Even as organizations ranging from Consumers Union to the Cato Institute cast doubt on the environmental value of corn-based ethanol, facilities designed to make it are popping up by the dozen throughout the Midwest. Meanwhile, cellulosic ethanol -- which can be derived from just about any plant matter -- draws near-unanimous environmental raves. Trouble is, the technology required for producing it economically still hasn't quite emerged. Thus, like the kid in the back seat on a long family car trip, investors and other interested observers have for years been demanding to know, "When are we gonna get there?" Over and over again, the response has been, "In a while."
Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Photo: iStockphoto
Over the past year, however, things have started coming into sharper focus. In early July, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman announced a plan for making ethanol cost-competitive at $1.07 per gallon by 2012 and displacing 30 percent (60 billion gallons) of annual U.S. gasoline use by 2030. Currently, U.S. drivers use 140 billion gallons of transportation fuel a year, of which 3 percent (4.5 billion gallons) is corn-based ethanol.
Can the United States produce enough plant matter to make this much biofuel? A 2005 study [PDF] by the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture, nicknamed the "Billion-Ton Study" -- referring to energy feedstocks, not the size of the report -- says that with the right policies we could generate more than 1.3 billion tons of biomass a year by mid-century, when large-scale bioenergy plants are likely to be in operation.
That's seven times more than today's output, with about one-fourth coming from sustainably produced forestry products like fuel wood, logging residues, and wood-pulping waste. The rest would come from agricultural products, but corn plays a lightweight role in this scenario: Grain represents only about 6 percent of total inputs, dwarfed by crop residues and perennial crops like switchgrass and fast-growing trees.
Production costs are the main drag on cellulosic ethanol today. DOE estimates that it costs about $2.20 per gallon to produce cellulosic ethanol, twice the cost of ethanol from corn. Cellulosic plants yield less ethanol than corn per ton of feedstock, and enzymes that break down cellulosic plant tissue cost 30 to 50 cents per gallon of ethanol compared to 3 cents per gallon for corn. To commercialize the industry by 2012, production methods and materials need to become better, faster, and cheaper.
Learning from Termites
The biggest technical hurdle in making cellulosic ethanol is what researchers call "recalcitrance" -- the tough, woody fuel sources aren't broken down as easily as the simple sugars in corn. There are three basic steps to cellulosic ethanol production: pretreating the material to break cellular bonds, converting cellulose to sugars, and fermenting the sugars into ethanol. The challenge is to do this as efficiently as termites, which turn wood pulp into lunch with help from some 200 species of microbes living in their guts.
DOE is investing $250 million to set up two new Bioenergy Research Centers that will apply biotechnology to producing cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. Biotech can torque up the process in two ways: by engineering microbes that excel at breaking down plant fiber, and by optimizing plants for use as energy crops. Just as agricultural scientists have engineered corn, wheat, and other commodities to maximize food production for 50 years, energy researchers aim to develop biofuel feedstocks that have high yields, don't require high amounts of inputs like water and fertilizer for growth, can be raised sustainably, and are relatively easy to process into fuel.
In a step toward this goal last September, an international research team that included DOE scientists published the complete DNA sequence of the black cottonwood tree, a member of the poplar family. The black cottonwood is only the third plant and first tree to have its DNA sequenced. By analyzing the genetic makeup of fast-growing plants like poplars, DOE aims to develop energy crops that can be adapted for different climate and soil conditions across the nation.
This approach could draw states outside of the Midwest into the biofuels game. For example, New York is working to commercialize willow trees for biomass energy, with support from DOE and USDA. According to DOE researchers, energy crops like poplar, willows, silver maples, and switchgrass could be grown for energy use over most of the nation.
Promoting diverse bioenergy crops across the nation would dilute the political clout of corn and soybean interests that dominate biofuel discussions today, and broaden support in Congress beyond the Midwest. And if USDA and DOE are correct and cellulosic ethanol can soon be produced for just a dollar per gallon, the price tag will give service-station owners incentive to install pumps and tanks for E85 -- a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.
