Commercial Biorefinery Update

biomass magazine ^ | May 2008 | By Ron Kotrba

[Kevin J waldroup]

The clock is ticking on public acceptance of ethanol as the United States’ corn-based industry is under relentless attack. With cellulosic conversion technologies as the ostensible lone saving grace for ethanol, Biomass Magazine takes a look at what fruits the first-quarter ‘08 produced.

[Cicero]

I doubt whether cellulosic conversion makes much sense. I suspect you would get a better return on woodchips or particles and a wood burning furnace. This wouldn’t fly everywhere, of course, but if people in the country or near the woods use it, it would reduce oil and natural gas consumption and make more available for others.

It doesn’t make sense to me to harvest trees just for this purpose, but to use the branches and scaps after harvesting for lumber and firewood.

The guy who brushhogs our pasture is also experimenting with pelletized fuel. This should not be subsidized, but simply utilized by private parties. The same with biodiesel made from used french-fry fat, which uses waste, rather than biodiesel from cropland that could otherwise be put to better use.

In other words, this stuff, to be practical, needs to stay on the margins. The only big-time solution for the long run is nuclear power, after removing Jimmy Carter’s stupid regulations on waste disposal, which helped kill the industry.

[golfisnr1]

The person that can comvert Kudzu will make a mint.

[Cicero]

You may be on to something there.

[SERKIT]

My Energy Manifesto:

* Cease all ethanol production. It requires more energy to make than it yields and the unintended consequence is higher food costs. Corn production shifted from feed-corn to subsidized corn for ethanol. Just say "no" to ethanol!

* Immediately create only ONE "blend" of gasoline and cease regional "boutique" blends which are stupid, costly, and meaningless. Even if this is the "cleanest" blend, just make it ONE and be done with it. Trucking custom blends around the country is wasteful.

* Lift the restrictions in order to drill for oil in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico, and other sites in the CONUS as a matter of national security.

* Encourage the petro industry to construct state-of-the-art refineries and/or retrofit current and dormant ones and crank up production for our newly-found oil in the CONUS.

* Make all “carbon credit” scams unlawful. Discrediting Algore should have been a slam-dunk a long time ago. Stop electing Reps who buy into the Global Warming Hoax.

* Construct SEVERAL, regional Pebble-Bed Reactors (or other similar modern designs) that are not considered "breeders", are rechargeable, and cleaner than any current nuclear generator design.

* Use the residual heat from the reactors above to process motor fuel from coal and/or shale. Even though Clinton "stole" some of the best coal reserves, we still have a lot to use.

* Become independent enough to make the cartels (i.e. OPEC) inconsequential.

* Convince local taxing bodies to lift or cap the sales tax on gasoline so that as gas prices go up, the local tax collectors don’t see a windfall revenue jump at the expense of the consumer. The Federal government could compel the states (and locals) to cap the fuel taxes.

[saganite]

Kudzu mints. Surprisingly strong!

Altoids

[Mr_Moonlight]

* Make all “carbon credit” scams unlawful. Discrediting Algore should have been a slam-dunk a long time ago. Stop electing Reps who buy into the Global Warming Hoax.

This is a no-brainer. "Carbon Credits" is nothing more than the exchange of money for a phantom *product* of which there is no tangible, measurable benefit one way or another for said buying and selling of *product*. Algore and his ilk should have been put away in Levenworth years ago for this grand scam perpetrated on the public.

[SierraWasp]

Is there any sugar, or other sorce of energy in it?

Personally, I prefer to refer to this artickle source as BIOMESS mag!!!

[SierraWasp]

I really LIKE IT!!!

[JustDoItAlways]

Ethanol is made by Yeasts which break down sugars and turn it into alcohol.

Moma Nature has been experimenting with organisms and yeasts to break down cellulose for a billion years. And she has not come up wth anything that works any faster than on a “several years” schedule.

[flat]

AND don’t forget cigarette butts RECYCLED BUTTS ...now there is a natural resource even the sierra club has missed...anybody else have any ideas?

....what stuff, laying around in a lot of places can be burnt to warm our hovels...and run our vehicles...?

mcdonalds wrappers? and......pizza boxes both come to mind....

[mysterio]

Biofuels can now be made from algae large scale. I think that is the way to go.

