people are having to live with less wealth Getting rid of the car is one way to make that easier.
Building them cheaper means not building luxury apts etc, making them not rise in value means having such that people with lots of money wouldn't want to live there, so they won;t bid up the price.
That's a familiar model - low income housing in the US has been made deliberately, punitively ugly since WWII, in order to discourage people from using it unless they really needed to.
The result: people with high self esteem don't want to live there, leaving a detritus of gang members and the hopelessly discourage poor.
Such housing is inherently unstable: the good leave, the not-so-good stay, creating a big negative for neighbors. The fact that values are out of sync with the surrounding area makes it a target for developers.
There are also some serious discrepancies in the municipal maintenance costs, per capita, for dense and sprawled areas. The length of road and pipe per capita is much greater in less dense areas.
Again, have you seen data? As best I can tell, dense areas are much more expensive to manage than less-dense areas of similar age, judging from tax rates.
given any set standard for energy efficiency, it will be easier to achieve that in (E-W) row than single housing.
Not if you want it to be desirable to live in. The biggest heat loss is through windows, and townhouses and apartments maximize window space in the remaining outside walls.
Single families also have the advantage of a higher ratio of roof to floor sq ft, making solar easier. Plus, heat pumps are much more feasible. As a practical matter, multi-family housing is much more dependent on FF.
There are fewer young buyers of detached houses in the cities/suburbs than in the past
That's true for all ages. It's very hard to tease out the effects of the RE bubble. Right now no one wants to buy until they're sure RE has bottomed out, and they're not buying into a falling market.
The high value jobs are shrinking in number - many will dissappear when their current occupants retire and are not replaced.
GDP is still growing. GINI is getting worse, so middle income jobs may not be growing, or even shrinking very slightly, but "disappearing" seems unrealistic.
almost all the money spent on vehicles leaves the local economy
Repairs don't. Keep an older car, and keep your mechanic happy.
Even if the useful lifespan is 30 yrs, by then they are very obsolete (elec cars certainly will be)
Not really. They don't have the latest gadgets, but they get you from point A to point B just fine.
long before then maintenance costs start going up ( look at the shop rate for any repairs to see what I mean)
That's a misconception: it's far cheaper to keep vehicles for as long as the body holds out. That's why commercial vehicles (trucks, trains, planes, ships, etc) have much longer lives than consumer vehicles.
and reliability starts going down.
Not if proper preventive maintenance and inspections are done. After a few years most maintenance levels out, as parts are replaced predictably.
if you are correct in that new car prices will keep decreasing
That's not what I predicted. EV value will continue to improve, but I suspect prices will fall slowly. Look at PCs - value increases quickly, but prices fall more slowly as features are added.
Regarding the communities you describe: I'm still not clear why you feel they're valuable. Is it primarily for improved quality of life? I really don't see any energy-based reason for it.
low income housing in the US has been made deliberately, punitively ugly since WWII
There should be documentation of this - so can you provide proof of this claim?
Just for comparison sake, the US auto fleet converted to EVs could be charged by ~250,000 2MW wind turbines at 35% capacity factor, about the same number of US cell phone towers. This would eliminate the 378 million gallons per day of gasoline consumption.
PDV,
Well put. Thermodynamics rule, withour question.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
Entropy always increases (tends to a maximum)
Good point!
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-10-21/trouble-algae-lab-craig...
Which leads me to wonder if Dr Venter is being disingenuous or if his is the classic case of not understanding something because his salary (or his funding) depends on his not understanding it! How does someone as brilliant as he, somehow not understand the laws of thermodynamics?! Does he mean to suggest that a fully synthetic algae cell would somehow not be subject to the laws of thermodynamics?! Strains credulity to the limits!
Ha!
A man made algae could indeed bring about disruptive change, and not necessarily for the better.
[story and more photos here]
Be careful what you wish for...
Not quite sure what if anything that picture has to do with my comment? Perhaps you left off the /sarc tag?