The ability to offer locally produced fuel would provide further cachet to station owners. Currently, there are fewer than 1,000 E85 stations in the nation, mostly in the upper Midwest, so few drivers have reason to buy flex-fuel cars and trucks -- or opportunity to fill them with ethanol. In short, growing new energy crops could turn ethanol from a regional into a national fuel.
(Don't) Subsidize This
Both corn and cellulosic ethanol got major boosts from the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which required fuel suppliers to use 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012, with each gallon of cellulosic ethanol counting as 2.5 gallons toward the standard. In 2013, the 2.5-to-1 ratio ends, but by then, refiners will be required to use 250 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually.
The Energy Act also authorized more than $4.2 billion in grants, loan guarantees, and production incentives for cellulosic ethanol over the next decade. "The numbers are reasonable, but our spending on biofuel programs so far falls short of the rhetorical passion and imagination that we've seen," says Jason Grumet, executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy. "What's been appropriated is probably adequate to support one or two facilities, but banks will probably want to see more than one or two cellulosic ethanol plants before they start funding them, so we're not on the large-scale-growth path yet."
Many observers argue that cellulosic ethanol would be more competitive in the long term if producers avoided relying on state and federal subsidies to expand the industry. In this view, with fossil-fuel prices on the rise and the ecological cost of relying on them becoming ever more obvious, an efficient fuel source like cellulosic ethanol can survive -- even thrive -- without a nudge from the government. Relying on subsidies only opens the industry to charges of political cronyism -- and makes investors nervous that the governmental goodies won't survive the next big vote.
For now, however, subsidies aren't going away. In fact, they're increasing. A recent report [PDF] from the International Institute for Sustainable Development estimated that biofuels receive $5.5 billion to $7.3 billion in subsidies every year, and that this support will rise as high as $11 billion per year by 2012. Most of these subsidies are linked to output, not to market demand. But even Energy Secretary Bodman acknowledges that ethanol may not need its current 51 cents per gallon tax credit extended after it expires in 2010, although he says it will probably need some federal support to attract long-term investment.
In the Meantime
Even though cellulosic ethanol still leans on government support, private investors are showing increasing confidence in it. Venture capitalists like Richard Branson, Vinod Khosla, and Bill Gates are touting it as the next killer app, and Fortune 500 companies are getting into the game. For example, DuPont is working with DOE to make ethanol out of corn stover (leaves and stalks), and Chevron recently announced joint cellulosic ethanol fuel ventures with DOE and the University of California at Davis.
"We don't view biofuels as competitors to oil and gas. We view them as part of what the world has to do to diversify the fuel supply," Chevron vice president Don Paul said at a DOE/USDA renewable-energy conference in October. "Somewhere out there in 2025 or 2030, we're going to need every molecule we can get."
Paul projected that, within five years, large-scale cellulosic ethanol demonstration plants will be operating and farmers will be planting new energy crops. Just this month Broin Companies, the biggest dry-mill ethanol producer in the U.S., announced plans to convert a 50-million-gallon-per-year corn ethanol factory in Emmetsburg, Iowa, to a 125-million-gallon-per-year bio-refinery that will make cellulosic ethanol from corn fiber and stover. Broin has applied for matching funds from DOE and aims to complete the project by 2009.
Cellulosic ethanol's environmental benefits may give it a boost in the marketplace. At that same conference, Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) Vice President Mike Walsh estimated that farmers who grow corn for ethanol could soon earn carbon reduction credits of 3 to 20 cents per gallon at CCX. Several state farm bureaus already earn and trade credits at the exchange for soil carbon management activities. The exchange hasn't determined how to quantify greenhouse-gas benefits from ethanol, but it's safe to predict that if corn ethanol is worth anything in carbon markets, cellulosic ethanol will be worth more, since corn is more carbon-intensive to grow than other potential energy crops.
