I was reading this month's Scientific American last night and came upon an article on ethanol. You can't read it without a subscription, so, sorry about that. Matthew Wald, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote it. Interestingly enough, not everyone at the NYT appears to have the same opinion on corn ethanol.
I was expecting the usual: inaccurate, incomplete, and pseudo-neutral. However, it turned out to be quite good. The article was long (which is a necessity with complicated topics), and the author made no pretense of neutrality.
Instead of charts or curves it used three-dimensional, life-like renderings that a kindergartener could understand to compare cellulosic and corn ethanol biorefineries -- which is why I learned a bunch from it. I thought I was nearing the top of the learning curve on this issue. For example, some research on cellulosic is using the microbes found in the guts of termites. Being symbiotic lifeforms that have co-evolved in the stomachs of termites for hundreds of millions of years, they are understandably having a hard time adjusting to giant stainless steel tanks. Other researchers are using a fungus found in jungle leaf litter. Jungles are full of undiscovered things. Too bad they will one day be converted into palm oil or sugarcane plantations.
The two refineries (corn and cellulosic) did not share the same equipment until about two thirds of the way along the process.
- Corn showed up at the refinery in railroad grain cars. Cellulose somehow arrived in huge bulky bails (how they got these bails there was not discussed or illustrated, which is just one of the issues yet to be dealt with).
- Next, the corn went to giant industrial-sized grinders powered by electricity to expose the starch. The cellulose went to a giant vegetable steamer powered by whatever to soften it up for the next process.
- The corn then moves on to a slurry tank, a jet cooker, and finally to a tank called a masher that extracts starch and sugar from it. The cellulose skips all that and goes straight to tank called a bioreactor, where enzymes break the cellulose down into starch or sugar.
- At this point you have sugar. From here on, the process for corn and cellulose is the same and can use the same equipment. The sugar is fed to microbes in a fermenter. Their metabolic waste product (they pee ethanol) is distilled out and shipped off in tanker trucks.
As you can see, switching these refineries over to cellulosic won't be cheap or easy. The argument that you must sit down, shut up, and pump ethanol if you ever want to see anything better is starting to sound like extortion. Corn ethanol is not blazing a path for cellulosic. Congress just last week voted to continue the subsidies and this is probably going to go on for several more decades. The author did an incredible job of ripping corn ethanol on several fronts that should be familiar to anyone following this technology and came to pretty much the same conclusion I have:
"Backers defend corn ethanol as a bridge technology to cellulose ethanol, but for the moment it is a bridge to nowhere."
Comments
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froggy Posted 12:04 pm
23 Dec 2006
i understand how inefficient corn (and cellulosic) ethanol is but because there is the infrastructure already inplace with corn, i can see how it is used as a feedstock for this emerging technology. as you pointed out, there is a vast amount of infrastructure in corn production and distribution and not so much in 'cellulose'. so if u are an investor, part of the formula for investing is stability in the market place. and corn is about as stable a crop as there is.
in my opinion, instead of beating up on ethanol, we should be beating up on black energy and the subsidies they get. if you can jack up the cost of black energy, then green energy starts smelling sweeter. and because corn ethanol is directly correlated to black energy, it will get shaken out of the mix of the marketplace and other 'greener' energy production techniques will take its place. the reason things are starting to move is because the cost of energy is starting to move. keep pushing that movement and u will necessarily create new technologies to exploit that higher cost.
here is one of the stat that one must always remember when talking about biomass to energy; there is 13mBTU's in an ave ton of biomass and a barrel of oil = 5.8milBTU and thus, 2.2barrels of oil worth of energy in each ton of biomass. at $40/ton for biomass = barrel of oil for $18. we need to keep our eye on the prize...
froggy
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Ron Steenblik Posted 11:29 pm
23 Dec 2006
Besides all the standard reasons against governments picking "winners" in evolving markets, there are indeed peculiarities about subsidized corn-based ethanol that make it suspect as a bridge to anything other than more corn-based ethanol. Because of the political and financial momentum behind corn, the main difference cellulosic technologies will make in the next decade is that, rather than use only the cob, ethanol producers will start using the whole plant.
The idealized vision at the other end of the bridge is of cellulosic ethanol based on extensively grown perrenial grasses. What we have at the moment is starch-based ethanol from intensively grown corn. Corn is a commodity that has long benefited from subsidies -- previously to the farmers, now to those who use it as feedstock for fuel. The infrastructure for ethanol is of comparatively little consequence. (See below.) What matters more is the expansion and entrenchment of the infrastructure for corn -- the seed, pesticide and fertilizer suppliers, the suppliers of planting and harvesting equipment, and so forth -- and the capitalization of subsidies into the value of Midwest farmland. With each dollar of production-related subsidy, the chasm between the present and the imagined switchgrass-based future yawns wider.