[calcowgirl]

Is there any sugar, or other sorce of energy in it?

I dunno... but reading SERKIT's manifesto, above, was sweet!

[barb-tex]

Algae can be converted to fuel and has been done on Bench Scale. All these pie in the sky schemes are unfortunately in the sweet by and by. Nothing will replace Petroleum in the foreseeable future. With the Rats in charge they want to find an alternate fuel. We won’t be forced to even mine shale in the lifetime of anyone reading this post. There is ample oil in undiscovered pools. People seem to think that if we were energy self sufficient oil will be cheap. Not So!
barbra ann

[Wonder Warthog]

"I suspect you would get a better return on woodchips or particles and a wood burning furnace. This wouldn’t fly everywhere, of course, but if people in the country or near the woods use it, it would reduce oil and natural gas consumption and make more available for others."

Depends on your definition of "return". "Wood burning furnaces" don't yield fuel usable by cars and trucks, which is what OIL is used for. Natural gas and electricity provide most home heat. We need to reduce OIL consumption, not home heating.

[Wonder Warthog]

"* Cease all ethanol production. It requires more energy to make than it yields and the unintended consequence is higher food costs. Corn production shifted from feed-corn to subsidized corn for ethanol."

I quit reading right here. When your first statement is a lie, then the rest of the screed is probably also all wrong.

Corn-based ethanol returns 1.34 units of energy for every unit used (cellulose-based is more line 7 to 1), and almost all THAT "fossil energy" is from coal and natural gas used to produce fertilizer.

So the end result is the conversion of sunlight, coal, and natural gas into usable transportation fuel.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Moma Nature has been experimenting with organisms and yeasts to break down cellulose for a billion years. And she has not come up wth anything that works any faster than on a “several years” schedule."

That's a hilarious comment, because a cow does it in less than a day. And yes, there are microorganisms involved there.

[Cicero]

No, out in the country, away from the natural gas pipelines, most homes use fuel oil. The alternative would be propane, which is far more expensive.

Some houses here in Vermont already use woodchip furnaces, or burn peletized material, and of course there are a lot of woodstoves, which are enough to heat a smaller house.

This isn’t for everyone, but as I said it would free up some fuel oil for other users.

[mysterio]

I can't see the ridiculous price of oil being sustainable if it has significant competition and we can make large amounts of that competing fuel. And if it stays high, we move more resources to developing the competitor.

Competition is good. Oil is a monopoly right now with no significant competitor. Hence, we pay $4 a gallon for gas.

[SierraWasp]

"I quit reading right here."

Well then I suggest you quit reading altogether since you're such a disagreeable little Warthog!!!

When someone like you pounces on a legitimate statement made by SERKIT and instantly jumps all the way to "your first statement is a lie..." then your entire credibility is shot all the way to hell and back!!!

SERKIT's statement is completely in order and entirely correct and you've got some overblown and overgrown axe to grind with probably an over commitment of wasted money on your part that has made you entirely too irritable to be out and among the rest of civilized society with your grotuesque comments, so you're excused from this conversation, but not forgiven!!!

[bert]

....The person that can comvert Kudzu will make a mint...

I will begin that effort in July when the udzu is nice and juicy.

I hope to filr for a grant to study commercial feasibility by October

[SERKIT]

"* Cease all ethanol production. It requires more energy to make than it yields and the unintended consequence is higher food costs. Corn production shifted from feed-corn to subsidized corn for ethanol."

I quit reading right here. When your first statement is a lie, then the rest of the screed is probably also all wrong.

Well even the idiot Jimmah Cahtah stated that no feed- (or food-) related products should ever be diverted to fuel production. One man's opinion is another man's screed, so I can't help you with that one, pal! It is MY manifesto, not "our" manifesto, and the free expression of opinion (I thought) was encouraged here. PLEASE stop reading if it offends you. Otherwise, crank up the keyboard and write your own energy manifesto and well talk about it.

[Wonder Warthog]

Dear Sierra; I suggest you check out the facts. The energy conversion efficiency I gave for ethanol is correct.

http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2005/news050823.html

See the linked Powerpoint presentation from Argonne National Labs.

