The so-called Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 lays out ambitious targets for production of cellulosic ethanol: a gradual increase to 16 billion gallons per year by 2022.
Rounding off to the nearest 10 million, producers are churning out approximately zero gallons of the stuff today. That had better change quickly. By 2010, the act mandates that 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol be mixed into the car-fuel supply, rising to 250 million gallons by 2011.
Not going to happen, says a report by the investment firm ThinkEquity. According to an account of the report on Greentech Media, ThinkQuity reckons cellulosic producers only have capacity to produce 28.5 million gallons by 2010. (Weirdly, gas retailers, not ethanol producers, will be penalized for each gallon that falls short—$2.00 per gallon at today’s gas prices, Greentech Media reports.)
Overall, despite years of grants, tax breaks, and other goodies, the cellulosic ethanol industry remains mostly spectral. Here is Greentech Media:
The cellulosic industry as a whole is still largely in the prototype
phase, [the ThinkEquity] report notes. The report estimates that the cellulosic industry as a whole will only have 6.3 million gallons worth
of manufacturing capacity by the end of this year, and the estimate
includes a 3 million gallon plant being planned by garbage-to-ethanol
startup Blue Fire Ethanol. [emphasis added.]
Somehow, I doubt that a facility that isn’t built yet will manage to crank out 3 million gallons of firewater before the year ends in less than two weeks.
Adding to the gloom, the ethanol industry’s trade group, the Renewable Fuels Association, has gone hat in hand to the incoming Obama administration look for a ... bailout.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the RFA wants a $1 billion short-term credit facility to keep afloat producers currently struggling for survival. Moreover, apparently I’m not the only one wondering who’s going to fund the massive buildout that would be required to meet the Energy Act’s lofty goals. The Journal reports that the RFA wants a “$50 billion federal loan guarantee program to finance investment in new renewable fuel production capacity and supporting infrastructure.”
That’s not all. The lobbying group requests that any automaker receiving federal aid should be forced to make its entire new fleet “E85”-ready, meaning able to run on a mix that’s 85 percent ethanol.
These pleas come from an industry that already receives [PDF] between $9 billion and $11 billion per year in federal support.
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Comments
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:33 am
19 Dec 2008
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David Roberts Posted 7:02 am
19 Dec 2008
grist.org
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Billhook Posted 9:01 am
19 Dec 2008
That resource could be multiplied in scale worldwide by orders of magnitude, if there were a sufficient incentive for doing so, without significantly reducing the farmed land area.
The production of liquid fuel from the annual coppice harvest can (and should) yield surplus carbon in the form of charcoal for use in raising soil fertility while also achieving self-funding CCS on a massive scale.
The pyrolysis of wood that allows this diversion of surplus carbon yields the liquid fuel called Methanol (originally called Wood Alcohol).
The best yield to date is from EU funded catalyst research giving 65% by weight, being 650kgs of Methanol per tonne of dry wood, which equals about 120 gls of petrol-equivalent. (Methanol is less energy dense than petrol).
The smallest process tech I've heard of is Washington State Uni's truck-mounted prototype mobile unit for working within the forest.
Methanol's compatibility with IC engines, turbines, and fuel cells is a matter of record, but its potential as a low-temp low-pressure store of hydrogen from surplus renewable electricity is still unrecognized.
Its potential to justify worldwide 'Hansenian Reforestation' with entrained CCS, makes it unique among energy options.
Crucially, it does not rely on the farce of the illusory displacement of fossil fuel by renewable fuel to yield its benign effects.
Yet as long as the CE lobby is allowed to maintain its hype & its subsidy-sucking charade, the Coppice Methanol option seems likely to be ignored, to our immense loss.
Regards,
Billhook
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RDMiller Posted 10:05 pm
19 Dec 2008
I've got to seriously consider if it's worth any of my time posting here as well.
Richard
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Billhook Posted 10:50 pm
19 Dec 2008
perhaps it needs explaining to you that your gratuitous rudeness to Bart, Tom and others who don't share your views, is no substitute for a reasoned refutation of concerns:
on the contrary it merely demonstrates the weakness of your case for all to see.
So could we please have a date by which you will have considered your position here ?
Or will that too become a moveable feast, just like the delivery date for even a remotely significant output of cellulosic ethanol ?
Given that in many posts you've plainly been unable to answer courteously presented questions about CE,
surely there isn't that much to consider ?
Wouldn't your time be better spent where people don't ask questions ?
Regards,
Billhook
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:18 am
20 Dec 2008
The funny (ha-ha) thing about Richard, Billhook, is that he's very much a booster of converting wood to ethanol. That was a wonderful exposition on methanol, very interesting. Any links?
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RDMiller Posted 3:15 am
20 Dec 2008
The issue has nothing to do with people who have different views. I am always interested in hearing other viewpoints. The issue has everything to with people who don't know the difference between a biased opinion and a factual, or at least, unbiased report. If Grist is simply about people having built in biases and spewing beliefs, and not about factual reporting, few serious people will spend any time here. Hence, the answer as to why few (like Khosla) do.
This planet is in the trouble it is in primarily because people who end up in power can't tell the difference between their own personal agendas and what it means to serve the greater good. Sounds like you haven't noticed this.
Personally, I've had enough of that pattern, and my hopes were high it wouldn't show up as much here. Stupid me. David R. was right. This is just another place on the Internet where people preach beliefs, claiming it's something else. That's unfortunate, because there really is a lot at stake.