Part of the "bridge" argument used by some people is that subsidizing corn-based ethanol and infrastructure for E85 (an ethanol-gasoline blend containing up to 85% ethanol), and continuing to offer carmakers extra credit towards CAFE standards for manufacturing flex-fuel vehicles (whether the vehicles consume ethanol or not), helps pave the way for some future ethanol-based transport economy based on home-grown switchgrass and cellulosic waste. Using that logic, one could make a case that subsidies to gasoline (since gasoline will continue to be blended with ethanol for many years to come), or for spark-combustion engines (which are required for cars ro run on ethanol), would also help in the construction of a bridge to that same future. (I am not, of course, arguing for such subsidies.)
In any case, government policy is inconistent. The nation is still far from reaching the threshold of 10% ethanol in gasoline supplies. Almost all gasoline-powered cars in America can burn E10, without the need for massive new investments in dedicated infrastructure. But ethanol is expensive to transport, so its penetration has been greatest in the heartland. More ethanol would be used in coastal cities, where most of the country's fuel demand is concentrated, if people there had access to cheaper supplies from Bazil. Instead, Congress maintains a high tariff on imported ethanol (a tariff that it recently extended) and subsidizes infrastructure for little-used E85.
Wth large-scale cellolosic production still on a distant horizon, there is no need to accellerate the building of E85 infrastructure and the manufacture of flex-fuel vehicles through subsidies. To the extent there are any net air-quality and oil-displacement benefits from using ethanol, it matters not in what form it is consumed, but only the total volume used. If and when supplies start to come forth in such volume that normal cars can not absorb the increase, the market will respond.
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cowboyken Posted 11:31 pm
23 Dec 2006
The current state of ethanol production would be far further along if the United States had reacted in 1973 to the Arab Oil Embargo and if the oil companies had not spent the last twenty years trying to squash ethanol production.
We have a fledgling industry that is just now showing that it can produce billions of gallons of renewable energy from corn. The problem is that corn has been in abundance for livestock feed (becoming meat) and for human food as well as industrial products (corn syrup, etc.) Now there is a runup in corn prices of $1.71 per bushel (56 pounds) from last year. This makes the crop profitable but makes consumers question whether it's traditional uses will become more expensive.
In the coming year, we will know the answer as american farmers always rise to the challenge of overproducing any crop that is profitable. The expecation is that there will be 10-20% more corn acres in 2007 with a corresponding increase of production of 1.5 billion bushels. This will keep up with the demand from ethanol and allow other users to secure corn at a price similar to the current value of $3.75 per bushel. Already Iowa farmland values have risen 10% and there is an expectation that a similar rise will come next year. Farmers will not be much more profitable at higher priced corn than they were at lower prices plus government payments.
Try to find the bias behind anti-ethanol voices. Some are pro oil, some are fearful of change in food prices, others are sure that this will lead to degradation of the environment. Some are jealous of the prosperity that the bio-based economy is bringing to the "farming class".
It will be 7-10 years before cellulosic ethanol production will be able to match corn on a basis of $60 per barrel oil and $3.50 bushel corn.
If the equation changes, cellulosic ethanol may be competitive on a shorter time frame.
At the same time, wind energy and conversion of manure to methane have great promise. We may never need to totally replace oil with ethanol or bio-diesel (made from vegetable oil) if we find the means to drive our vehicles on electricity, hydrogen or methane.
Cowboy Ken
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:45 am
24 Dec 2006
Besides all the standard reasons against governments picking "winners" in evolving markets ...one could make a case that subsidies to gasoline ...or for spark-combustion engines (which are required for cars to run on ethanol), would also help in the construction of a bridge to that same future.
The future may very well use diesel engines, which can get much, much better gas mileage. Now that we have low sulfur diesel, those cars will be as clean as gasoline cars. Biodiesel may come from some future technology like algae, or even gasification of biomass. Diesel engines (non-spark combustion engines) will have to fight their way into the market against ethanol and conventional spark engines. This is why you don't want government trying to pick our winners. The government isn't smart enough to do that, no one is. Winners have to be discovered and proven by trial and error in a free market.
What matters more is the expansion and entrenchment of the infrastructure for corn -- the seed, pesticide and fertilizer suppliers, the suppliers of planting and harvesting equipment, and so forth -- and the capitalization of subsidies into the value of Midwest farmland. With each dollar of production-related subsidy, the chasm between the present and the imagined switchgrass-based future yawns wider.
Entrepreneurs struggling to bring cellulosic ethanol into the market will have to fight the corn industry. As I just demonstrated, a minimum of two thirds of the refinery infrastructure would have to come tumbling down to use cellulosic to make ethanol.
With large-scale cellulosic production still on a distant horizon, there is no need to accelerate the building of E85 infrastructure and the manufacture of flex-fuel vehicles through subsidies. To the extent there are any net air-quality and oil-displacement benefits from using ethanol, it matters not in what form it is consumed, but only the total volume used. If and when supplies start to come forth in such volume that normal cars can not absorb the increase, the market will respond.
Just beauty.
I have one quibble and that is the simple fact that if the tariff falls, so will rainforest carbon sinks to sugarcane plantations.
Froggy,
in my opinion, instead of beating up on ethanol, we should be beating up on black energy and the subsidies they get.