I get tired of hearing the same bullshit FALSE argument over and over and over. The only "ax" I'm grinding is the one about scientific accuracy.

[Wonder Warthog]

"It is MY manifesto, not "our" manifesto, and the free expression of opinion (I thought) was encouraged here. PLEASE stop reading if it offends you. Otherwise, crank up the keyboard and write your own energy manifesto and well talk about it."

Making correct energy choices requires accurate scientific facts. Ethanol may have problems, but the idea that it uses up more energy to make than the final product contains is simply bullshit. So stop slinging it. We're not talking about a matter of OPINION, here, but a matter of verifiable scientific FACT. See the URL in my reply to SierraWasp.

[Balding_Eagle]

When a post begins with such an obvious lie, any rational person would question all of the other ‘information’ too.

[SERKIT]

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/12/08/philpott/

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3319ethanol.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4237539.html

....and drumroll please.....

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/04/energy-balance-for-ethanol-better-than.html

(snip of above below)

So, where did the claim that ethanol is more energy efficient originate? I believe it originates with researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, who developed a model (GREET) that is used to determine the energy inputs to turn crude oil into products (4). Since it will take some amount of energy to refine a barrel of crude oil, by definition the efficiency is less than 100% in the way they measured it. For example, if I have 1 BTU of energy, but it took .2 BTUs to turn it into a useable form, then the efficiency is 80%. This is the kind of calculation people use to show that the gasoline efficiency is less than 100%. However, ethanol is not measured in the same way. Look again at the example from the USDA paper, and lets do the equivalent calculation for ethanol. In that case, we got 98,333 BTUs out of the process, but we had to input 77,228 to get it out. In this case, comparing apples to apples, the efficiency of producing ethanol is just 21%. Again, gasoline is about 4 times higher.

OK, so Argonne originated the calculation. But are they really at fault here? Yes, they are. Not only did they promote the efficiency calculation for petroleum products with their GREET model, but they have proceeded to make apples and oranges comparisons in order to show ethanol in a positive light. They have themselves muddied the waters. Michael Wang, from Argonne, (and author of the GREET model) made a remarkable claim last September at The 15th Annual Symposium on Alcohol Fuels in San Diego (5). On his 4th slide , he claimed that it takes 0.74 MMBTU to make 1 MMBTU of ethanol, but 1.23 MMBTU to make 1 MMBTU of gasoline. That simply can’t be correct, as the calculations in the preceding paragraphs have shown.

Not only is his claim incorrect, but it is terribly irresponsible for someone from a government agency to make such a claim. I don’t know whether he is being intentionally misleading, but it certainly looks that way. Wang is also the co-author of the earlier USDA studies that I have critiqued and shown to be full of errors and misleading arguments. These people are publishing articles that bypass the peer review process designed to ferret out these kinds of blatant errors. I suspect a politically driven agenda in which they are putting out intentionally misleading information.

One of the reasons I haven’t written this up already, is that 2 weeks ago I sent an e-mail to Wang bringing this error to his attention. I immediately got an auto-reply saying that he was out of the office until March 31st. I have given him a week to reply and explain himself, but he has not done so. Therefore, at this time I must conclude that he knows the calculation is in error, but does not wish to address it. In the interim, ethanol proponents everywhere are pushing this false information in an effort to boost support for ethanol.

Look at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture claim again: "the energy yield of ethanol is (1.34/0.74) or 81 percent greater than the comparable yield for gasoline". If the energy balance was really this good for ethanol and that bad for gasoline, why would anyone ever make gasoline? Where would the economics be? Why would ethanol need subsidies to compete? It should be clear that the proponents in this case are promoting false information.

[calcowgirl]

So why is your link more accurate than this one?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm

[Swiss]

The voters of a farm state like Iowa says they want 10% ethanol or some private company wants to produce ethanol for transportation.

So would your rule #1 take away their rights to make ethanol?

[Antoninus]

Biofuels can now be made from algae large scale. I think that is the way to go.

Agreed.

[SERKIT]

So would your rule #1 take away their rights to make ethanol?

Anyone can do anything they want, I just don't want to see the government promoting (and subsidizing) the scam of ethanol to the detriment producing food (or feed) to the fuel tank.

[calcowgirl]

I want to see the subsidies and the mandates terminated.