Given what's transpired here, I'll withdraw from posting on cellulosic ethanol. I don't need the frustration.
And for the last time... I do NOT have a bias in favor of CE. I'm not at all certain it's the most sensible way to go. I DO have a bias towards creating healthy forests and using wood harvested sustainably. But if the writing on the wall tells me CE is coming and will impact forests in a big way, I'd prefer to do what I can to create a favorable outcome... rather than standing on the sidelines making believe it isn't happening or shouldn't be happening. That's just be irresponsible.
Richard
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amazingdrx Posted 4:13 am
20 Dec 2008
That makes the cellulose harvested carbon neutral.
I would prefer that forests be left in as natural a state as possible, while at the same time using management, such as recycling waste wood and biomass dying from climate change related drought, to produce carbon offsetting energy and organic fertilizer.
I would also prefer the usable lumber and fiber be used first, with selective cutting, so the trees about to die are harvested when they are still sound, then the rest of the wood be turned into energy.
I think the push to turn trees into gas guzzler fuel creates the wrong incentives, encouraging "unsustainable" forestry.
I do not think it will be done in a carbon neutral way. It will hurt biodiversity, tending to turn natural forests into tree farms degree by degree.
The big mistake in R's argument is here:
"...if the writing on the wall tells me CE is coming and will impact forests in a big way, I'd prefer to do what I can to create a favorable outcome..."
It assumes tree to fuel will be done, and uses it as an argument in favor of tree to fuel. It's a kind of dialectical toggle switch built into his rhetoric.
If one points out a flaw with a certain tree to fuel pathway, like the inefficiency involved, then he will back down on that particular technology.
Toggle to the anti-CE.
Claiming he is only for better schemes that aren't as inefficient. Toggle to the pro-CE.
Pretty soon the cycle works back around to where he is estimating that 100% tree farming could replace all oil use.
The cycling gets no one anywhere new, just back over old ground, over and over again.
It all comes down to wether forests have value in and of themselves, or only have commercial value. I come down on the side of intrinsic value with humans benefitting commercially in a very careful way.
Depending on when you catch Richard, he is somewhere on the cycle. Pedaling the miracle of carbon neutral biomass energy.
I have my own view of carbon offsetting biomass energy, biodigestion of waste stream energy resources, including waste wood at risk of forest fire hazard. And production of organic fertilizer to eliminate the nitrous oxide and methane emission from chemical fertilizer.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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RDMiller Posted 5:28 am
20 Dec 2008
Richard
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:00 am
20 Dec 2008
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Bob Wallace Posted 10:05 am
20 Dec 2008
Seems like you do more comebacks per performance than did James Brown.
--
How about dropping the drama?
Please.
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RDMiller Posted 11:21 am
20 Dec 2008
I was just wondering if there is anything you don't know. People who talk a lot usually think they know far more than they actually do.
How about a little humility. Please.
Richard
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Bob Wallace Posted 11:29 am
20 Dec 2008
I value forums such as this because I get to participate in discussions with others, listen to their points, try out my ideas, get feedback.
I find myself not learning from those who try to convince via tantrum. That sort of behavior tends to make me disregard their input.
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RDMiller Posted 11:55 am
20 Dec 2008
I have a simple solution for dialogue between us. Please disregard whatever I say. Ignore me, please. Not that I'll be posting much or visiting Grist.
That's not a tantrum, Bob. It's discretion.
Richard
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:47 pm
20 Dec 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 2:47 pm
20 Dec 2008
I still think your original point is valid, the surplus forest production would be carbon neutral.
How you get the surplus is problematic. it's a values question at that point. How far towards tree farming do we go to make the surplus? Trees planted in rows, monocropping, GMO tree plantations?
And how it is cut, transported, and converted to fuel, that process isn't carbon neutral. If it is 2% efficient by the time the CE burning car's rubber meets the road? Is it worth the tree farming?
But arguing that since it will be done anyway, it really ought to be done. That's a circular argument.
I think using waste wood in biodigestion is better than carbon neutral, it actually offsets GHG.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:46 pm
20 Dec 2008
Anyway, wood waste from the mills gets burned in a couple of electricity producing plants. But the branches, etc. are left in the forests where they are largely piled up and burned once the fall rains start.
There doesn't seem to be enough energy value in the slash (the leftovers) to pay for hauling them to make electricity. That might hold for making CE as well.
I really wonder if transportation costs won't knock CE out of the picture unless we come up with a 'short haul' method.
As an aside, I worry about pulling all that vegetation off the mountain sides. From a little that I've heard, growth is dropping with successive replantings. The soil is losing fertility probably due both to erosion and removal/burning rather than allowing trees to die, fall, and rot.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:18 pm
20 Dec 2008
Leaving the slash or burning it adds to forest fires and GHG. You wouldn't want to haul it far, chips could go into the nearest farm biodigestor.
I hear you on logging hills and depleting soil. Some of the organic fertilizer produced by biodigestion should be added back into forest soil to help seedlings.
Limiting cellulose collection to stopping forest fires from turning into firestorms would be a good line in the woods for us preservationists. there are huge drought killed, insect infested forests out there, a new CCC should be working on recycling already.
Those layed off loggers and sawmill workers could support their families and save their homes with jobs like this. A new new deal would be a good stopgap measure until green manufacturing saves our economy and climate.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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sterling925 Posted 2:47 am
21 Dec 2008
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