It will be hard for cellulosic ethanol advocates to resist lining up for subsidies when work on a new farm bill starts next year. With a Democratic Congress in place, the 2007 farm bill will be a prime vehicle for renewable-energy initiatives. Congress will be looking at how to manage farmlands currently set aside for conservation, especially with ethanol investments driving up demand for corn. And farmers may not have reason to shift from corn or soybeans to energy crops like poplars or switchgrass unless Congress realigns existing subsidies.
Khosla and others have suggested indexing ethanol subsidies to the price of oil, so that biofuels would get less government support when oil prices are high and more when gasoline prices drop. Moving in this direction would signal that biofuels are ready to compete on their own strengths. And, says Grumet, Congress should stop directing biofuel funding to pet projects: "Half the federal support that's been appropriated has been earmarked, and it's hard to develop a coherent program without some central coordination. We need some deference to the scientific process."
In other words, if we shut up and let the researchers drive, we may get there in five years.
Comments
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Erik Hoffner Posted 4:54 am
11 Dec 2006
Great point about who benefits from the building of a biorefinery.
Coop Power, a consumer owned renewable energy coop, which was profiled on Grist the other day (Small Potatoes) is operating on a model that will benefit the little city of Greenfield its (soon to launch) biodiesel refinery is in, directly, with good manufacturing jobs for folks from all walks. It will also produce a premium product from a waste stream that will generate a lot of sales locally to benefit the local economy. Coop Power's model is replicable elsewhere and is a way that we can all harness our collective buying power as consumers to root capital for renewable energy in our home places. More here: http://cooppower.coop
Erik Hoffner
Board member,
Coop Power
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:25 am
11 Dec 2006
There's only one solution: Global Warming. Hopefully the Earth will have heated up enough by 2030 that we won't have to burn up as much oil to heat ourselves. Also, cars will run more efficiently.
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millercs Posted 2:45 pm
11 Dec 2006
Problem is that the plan cannot be deployed until regulatory control and permitting rules are changed in Sacramento. This plan, which would expand recycling and divert huge amounts of unrecyclable material waste toward the clean production of biofuels and electricity, has been blocked by Californians Against Waste (CAW) - the entrenched recycling establishment of California. They have no earthly reason to obstruct positive programs like RENEW L.A.
Anyone who can help convince CAW to support the regulatory changes that need to be made will be helping L.A. achieve some environmental justice - along with cleaner air, less dependence on landfills, green electricity generation, and production of biofuels.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:33 pm
11 Dec 2006
Don't buy it. If government support for corn ethanol stopped today, corn ethanol production would stop. Research into cellulosic would continue and could even be funded like a Manhattan project, at a fraction of the cost of today's subsidies. If research finally finds the magic bullets to make cellulosic economically viable, the infrastructure to make and distribute it would pop up and be in place in just a few years. We don't need to build an infrastructure in anticipation of cellulosic becoming economically viable.
Khosla is preaching to the choir here about cellulosic ethanol. It beats hell out of corn. But even it has drawbacks. He starts by telling us we should put the 40 million acres of wildlife habitat and carbons sinks of the conservation reserve program back into production. Add to that, the 80 million acres of corn exported. Never mind that food production has to increase 50% in the next 50 years to feed the world's 50% increase in population. If we stop feeding the world's hungry, and instead feed our cars, new ecosystems must fall to plant crops to take over for the shortfall in world food supply--simple math.
You see these people make protests about corn ethanol. To me, those are people with an agenda...
Damn. He stopped short of saying what that agenda is, or who those people are (environmentalists). Saving the planet would be my guess. Makes me wonder what his agenda is?
...because nobody in their right mind is proposing we get all our ethanol from corn.
True, so lets just chalk that statement up as one of those worthless strawman arguments.
First and foremost, I'm suggesting we reduce subsidies on ethanol and make them countercyclical.
That is not a reduction in subsidies. It simply makes the subsidy an inverse percentage of the price of oil. It would greatly increase subsidies when the price of oil drops.
You have to think about the way the investment world works: Corn ethanol is establishing that there's a market for ethanol.
