May 25, 2007 4:35 AM PDT
Perspective: Waiting for energy tech's best and brightest
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Regular readers of this publication may have noticed that CNET News.com has included a lot more coverage of alternative-fuel technologies and new modes of personal transportation. That's been a no-brainer because this is the cutting edge. In the last year, the drive to reduce the nation's dependence on imported oil has become intertwined with our sense of national security.
These days Silicon Valley is awash with ideas--some loony, some very intriguing--about how to shape the future of motorized transport. And this isn't only a California craze. Venture capitalists all over the country are funding start-ups in hopes of finding the next big thing.
In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush set an annual production target of 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2017. Unfortunately, this is going to be a slow haul--the country's less than one-third of the way from realizing that objective--and there's a more immediate concern. With nary a murmur of protest in Congress, we've allowed a massive corporate welfare system to take hold that survives due to obscenely large public subsidies.
Corn subsidies are already almost $9 billion a year, and that doesn't count any of the goodies en route to the likes of Archer Daniels Midland, the nation's biggest producer of ethanol, thanks to energy legislation passed by Congress a couple of years ago. (Oh, and did I mention the U.S. slaps a ridiculous 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports in order to protect domestic producers?)
The corn ethanol industry is understandably following its own self-interest by trying to cash in on the biofuels mania. But it has to root for oil prices to remain high--if not climb higher. If demand eased and the price for a barrel of crude dropped another $30 or so, corn ethanol production would suddenly turn unprofitable. Agribusiness and farmers would then need even bigger government subsidies to survive or they'd go bust by the bushel.
I can't predict global crude trends, but as more corn gets earmarked for ethanol production, this much is clear: food supplies here and around the world will suffer. The U.S. produces 40 percent of the planet's corn. The production of ethanol from corn requires a lot more energy compared to the process based on cellulosic sources.
Here's the rub: if current demand for ethanol continues, then our own inventories of corn likely will fall to dangerously low levels. And with U.S. farmers devoting more acreage to corn at the expense of planting other crops, that's going to hit hard in the developing world.
In the current edition of Foreign Affairs, two economists from the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, document the damage caused by the growing use of staples like corn and oilseeds--and even cassava, a crucial food for poor Africans--in the production of ethanol. Runge and Senauer say the better choice would be the use of sugar cane rather than corn. Down the road, they urge more investment in solar and wind power and in finding ways to improve energy efficiency in vehicles, homes and factories.
I think they're right. But the political constellation of forces in this country would short-circuit any move to sugar-based ethanol before it got going. There's more hope for the future-ific alternatives they sketch out--but that's going to need a big helping hand from technology's best and brightest.
We may think Uncle Sam has a grip on what needs to get fixed. But as Americans point their cars for the four corners of the country this Memorial Day weekend, it's appropriate to ask whether we're still heading in the right direction.
Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.
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Regards.
Commander_Spock
As for the dependence on foreign oil, the easy solution is to build more nuclear power plants and permit drilling in the vast untapped oil reserves within the United States, but politicians continue to give in to the environmental extremists and refuse to allow either to happen.
The sustainable way to make fuel from plants (an indirect form of solar energy) is to use the parts of the plant that we can't. Companies like the Australian company MicroBioGen are making alcohol from lignocellulose using a specially developed strain of yeast.
Lignocellulose is all the un-digestible parts of plants that has no value as food and is normally thrown away.
This is the only sustainable approach to energy from plants.
Second: The cost of food in this country. In the developed world, Canada and the US spend the least amount percentage wise on food than most of the developed world. Why is that? Have you ever talked to a farmer about $1.50 per bushel corn, or $4 a bushel soy beans, or $9/cwt for dry beans? That's not sustainable for the farming community, as the price of fertilizers, pesticides, and deisel fuel that is all needed to support 300 million + people (with only 2% of the population being farmers). And then people gripe about subsidies paid out by the Federal Government to farmers. First, let's dispel another myth. Yes, large corporate farms do get SOME subsidies. But, the Farm Service Agency (which administers direct payments, counter cyclical payments, and one other) has this neat little tool called the Adjusted Gross Income. If you (or any of your members of your corporation) make more than $2 million in adjusted gross income, you're not eligible for ANY farm bill payments, including from FSA's sister agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service. I can't say anything about "indirect" subsidies, like mentioned in the article..but yes, there are tax breaks for doing things good, like reducing dependancy on foreign oil.
Third: The arguments constantly being thrown up about ethanol being a net less in energy. WRONG. Stop reading that 1992 study done by an EXTREMELY biased Cornell University Professor (which has been discredited MANY times over). Start reading Univ of N Dakota, Michigan State University, UC Davis, research. You will find those are much much more current, unbiased, and using the new ethanol technology. And holy crap, there's a net gain in energy! 1 barrel of oil used yields aprox 1.4 barrels of ethanol. This also figures in the use of the corn mash which is left over and subsequently fed to cattle.