That particular strain of algae in the picture is called Enteromorpha prolifera part of the genus Ulva, commonly know as sea lettuce and it is a very common naturally occurring algae found pretty much all over the world. The particular bloom depicted in the picture was very probably caused by nitrogen and phosphorus rich runoff from agricultural sources.
BTW, the likelihood of a completely synthetic bioengineered organism running rampant outside of a highly controlled and artificial environment is rather slim indeed!
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/church_venter09/church_venter09_index.html
What Dr. Venter fails to mention, is that synthetic or not, his algae cells still need energy to live and produce oil and he doesn't say very much about the EROEI of his creation, nor does he seem to acknowledge their thermodynamic limits.
Here are a couple of companies that Venter is involved with. Note that while energy is a part of the goals of both companies, they are also interested in producing food and chemicals. Producing high value chemical feedstocks may be a better transitional business for biofuels than producing low value energy supplies like ethanol.
Synthetic Genomics
SGI is currently working in three broad projects areas of Renewable Fuels and Chemicals (alliance with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company to develop algal biofuels), Microbial-Enhanced Hydrocarbon Recovery (collaboration with BP), and Sustainable Agricultural Products (through the company, Agradis which was jointly formed with Plenus SA de CV). Specifically we are:
■ Designing metabolic pathways for the production of biochemicals and next generation biofuels from a variety of feedstocks
■ Developing biological solutions to increase the conversion and recovery rates of subsurface hydrocarbons
■ Developing advanced plant feedstocks and microbial agents for agriculture
Agradis
Agradis is an agricultural biotechnology company formed in 2011 to improve the sustainability and efficiency of crop production agriculture. Agradis is focusing on the following two areas:
•Developing improved castor and sweet sorghum genetics to meet the demand for biofuel and renewable industrial product feed stocks
•Discovering and developing microorganisms that improve plant growth and provide protection from plant pests
Fred, no sarc at all - my point is that for any of these sorts of things (algae, yeast, etc) there can come a set of circumstances where they get out of control. With a manufactured organism, there might always be some mechanism/circumstance they haven't thought of. Even the suicide gene is no guarantee - random mutations can happen at any time.
The fact that he is not coming out with any info on EROEI tells you that it is not great, or he would have said so. The re
Of course, every plant on planet earth does that too... You get more production from algae per kWh of sunlight, and this has been know for decades. The scalability is indeed the real problem and this has been know for decades too. I can't see even his synthetic algae resolving that.
The best hope for this, IMO, is as a sewage treatment process, in sunny places with plenty of land - lots of nutrients and water already available But, a monoculture of a fragile strain of algae may not survive long in such conditions. Just like fragile strains like corn, they need outside help (fertilisers, herbicides etc)to remain a productive monoculture - algae will be no different, IMO.
But not before being ingested by other organisms especially if they are constantly leaking out, or having a chance to find a similar source for their "dependency". Also a suicide switch easily turned on by man, is easily turned off by evolution. In fact it would probably be selected for pretty sharpish if you think about it.
I've heard of "easy" solutions, but I rarely see them.
First, I'm not exactly a big fan of this idea nor am I specifically defending Venter et al.
The point however was that the synthetic organism is not intended to be released into the wild but rather kept in the confines of a controlled environment.
Last but not least any escaped organism that didn't succumb would indeed be subject to evolutionary pressures and might evolve survival capabilities over time... I would still be far more concerned with the impact of invasive species that are currently already wreaking havoc in ecosystems all over the world!
Case in point, this pretty little algae, probably introduced by the aquarium trade:
http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/caulerpa.shtml
Its beautiful.... From a distance.
38 reasons Algae will never replace oil
http://energyskeptic.com/2011/algae/
The best use for algae is not biofuels but as a way to store the carbon dioxide from coal power plants, as described in Benemann’s 2003 “Biofixation of CO2 and Greenhouse gas abatement with microalgae – Technology Roadmap.