[Amendment10]

Thanks, but the referenced article emphasizes federal government efforts to address biofuel technology. My problem is that I cannot ignore that the federal government has failed to find ways to reduce our reliance on foreign oil since the 1973 oil embargo. That is why I'm more upbeat about the following information from non-government sources concerning the emergence of biofuel technology.

For example, there's now evidence that people might get as much, or more, bang per buck for their gas dollars with gas / ethanol mixtures.

Gas-competitive gas / ethanol mixtures

Also, I was surprised by the introduction of a machine for making home-made ethanol.

EFUEL100

But watch out for fines for violating biofuel regulations.

Fines for violating biofuel regulations

In the meanwhile, I'm keeping an eye on the following development in non-corn ethanol production.

Non-corn ethanol

Finally, on the down side of ethanol, I've heard that ethanol fires are harder to put out than gasoline fires. Can anybody shed some light on this?

[brityank]

When your first statement is a lie, then the rest of the screed is probably also all wrong.

It's tough to recognise facts when your mind is made up.

According to a 2005 report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, corn ethanol costs an average of $2.53 to produce, or several times what it costs to produce a gallon of gasoline.¹ Without the subsidies, costs would be higher still. A study last fall from the International Institute for Sustainable Development found that ethanol subsidies amount to $6.3-$8.7 billion a year, or $1.05-$1.38 per gallon … 42-55 percent of ethanol’s wholesale market price.²


¹) Husein Shapouri and Paul Gallagher, “USDA’s 2002 Ethanol Cost-of-Production Survey,” Agricultural Economic Report no. 841, Office of the Chief Economist, July 2005, Table 1, p. 4, and p. 8; http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/USDA_2002_ETHANOL.pdf.


²) Douglas Koplow, “Biofuels – At What Cost?” Global Studies Initiative of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Geneva, Switzerland, October 2006, Table 5.1, p. 51; http://www.globalsubsidies.org/IMG/pdf/biofuels_subsidies_us.pdf.

[From Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) site at FactsAboutEthanol.org ]

I have no problem with algae or switchgrass or any other non-food production, but not the subsidies and mandates placed by morons getting paid and bribed by lobbyists.

[Wonder Warthog]

If you take your data from whackjobs, you get a bad result.

EVERYTHING you quote is ultimately based on Pimentel (or Pimentel and Patzek, which is the same source). If you look at slide 16 (which is the metastudy section of Wang's Powerpoint slides), you will see that of the more recent studies (after 1995), ALL of them EXCEPT Pimentel conclude that ethanol yields a positive energy balance.

I'll stick with the majority, thank you.

[Wonder Warthog]

Patzek and Pimentel are birds of a feather. Their notions have been disproven repeatedly. If you look at the metastudies (the ones that summarize ALL the available data), you quickly see that the Pimentel/Patzek position is a gross outlier, with the other the studies showing a positive energy yield. Look at slide 16 of the Wang/Argonne Powerpoint Presentation.

[Wonder Warthog]

""According to a 2005 report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, corn ethanol costs an average of $2.53 to produce, or several times what it costs to produce a gallon of gasoline.1"

My point has zero to do with the COST of production, but about the fact that producing ethanol does not consume more energy to produce than the process yields in ethanol.

[SERKIT]

You are very welcome! Sticking with the majority....let’s see, just like Algore’s Global Warming Hoax. But, it’s your story and you’re sticking to it.

[SERKIT]

I'm not a mathematician, but I think July 22, 2006 came after 1995.

See: http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS416-Patzek-Web.pdf

[Wonder Warthog]

"You are very welcome! Sticking with the majority....let’s see, just like Algore’s Global Warming Hoax. But, it’s your story and you’re sticking to it."

The difference is that there is a large number of really reputable scientists giving hard data against global warming. The anti-ethanol types have ONE guy (Patzek is Pimentel's patsy) providing contrarian data. The cases are fundamentally different. And yes, I'm "sticking to it" because it is the best available SCIENTIFIC position available.

Get this straight--I'd one hell of a lot rather see the US drill ANWAR, and off both coastlines, and start building nuclear power plants and refineries as fast as possible, but if you want to beat up on ethanol, do so with a case that has some scientific validity.