I'm game. So, why aren't we doing that instead of supporting biofuel subsidies? Essentially, rather than identifying those oil subsidies and eliminating them, we are trying to counter them (whatever and wherever they are) by subsidizing biofuels, creating a kind of escalating subsidy arms race.
Ever participate in a pyramid scheme? Those who start it or get in early, win, those who get in late, lose. This ethanol thing looks and smells like a pyramid scheme to me. The politicians are as usual, clueless, but the investors know a pyramid scheme when they see one and they know "first in first out" wins.
How many years have to go by before the politicians call it quits and pull the subsidies and drop the tariffs? What happens to all of the investors at that point if ethanol is still a dog?
Cowboy Ken,
The expecation is that there will be 10-20% more corn acres in 2007 with a corresponding increase of production of 1.5 billion bushels.
That's right. When you plant more corn, you either plant less of another food or convert marginally productive conservation reserve land carbon sinks into monocrops. You get more corn for ethanol, more runoff, more pesticides, more fertilizer, less food or less conservation carbon sink.
Try to find the bias behind anti-ethanol voices. Some are pro oil, some are fearful of change in food prices, others are sure that this will lead to degradation of the environment. Some are jealous of the prosperity that the bio-based economy is bringing to the "farming class".
That pro oil argument is history. Oil companies are some of the biggest investors in biofuels. Where there is money to be made, they will be there to make it. That "farming class" has become the biggest welfare group in America.
At the same time, wind energy and conversion of manure to methane have great promise. We may never need to totally replace oil with ethanol or bio-diesel (made from vegetable oil) if we find the means to drive our vehicles on electricity, hydrogen or methane.
I agree with your above concluding comment.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:13 am
24 Dec 2006
Jim over at "The Energy Blog" is already apologizing for yet another article on V2G.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/12/technol...
But this world shaking technology has barely been noticed by the media yet.
Good of you to explain cellulosic ethanol again too. Surprisingly the army sponsored research on those wasp stomach bacteria to produce ethanol from cellulose decades ago!
But of course even cellulosic ethanol from waste makes little sense given the sychronous efficiency of that same waste digested to produce biogas. And that biogas to fuel cell to solar collector algae/biodiesel. A complete cycle that, along with other renwewable energy sources, electric vehicles, and conservation, has the potential to solve all of our energy problems.
Powering gas guzzling as usual with fuel farming is even dangerous, as it diverts scarce resources from real solutions. And props up the incredibly inefficient (14%) internal combustion engine, which should have receded into antique auto show status years ago. Danger from oil wars (with nukes) and global climate disaster looms!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 2:23 am
24 Dec 2006
Yes it does. It makers it not only a poor choice and a boondoggle, but also dangerous as it diverts scarce resources and short mass (delusional) media attention span from real solutions.
Did you notice that both Gates and Branson were conned by ethanol interests into diverting billions that ought to have been used to boost the latest best batteries, fuel cells, and solar PV cells into mass production.
Just a few billion dollar orders would do it. Then the Gates and Branson foundations could donate thesde devices to worthy efforts, like the move to convert NYC taxi cabs to battery electric power.
Branson wants a better way to fuel his airliners. The obvious solution is solid oxide fuel cell/turbines for his planes and in the future batteries that approach the power to weight ratio of liquid fuel. The lquid fuel for his hybrid airliners provided by algae grown on waste in solar collectors.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:23 am
24 Dec 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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JMG Posted 1:20 am
28 Dec 2006
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:02 am
28 Dec 2006
I think it should have ended by stating that we should not support biofuels that replace food crops or rainforests and that we should invest in better ways and wait until we find them.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Gary Dikkers Posted 6:45 am
31 Dec 2006
"We have a fledgling industry that is just now showing that it can produce billions of gallons of renewable energy from corn."
Ken,
The real problem is that corn ethanol is not really a renewable fuel and that every gallon we make consumes resources we could be using for other, more important things.
Corn ethanol would not even be possible without natural gas and petroleum.
Today's industrial corn farmers must use synthetic nitrogen fertilizers to achieve their tremendous yields. Unfortunately, over 90% of that synthetic fertilizer is made form natural gas. Even worse, almost 60% of that fertilizer is imported form overseas after being made form foreign natural gas. Take away synthetic nitrogen fertilizer made from foreign natural gas and domestic corn production would be dead in the water. (Unless our Corn Belt farmers all want to become sustainable farmers in the Amish model. But of course if they do that, their yields will drop dramatically.)
Industrial corn farming also consumes massive amount of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, all made from hydrocarbon feedstock and applied with machinery that burns diesel fuel.
And then it takes even more fossil fuels to harvest and transport the corn to an ethanol plant, where they use even more fossil fuels to mill, ferment, and distill the corn into ethanol.
One of the biggest scams the corn ethanol lobby has played on the American taxpayer is to continually repeat the mantra that corn ethanol is a renewable fuel.
The truth is that corn ethanol is neither renewable nor green.
Best regards,
Gary Dikkers
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