This is a quick summary of the problems with making fuel from algae:
Is more energy used to make algae biofuel than is created? (EROEI)
1) Keep water in ponds or plastic tubing within a narrow range of optimal temperature no matter how hot or cold the outside temperature is
2) Algae diseases and infections (takes energy to remove them)
3) Algae predators (takes energy to kill them)
4) Keep competing low-fat strains of algae out and kill them (but not the good algae)
5) Prevent overcrowding
6) Keep pH levels constant
7) Keep saline levels constant
8) Pump water into the ponds
9) Keep water aerated and circulating
10) Keep water levels constant despite evaporation and rainfall
11) Purify the water
12) Inject CO2
13) Remove waste oxygen
14) Feed the algae: make, transport, and deliver nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous
15) Harvest algae — a very small fraction of the overall water volume.
16) Separate algae fats from water, protein, carbohydrates etc.,
17) Sterilize strainers after processing
18) It takes energy to build the algae pond, harvesting infrastructure, and maintenance
19) Treat waste water
20) Infrastructure to take the waste water somewhere
21) Bio-engineered superalgae may be even more vulnerable to disease and predators than the hardy, tested-by-nature natural strains used now
Where’s the land?
1) It must be flat land that can be flooded. Most suitable land that’s flat is already being used to produce food.
2) The land with the best sunlight typically have no water, i.e. deserts
3) The land must be near a lot of water that doesn’t compete with cities and agriculture.
4) The amount of land required to produce meaningful amounts of fuel could destroy ecosystems
5) Where is there an area of land that gets plenty of sunlight but doesn’t get cold at night?
6) If the land is far from cities, the energy to transport the algae biofuel could be more than the energy used to deliver it.
7) Will the methane from the anaerobic sediments increase CO2 emissions?
Does it scale up? Is it too expensive?
1) Algae that do well in the laboratory usually don’t survive in the field
2) Algae that are high-fat reproduce slowly.
3) Enclosed facilities use polycarbonate, which lasts only 10-15 years
4) How can you justify the expense of enclosed facilities, the time and expense of keeping the innards clean and preventing algae sticking to them?
5) Bioreactors that are efficient in the lab can’t be scaled up to an industrial level
6) DOE cut the algae fuel research a long time ago it was so unpromising
7) Algae produce oil to protect themselves from long periods of darkness (night) and lack of food. But when in this stress mode, they grow very slowly. To try to make them grow faster goes against their very nature!
8) Not one algae producer has been profitable or produced useful quantities of oil as of October 2011.
9) The only companies that make money on algae today are the ones who harvest omega-3 fatty acids for nutritional supplements at a price much higher than the cost of crude oil, or for use in cosmetics.
10) another company, Solazyme in South San Francisco, sold the U.S.Navy algal fuel for over 8.5 million dollars of algae biofuel at $424 a gallon! Oil right now is $3.85 at the gas station nearest to my house.
Because of high costs, 18 years of algae hydrogen and biodiesel fuel research was terminated (after two decades) by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as described in John Sheehan et al. 1998. “A Look Back at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Aquatic Species Program—Biodiesel from Algae”. Prepared for:U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fuels Development. One of the reasons was that it was very obvious that the nutrients being added to grow the algae was costing far more than any oil that could ever be produced.
Japan also spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make algae into fuel, and didn’t succeed.
Current algae research
Labs are bioengineering and zapping algae with radiation and chemicals to come up with a prolific mutant strain, so far without any luck. Venter sampled algae all over the globe to look for a winning strain with no luck and has decided to make the magic algae himself from bits and pieces of genetic parts.
The cost of algae food continues to be a problem. The cheapest food is Brazilian sugar cane, and that is still too expensive.
Synthetic biology company Amyris’s chief technology officer, Neil Renninger says that we ware never going to replace petroleum with algae, at best we can hope to augment oil (as is done with ethanol now).
Sources:
Biello, David. 2011 August. The False Promise of Biofuels The breakthroughs needed to replace oil with plant-based fuels are proving difficult to achieve. Scientific American.