It does not take a rocket scientist to understand how markets work. The only market for ethanol is the one forced onto consumers by government mandates. Drop the mandates and subsidies and the market would vanish in about a day, along with the investors skimming profit from those tax dollars. Not many people will deliberately pay more for a fuel that gets 30% worse gas mileage. I'm guessing he has been too busy to read this article from Consumer Reports.
Nobody's going to take the risk of cellulosic and other investments if the market doesn't exist
If that is his way of saying that power brokers won't invest in a dog like corn ethanol unless the government covers their profit margin, well, yes, that's true. And, other than the Canadians, very few are investing in cellulosic except for research.
So, practically speaking, we could have a seamless transition from a corn-ethanol system to a cellulosic ethanol system?
"In cars, absolutely. In infrastructure, absolutely. The production is different but the use is not".
Now there's a confusing statement. It is rather obvious that flex fuel cars and ethanol gas pumps are two parts of the infrastructure that can use ethanol, regardless of how it is made. America's new car fleet could be made flex fuel in one year should the need arrive, at negligible costs. Hungry businessmen looking for profit could also put ethanol compatible pumps in place in very short order if so motivated by demand for the fuel. There is no need to grease the skids for a technology like cellulosic before it arrives (assuming it ever does).
The production part of the infrastructure is different at the front end, similar at the back. How seamless these big ticket items will transition won't be known until the engineers finish the task of determining whether or not it will be cheaper to convert an existing corn ethanol plant into a cellulosic one, or starting over. Dumping the existing infrastructure will not be cheap and somebody will not be happy, all assuming cellulosic has enough technological breakthroughs to finally become economically viable.
So it's really a question of price, not a question of can we do it.
Talk about your Darwinian IQ test. I mean, give me a break (to borrow a couple of phrases).
I read a report from the [Government Accountability Office] that official direct subsidies to oil are over $140 billion. That's not a free market. The best thing for ethanol would be to allow it to compete in a real free market.
I find it interesting that power brokers are supposedly lobbying our government to subsidize oil, while other power brokers are lobbying it to support alcohol. If this 140 billion-dollar annual subsidy is real, then by eliminating it, ethanol should be able to stand on its own without subsidy. Am I the only one who sees the absurdity of having the government subsidizing forms of competing energy? Maybe the answer is to convince our government to stop listening to what power brokers tell it to subsidize?
I've been a lifelong registered Republican. I'm a free-market person.
I've been a lifelong registered Democrat. I'm also a free-market person, who does not support government subsidies (contracyclical or otherwise).
And we have to include in the price of oil the hidden costs -- the environmental and military costs.
Ironic statement coming from a supporter of the dimwit who got us into this God-awful war with erroneous data (essentially by accident), and then managed to convince most Americans that it had something to do with the terrorists who took down the twin towers. Me, I don't trust Bush, and by association, power brokers who support him.
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jimbeyer Posted 12:14 am
12 Dec 2006
Ethanol (cellulosic or otherwise) is the new fuel hoax to replace the finally discredited hydrogen economy. Why? OK, here are 4 good reasons:
PHEVs (Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles) will probably work, and when they do, they will need less fuel, so the fuel choice, ethanol or otherwise, will be much less important. (i.e., with a PHEV, you won't care that gasoline is $6.00 a gallon).
With a given amount of biomass, one can obtain about twice the energy content of methane than one can of ethanol. (This is what landfills do, and much less expensively to boot.) One might comment that a gaseous fuel is less practical than liquid ethanol, but at less than half the cost, we endure a little impracticality. More seriously, there isn't enough biomass around to waste half of the energy content making ethanol.
Vinod has commented that Brazil has used ethanol to become independent of oil. This is a totally impractical comparision. Brazil has much more available land to devote to ethanol (probably not sustainably), a tropical climate (we have winters) and a much smaller fuel use per capita. We can NEVER grow our way out of oil dependency the way Brazil has.
The is no infrastructure in place to deliver E-85! If you are thinking of our gas stations, think again. The pump fittings need to be changed to accommodate high percentage ethanol fuels, plus, the vertically integrated oil companies aren't keen on selling anything that is not their product.