Noone talks about soy diesel around here, and I wonder why.. Soy diesel is amazing. First, this has been confirmed on my own family farm (I am not a participant in the farm, but I do work within the agricultural industry with the US Government), and in many articles and trials of biodiesel. I don't hear people griping about OMG, they're using soybeans! Soy has a huge place in the food chain as well, anyone ever think of that? Anyway, soy diesel does quite a number of things. First, it reduces sulfer emissions substantially with only a 2% replacement of diesel. Now, start ramping that up.. at B10, diesel equipment has been found to have increases in horsepower. Not small, like 2 or 3 HP (on a 110 horse tractor, that's a significant increase). Put B10 into a diesel powered pickup, such as the F250, and you go from averaging 17 MPG to 21.. Humm, that's a great way to increase MPG without doing a whole lot.
Will ethanol ever replace fuel? No. It can't. If all the corn grain in the US was used strictly for Ethanol, it would displace ~5% of the gasoline consumption in the US. Can it be used as an additive? You bet, as it is in many states.
Celluosic ethanol has much more promise, as you can use plant fibers to break down into ethanol production. This can take marginal use land which has been out of production for a number of years, plant switch grass (a NATIVE grass to the united states), and harvest it. This has huge potential, and UNSD and Michigan State are both currently working on the research in this area. This can also take wood by products (like branches) that are left after a sustainable and selective cut (not clear cutting..that's horrific for the environment), and be used to produce ethanol. The nice thing with switchgrass is once it is established, it has very little in the way of inputs (mostly just some weed control in the first 3 years after planting).
Here is a link to many great articles from PUBLICLY HELD UNIVERSITIES and NATIONAL LABS about Ethanol: http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html
One closing comment..has anyone ever thought where the negativity about Ethanol stems from? Who has the most to lose by even seeing 2% of their record yearly profits go away? Big oil. Who has the massive amounts of funding to wage a false ad campaign against something they don't want? Big Oil.
By 2 cents.
Look at the price of petrol (that is what they call gasoline in Europe) in comparable terms - median price per country in April 2007:
(Source of data: http://www.aaroadwatch.ie/eupetrolprices/default.asp - I just recalculated it into $ per gallon from Euro per Liter, to make it recognisable):
Country Unleaded Diesel
Norway $7.57 $6.96
Netherlands $7.47 $5.49
Denmark $7.22 $6.15
GB $7.02 $7.22
Northern Ireland $6.96 $7.17
Belgium $6.91 $5.44
Sweden $6.76 $6.10
Germany $6.71 $5.74
Portugal $6.61 $5.29
Finland $6.56 $5.03
Italy $6.46 $6.00
France $6.46 $5.39
Slovakia $5.90 $5.85
Poland $5.90 $5.13
Hungary $5.90 $5.59
Luxembourg $5.74 $4.58
Ireland $5.64 $5.44
Austria $5.39 $4.93
Switzerland $5.39 $5.54
Czech Republic $5.34 $5.19
Spain $5.13 $4.73
Latvia $4.98 $4.73
Greece $4.88 $4.73
Lithuania $4.68 $4.42
Estonia $4.52 $4.42
USA $2.95 $2.95
Folks, we are not ripped off just yet, even in California! If you are not happy with American prices on gasoline, would you prefer living in Nigeria (approx. $0.40) or, even better, in Venezuela (approx. $0.15)?
Plasma Gasification is what it is! The supplies to make ethanol with it are not corn or straw grass or sugar cane. The supplies are wastes, which are not only delivered for gasification free of charge, the deliverer must pay a fee to have the wastes taken for gasification.
Plasma gasification pyrolizes the waste at temperatures hotter than the surface of the Sun, with very little oxygen introduced. The wastes are not burned as in an incinerator but are reduced to their basic elements. Carbon-based organics in wastes are reduced to fuel gas. Inorganics such as soil, gravel, rock, cement, asbestos, and metals are reduced to a glassy slag. Plasma gasification leaves nothing to be buried.
The gas can be burned in a turbine to generate electricity or it can be synthesized into ethanol.
The slag can be separated into glassy pellets and recyclable metals. The pellets can be used as aggregate in cement.
Plasma Gasification facilities could be located at landfills to both take new wastes and reduce old wastes to valuable products. Located at landfills, the plasma gasification facilities could turn methane engendered by decaying wastes into carbon dioxide. Why? Methane is twenty-three times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Why don't we use what we have to do the work that needs to be done? The Waste Management Industry in the U.S. doesn't want it done because it would cut their profits from the status quo. The U.S. Congess and Administration would rather support the status quo than effectively address the real problems we face as a nation.
The other big problem of course is what to do with all those left-over wastes.
Still another problem is how to secure nuclear power plants against terrorist attacks.
The nation put its faith in a Vice President that felt all we had to do was "open the spigot.? Now it time for all to understand that the solution is to change to conservation to drive down demand and starve the enemy of our energy money. You IT types need to read the paper and let the Mechanical Engineers do the driving.
- ethanol=mining top soil
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by wylbur
June 14, 2007 11:21 AM PDT
- unfortunately, no matter how you make ethanol (or non-recycled
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See all 36 Comments >>biodiesel) you are effectively mining top soil. This is especially
true of cellulosic ethanol that would leave no compost to return
to the soil. I once saw an estimate that if we rely on biofeuls, the
US supply of top soil will be exhausted in about 100 years. No
feul, no food.
[Yes, you could use fertilizer, but with plans to turn almost every
form of plant and poop of every animal into energy, the only
source left for fertilizer will be petroleum products].