How about getting some of the NREL "National 'Renewable Energy' Labs" 'Folks' on here to explain themselves. Please see the Richard Feynman quote that appears occasionally on the top upper right hand margin of this website:
—Richard Feynman
~
National Renewable Energy Laboratory Biomass:
http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/
From NREL:
NREL uses phrases like "can reduce dependence on foreign oil." One liter of biofuel can reduce dependence.... NREL is basically saying that biomass can supplement other things.
biomass -> liquid fuel == game over planet earth === extinct humans
The company to watch is LanzaTech.
It has a process that takes the waste gases from steel manufacturing, oil refining and chemical production and converts it in to ethanol using microbes.
http://www.lanzatech.co.nz/content/lanzatech-process
You have to realize that is not a "source" of energy and is therefor not "renewable energy" . What you are talking about here is capturing a portion of the waste stream from a less efficient preexisting process. That is good, but as long as you realize that is ALL it is. I think Nicole Foss at the Automatic earth discusses this in more detail in several recent interviews.
Nicole Foss, Heinberg, Kunstler, Foss, Orlov & Chomsky on A Public Affair:
http://energybulletin.net/media/2012-01-06/heinberg-kunstler-foss-orlov-...
I wasn't suggesting this a renewable energy but it did seem to be a more economic and less destructive way of getting ethanol than the method in the lead article. This is more like a hybrid car (increasing the efficiency of the energy used) than an EV.
The LanzaTech web site suggests their process can also be used with gases from plant material but they are starting with waste gases from industial processes because its cheaper and it reduces carbon emissions if the ethanol is used to replace oil.
I counted the word "renewable" at least seven times in the lead article; it's not you I'm worried about. Necessarily.
They raised a wadge of investment cash a few days ago:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/6304517/LanzaTech-raises-US-5...
As far as I am aware they are still at the pilot plant stage. However (correct me if I am wrong) is their technology only really a niche application? I gather it relies on CO as a by-product of other processes - if fully expanded is it really going to produce large amounts of fuel (thats not to say that what they are doing is not great)
andyh
I have a lengthy prentation from Lanzatech and it is not clear by any means and it bothers me.
It would appear to be a gas fermantation process that uses carbon monoxide and hydrogen, and in a later slide Carbon disoxide and hydrogen. The CO, CO2, and hydrogen can come from various sources including a syn gas process.
The fuels process goes via an alcohol route and then to transport fuels. See my earlier post on Solazyme. The thermodynamics would be similar for the alcohol step.
I do not believe this will be competitive. Synthesing alcohols and then dehydrating them , followed by oligomerisation is a complex process that will disappoint.
The prentation is title bio2011_harmon_2-1.
Hi Carnot
Lanza get a lot of attention here in NZealand because of its 'local links'. Much of the comment in rather uncritical. Like you I find it difficult to get to the bottom of the process and the cost implications etc. No doubt at some point in the next 3 years we will see an IPO - perhaps they will be more forthcoming then. Certainly it will provide a fine moment for early stage investors to liquidate their positions (runa la some of the other companies discussed above).
Hi Nev - colour me a tad sceptical about the claims of billions of gallons; lets see the economics of a fully functioning pilot plant ning for a few years first.
As someone who witnessed at first hand the boom in Biotech listings on the London stock market in the 1980s and 1990s I cant help but sense some sort of a similarity in how many of these companies go......
Except that, in this theatre, we're going to learn the difference between money and energy, probably the hard way.
Actually to be fair to them they have had a small pilot plant running in NZ for a couple of years (I believe it has produced several thousand gallons of ethanol?) - I havent though seen any data on costings etc from that plant.
Due to the thermodynamic losses incurred from the capture and conversion {storage and transportation} of fuel energy from a physical waste stream, indeed any physical waste stream, it is highly advisable to instead divert the waste stream for nonfuel aplications. Ie, cosmetics not fuel. Either that, or, better, compost etc
andyh,
I have been doing a littel more digging on the Lanzatech- Swedish Biofuels jet fuel route.