If Vinod has this much money to throw (i.e. waste) on ethanol, he should instead throw it at struggling inventors that are finding real solutions to our problems. I know a lot of them, and they all are more realistic at actually accomplishing something than this guy.
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atreyger Posted 1:20 am
12 Dec 2006
Brazil is slightly smaller than US, they have approximately 6.9% arable land, while the US has 18% arable land (remember we are still larger) (cia.gov). Brazil is a tropical country with a longer growing season but lower amounts of light during the growing season (mostly 1:1 ratio). That is, plant respiration during the night cancels out photosynthetic gains during the day much quicker than it does up here, where the ratio can climb to 2:1.
The soils in Brazil are generally much lower in quality due to their very old age. US has a mixture of soil types, some bad, but mostly good. It has been frequently shown that agricultural productivity in the tropics is lower than in temperate zones, and while many people like to contribute it to laziness or lack of technological advances of tropical workers, in reality it's the soils and the climate that is not as conducive to agricultural production. Forest productivity in the tropics is higher due to long periods of evolution and very tight niche differentiation allowing for both intense competition and filling of ecological space. That does not apply to agriculture except for small scale slash and burns.
The only difference is that there are 190 million Brazilians, with much less per capita usage of energy. If we implemented major conservation and planning measures, did not drive everywhere, and used efficient biofuels such as willows, grasses, algae, and utilized 'waste' methane, we actually might be able to grow ourselves out of the petro age, while creating a more carbon-neutral economy. However, we also should develop every other possible means of alternative energy supply, such as wind, geothermal, tidal, hydroturbines (not dams) and whatever else we can imagine, since Americans will never bite the bullet unless forced to.
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GRLCowan Posted 4:27 am
12 Dec 2006
Engineer-Poet did, on "The Oil Drum" a while back, explain why Khosla is at best an idiot.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion with nuclear cachet
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:12 pm
12 Dec 2006
This post by Julia Armstead tells us about how the president of Ugunda is razing rain forests to grow palm oil and sugarcane. The price of cane being driven up by ethanol production.
Destroying rain forest carbon sinks to grow food for your people is forgivable, destroying them to feed the forests to our cars is not.
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AAMiller Posted 11:27 am
20 Feb 2007
http://www.novozymes.com/NR/rdonlyres/A0E8CDF5-DC67-42E7- ...
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kgpc Posted 7:51 pm
30 May 2007
http://www.ethanol-news.de
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Hodbrid Posted 7:08 pm
06 Sep 2007
So,anyway, just a reminder, your vehicle's catalytic converter plays an essential role in reducing harmful emissions. When your catalytic converter is working properly it successfully changes auto emissions into harmless water vapor. When your catalytic converter is malfunctioning, the pollutants leaving your vehicle can exacerbate local pollution levels.There are four ways for you to determine whether your catalytic converter needs replacing or not:1.Busted or rusted out converter body or end tubes.2.Small pieces of substrate in other areas of the exhaust system.3.No rattle in a pellitized converter (If the converter does not rattle, the pellets may have melted together or fallen out).4.A rattle in a monolithic converter (A rattle in this kind of converter indicates the substrate has separated.)If you are unable to determine failure your state, provincial, or local vehicle inspection program will reveal that to you the next time your car comes up for inspection. If your car fails its inspection, you will have to replace your catalytic converter before you car can be passed.Replacement of your catalytic converter is a procedure that can be done by professionals such as through your dealer's service department, through a muffler shop, or by a local garage. If you are handy, you can do the work yourself and save money on parts as well as on labor costs.Only purchase a catalytic converter that meets or exceeds your vehicle.I have here my catalytic converter and Dodge fuel door, and I am well satisfied with it...Again, driving without a catalytic converter is illegal and the potential harm you create to the atmosphere simply isn't worth it
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Hodbrid Posted 9:13 pm
31 Jan 2008
I am doing some research about different types of candle holders until these things comes to my mind... It is not a homework... Just research on how biofuels will be beneficial for us in the years coming.. I know about the environment and how it will reduce CO2 emissions but thats all I got... I'm very interested in this research... Please help guys!
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