Well Lanzatech are going to send the alcohol to Swedish biofuels for conversion. Go the Swedish Biofuels web-site and guess what? Zilch , zippo, nix, nul on the ATJ conversion technology.
Quote
The Swedish Biofuels AB fully synthetic jet fuel process is shown schematically below. In the first step of the process grain or wood is converted into a solution of sugars suitable for biochemical synthesis. The solution of sugars is fermented into a mixture of C2-C5 alcohols, which is then converted by chemical synthesis into a mixture of C4-C20 hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons are subsequently separated into biological gasoline, kerosene and diesel by rectification.
UnQote
Well stab me vitals. Converted by chemical sysnthesis. My that is informative. I would never have guessed. Just what process exactly ?
Much is made of patented technology. I pulled the patent which is also filed under US 7014668 available here
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7014668.html
What a crock. This refers to oxygenates in motor and diesel fuels and makes no reference at all to jet.
Meanwhile the Great Beardie Branson of Virgin Atlantic is all over the news promoting his green fuel to a gullible public. Even worse is all the internet entries that cut and paste the same storey over and over again. Say it often enough and everyone will believe it. I don't.
I smell a great big stinking rat. There is no technology here worth a row of beans. Professor Angelica Hull of CEO Swedish Biofuels seems reluctant to describe any of her so called patented technology on ATJ. Maybe it is a patent pending? I doubt it.
Think about converting a C2 alcohol to a C12 isoparaffins and you do not have many choices. Its called dehydration followed by oligomerisation, a process that we do in the compamny that I work for. It is not easy, far from it. Cracking molecules is hard enough, putting them back together is even harder.
Don't waste your money on this one.
Dont know if this process will produce the volume but the potential is there.
"Using CO waste gases, from 65% of the global steel production, as a resource for the LanzaTech process, there is the potential to produce over 30 billion gallons of fuel ethanol per year, which equates to around 15 billion gallons of jet fuel (about 19% of the current world aviation fuel demand).
When you then consider the potential of using this process with other metal and chemical industries, we believe a far greater percentage of fuel demand could be met."
From LanzaTech FAQ page
Neville,
I am glad that there are still optimists in this world. I am, these days, more of a pessimist as I have wised up.
Lanzatech is a gas fermentation process. Can you imagine what that means. The fermentor will be the size of a football stadium if this scales up to anything decent, and I remain very sceptical that dehydrating aclohols to peraffinic type product amkles any sense. Immediately that ethanol is dehydrated near on 40% of the mass has gone. It is that simple.
Remember my first rule;
There are many things that can be done with chemistry; not all of them make sense.
The Lanzatech presentation is here.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/bio2011_harmon_2-1.pdf
Do the maths on p10.
30 million gallons of ethanol ( why oh why does everyone use gallons - to confuse us into believing it is a big number)
= 113 million lts or 93kta in real units.
You might, and it is a big might, get 40 kta of paraffinic fuels (not just jet) from this amount of ethanol, as it would have to be dehydrated an oligomerised. Not easy. Ethylene is very difficult to oligomerise in a controlled way. It could be dimerised and then the dimer oligomerised but the process is torturous.
Remember - Keep it simple, and simple this is not.
Now for a world that consumes 200 million tonnes of jet fuel how many of these plants will we need. Answer more than 5000 to supply an equivalnet volume of transport fuels (jet) that is a mere 5% of the overall volume. Do you get my drift on this. This is the sugar coated version.
That is why on p13 they talk about gasifying biomass.
This is window dressing for the inevitable IPO, which for the management team tranlates to I'm Pissing Off with my (investors) money.
Chuckle - thanks for the input Carnot, but you need not worry I will not be diving in at any IPO. I have had my doubts about LT for a while, and what you have said is very interesting. Being a small place (New Zealand that is) LT does get a disproportionate amount of interest, with much ill informed comment.
Thankfully we have an abundance of genuine renewable sources to tap, and while LT may make some money as a chemical feedstock company they are not about to revolutionise the liquid fuels industry.
A novel biofuel produced in this part of the world is poppyseed biodiesel
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-07/poppy-seed-oil-used-to-make-biodie...
It's a sideline of medical opiate production. No word on the price but in Australia mining companies (who get a fuel tax rebate) can get the cost of petroleum diesel down to about $1 per litre which I think excludes this niche product.
In my opinion the use of biofuel in aviation is a greenwash. I think avation has to decline and in future only movie stars, presidents and the military will fly anywhere. They will claim to be green since 5% or whatever of the plane's fuel comes from algae. The other 95% of the fuel will be fossil derived but all the fuel will be expensive. Meanwhile the rest of us will take the gas and electric powered bus or train to escape from our small worlds.
A major reason I don't see biofuels increasing that much is because so far it is a rigged game. As subsidies and quotas are phased out we will have to start powering farm machinery with biofuel, for example ethanol powered corn harvesters. Instead of synthetic urea we will have to use organic gardening techniques, so far confined to backyards not the prairie. Maybe algae will solve that maybe not. If we didn't burn so much natural gas in power stations we could could use still abundant LNG and CNG as fuel for ships, trains, cars and trucks. Some jet fuel could be made as GTL. Better still if we didn't burn coal in power stations we could could make SASOL style Fischer Tropsch liquid fuels and still get overall CO2 reductions. As a percentage of primary energy liquid fuels will have to decline but I'm not even sure the fossil/bio split will change much.
These processes {opium production for example} tend to be somewhat inefficient. Always some waste in this case potential food by the way {seeds}. You can only capture a portion of the energy wasted, and the more intermediary steps and processing, the less return. Any way, this is an example of capturing a "waste stream" {potential food here} and due to thermodynamic losses and the dilute nature and "quality" of the "captured" energy, you'll never sustain the parent process without those very substantial "subsidies".
I'd just like to reaffirm how impressed I am by the thoughtful comments shared on this site. I often skip the major content and skip straight to them (from there, I'll decide whether or not to read in full the main post).
Well done TODers!!
Cheers, Matt
Problem with using existing industrial waste streams is that they are of finite and small scale compared with the volumes of fuel needed to make any difference.
You might make a synfuel plant work beside a wasteful industry, but when you try to scale up to meaningful volumes you have nowhere to go.
Before and after; its all rubbish!
Next!
I'd like us to cover the non-biological possibilities. CO2 + water + energy => hydrocarbons. The energy comes from sun or wind or nuclear. How practical (or not) is this? What would be the cost of the result fuel/feedstock?
I think we should punt on using bio to create fuel. But, energy plus inorganic materials ought to be much more promising.
EOS
I will give this a brief go, but I guess there are other out there better qualified.
Using CO2 will be a challenge as th carbon source as one of the oxygen is going to have to be removed. The only process that currently can do this reliably is photosysynthesis and the themodynamic efficiency is theoretically about 27%, although there is some discussion over this. Photosynthesis starts by splitting water in reaction centre II and in reaction centre I to sunthesise an intermediate NADPH. the intermediate later reacts with carbon dioxide to sunthesise carbohydrate units and oxygen. This is the simple version.
On a purely chemical route then a source of hydrogen would be my choice to pull the oxygen off the carbon dioxide to produce carbon monoxide and water. The thermodyamics of this step are not good. This reaction is done in reverse in syn gas plants to produce hydrogen in the shift reaction.
Once you have hydrogen and carbon monoxide it would be possible to produce methanol, or FT hydrocarbons. The big downside is that you would have to put in considerably more energy, multiple times, than, the energy contained in the final product. Thermodynamically the entropy of the finished fuel is in a lower state but overall the entropy of the entire process has to increase.
The only way to produce hydrogen from non carbon sources is to split water, most likley by hydrolysis. This will consume a more emergy that the energy within the hydrogen produced. Entropy again.
Maybe someone else has another apparoach.
This is along the same route and is some considerations I have made, I am not a chemical educated person so errors are surely there but the trend I believe in. The best way of utilizing biomass is gasification..coupled withe exess electricity from wind or sun.
Basic BTL
Converting biomass to Methanol using best known practice on large scale. All required heat
not captured from the process itself is produced by burning part of biomass.
Extended BTL
Converting biomass to Methanol using best known practice on large scale. All required heat
not captured from the process itself is produced by burning part of biomass.
Enough hydrogen and oxygen is added to utilice all CO in syngas.
Extended BTL ++
Converting biomass to Methanol using best known practice on large scale. All required heat
not captured from the process itself is produced by burning part of biomass.
Enough hydrogen and oxygen is added to utilice all CO and CO2 in syngas.
Maximal BTL
Converting biomass to CO and H2 syngas using electrical heat. CO2 is not produced.
Hydrogen and oxygen is added to utilice all CO.
Basic BTL
1.00 Kg Biomass + 0.0KWh ---> CO + H2 + CO2 ----> 0.37 Kg Methanol + 1/2CO + CO2
Extended BTL
1,00 Kg Biomass + 2.5Kwh ---> CO + 2H2 +CO2 ----> 0.60 kg Methanol + CO2
Extended BTL ++
1.00 Kg Biomass + 6.5kwh ---> CO + 4H2 +CO2----> 1.10 Kg Methanol
Maximal BTL ++
1.00 Kg Biomass + 8.5kwh ---> CO + 4H2 ----> 1.40 Kg Methanol
Flu gas CO2 to Methanol
CO2 + 9.5kwh -----------------------> 0,75 Kg Methanol
12.7 Kwh for 1 KG Methanol
Atmosphere CO2 to Methanol
CO2 + 11.5 kwh ---------------------> 0.75 Kg Methanol
15.3 Kwh for 1 kg Methanol
1 kg Methanol = 4.5 KWh
1.5 KW of electricity moves a Toyota Rav4 10 Km
Assuming same vehile powered with ICE is consuming 1 Kg Methanol for 10 km.
Therefore is an electrical battery path 10 times more efficient than the most costly syntetic fuel path.
But often is a liquid fuel the only practical option due to weight/power ratio and drivtrain avability.
Nobody is saying that we can get by just fine without hydrocarbon fuels. But given a source of energy,
hydrocarbon fuels can by manufactured.
If you don't believe that the H2 + atmospheric CO2 route can be economically feasible, there's always H2 + biomass.
You can get twice the yield of hydrocarbon fuels by using biomass as a carbon source, rather than as an energy source.
Not enough to replace the whole current world production of oil, but easily enough to keep
air transportation, ocean shipping, off-road heavy equipment, and maybe long-haul trucking in operation.
The rest can be electrified.
Here are the methanol prices as a function of electrical costs using the Green Freedom synthetic fuel process that uses atmospheric CO2 and water.
Electricity(¢/kWh)......Methanol($/gal)
3.0.......$1.09
6.0.......$1.53
10.0......$2.11
The latest ICIS Chemical Business gives the spot methanol price of $0.89 - 0.91/gal and the contract methanol price as $1.05 - 1.07/gal.
Here is a process in Iceland
http://www.mannvit.com/Industry/BiogasandBiofuel/MethanolfromCO2/
The proces will use geothermal energy,
and a good paper on the subject.
https://wiki.ornl.gov/sites/carboncapture/Shared%20Documents/Background%...
Geothermal energy... thats a real good example of the geologic, geographic luck of the draw. These places do tend to be seismically and volcanically active, and some are quite rugged, and more often than not are on some remote island near the arctic or antarctic circle. Icelandic folk are lucky folk and live in a beautiful place.
PDV
Sort of inspired me after jtf.
You know this might work, but it won't save humanity.
AS you say - the luck of the draw.