Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 06/28/2010 1:00:25 PM PDT by epithermal
A plan to lessen Snohomish County’s dependence on fossil fuels while helping local farmers has fallen well short of expectations.
Supporters urge patience. In time, they say, an improved economy will boost demand for locally grown oilseed crops, such as canola, which can be turned into biodiesel. Eventually, they maintain, a $1.2 million investment in a grain dryer and seed crusher at the county’s Cathcart facility south of Snohomish will prove worthwhile.
..snip..
Efforts to wean government vehicle fleets off fossil fuels have lagged.
Snohomish County now runs about two-thirds of its diesel fleet on a blend of 20 percent biodiesel. The county had hoped to have all its diesel-powered vehicles using biofuels by now, Thomsen said. Even missing the goal, the county’s performance still is better than the state’s.
A 2006 law required all the state’s ferries and diesel-powered cars and trucks to use a 20 percent biodiesel mixture by last year.
By the end of 2009, less than 2 percent of the state’s ferries and land vehicles were using biodiesel, said Steve Valandra, a spokesman for the state’s General Administration. Biodiesel’s higher cost and tendency to gel in cold weather were the main reasons for not reaching the target, Valandra said.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldnet.com ...
THe interesting thing is that the minute the grants came to an end, all of the insulation, solar panel, and other companies went belly up. Then, unemployment spiked.
Biodiesel makes a lot of sense, but only if it is based in algae. Other forms of biodiesel pale in comparison.
To start with, algae can be grown in quantity in most of the US. Some types are as much as 50% vegetable oil. It grows in gray waste water, and helps to purify it in the process, and its growth is accelerated by adding otherwise expensive to dispose of waste CO2 and nitrous oxide gases. So even before it produces diesel, it is profitable.
Once the oil is squeezed out, the remainder can be sold as animal fodder. The oil is mixed with ethanol and common lye, which turns it into biodiesel. Then it is strained, and 1% petroleum diesel is added to it, as a preservative.
Diesel engines need just minor modifications to run on biodiesel, which has 96% of the energy of petroleum diesel. Diesel engines are also scalable, from motorcycle engines, cars, trucks, trains, to even ships. Manufacturers do not need to retool to make diesel engines, and they can be refueled at ordinary gasoline stations.
In other words, algae based biodiesel is head over heels of any other form of transportation energy. America could phase out most gasoline use in a decade with a slow and orderly change over to diesel engines. No need for coercion or spending vast amounts of taxpayer money.
Otherwise note that most research into algae biodiesel is being done by the oil companies, who have quietly built several test production facilities. These are people who know energy and engines.
Corn used as ethanol feed stock can also produce corn oil.
Biodiesel from algae intrigues me because from what research I have seen on it, it seems feasible. I was talking to my sister, a bioengineer, about it because she once worked for a start-up that was trying to cultivate algae for vitamin A. I think she said that the problem was finding a cold water species that was suitable for northern climes. From memory, I saw at least one report that may have found a species in the waters of Washington or Oregon that could be a contender.
“Corn used as ethanol feed stock can also produce corn oil.”
Yes, it can, be used for either one (”wet milling” that retrieves corn oil and other things) or the other (”dry milling from which ethanol is produced); but the same ear cannot be used for both and the demands on corn for ethanol changes the supply and demand price mechanisms for both growing corn, all kinds, and for using every kind of corn.
If the ethanol producers offer more for the corn they need, because of how subsidized their operations are, the corn-oil producers WILL pay more for the corn they want, than they did when the ethanol demand was absent, and, in addition to subsidizing the ethanol, you will/DO pay more for corn-oil and for food products that contain corn oilm because of the impact ethanol has on the corn markets.
None of the full cost of “alternative” fuels are being expressed in the “retail” prices of them, because the marketplace distortions in the dynamics of supply and demand for resources, as well as the artificial boost in those changes, due to subsidies, pushes some of the actual, additional (additional to the economy) cost of “alternative” fuels, into all kinds of other places in the economy. Their affects are like thousands of hidden additional taxes.
The same corn can be used both as ethanol feedstock and to produce corn oil.
The ethanol process removes only the carbohydrates from the corn, nothing else, allowing the spent distillers grain to be processed for corn oil.
Here’s an interesting oddities, stumbled upon:
http://store.homebiodieselkits.com/
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Biodiesel_from_Algae_Oil
After further reading (from sources you did not feel compelled to offer in evidence) I concede that corn-oil CAN BE (though it is not always) obtained from the “dry” residue - post-production - after ethanol is created.
However,
From what I have seen, most current post-ethanol-production conversion processes to get the corn oil out of the dry-mill residue, are doing so for the production of corn oil for the bio-diesel market, and not for the general corn-oil market; due to other chemical residues left in the dry-mill residue by the ethanol process that make the extracted corn oil unfit for human consumption. I have read of only one plant that is trying to engineer the improvements needed to the end product.
It seems it is still a process that diverts source material from the supply-side of food production to energy production, with concurrent cost shifts; because, even when the corn oil IS extracted after ethanol production, it remains millions of acres of corn fields grown primarily for energy, instead of completely for food. Corn for ethanol has, and will continue, to affect our food prices, as will the manufacture of most “bio_fuels”, because of the changing demands they make on resources, in competition with food production. In fact the margins on corn ethanol - due to subsidies - have affected the cost of food production beyond the corn food-chain, as farmers shifted from other products to corn, because of the ethanol induced demand (reducing production and raising market prices of the crops they shifted from).
The entire process involving ethanol and most “bio fuels” is a political game and has nothing to do with either a better environment or long-term energy needs. It’s all about “how can I cash in on this political agenda to get my business plan subsidized” and “how can I create a legal mandate for, and provide, a bunch of subsidies to “new” businesses, so they will become my next major campaign finance backers”. On the giving and receiving end, it’s all about using the taxpayers (someone else’s money) to fund your profits, political and financial.
The supply of corn is more elastic than you give it credit for. While the US production of ethanol will have increased from about 9 Billion gallons in 2008 to 13 Billion gallons this year, the market price of corn has dropped dramatically in the same period.
I didn't really intend to hijack the thread, by the way. It's just that with socialized rapeseed production floundering and the Gulf awash in crude oil, midwestern farmers are still quietly plugging away.
“So...it’s a good investment for the County is it ? Another words, it really sucks to be a Tax Payer. Their the ones that will be throwing all that money down a Rat Hole. Until the day arrives that Private Business says that a profit can be made, forget it.”
Hey, C’mon man.
The people who came up with this wonderful idea might get their feelings hurt.
Posting HTML
Have no idea where the “Posting HTML” came fom.
Do you have anything on a whole house diesel generator running biofuel with solar and battery backup ? ;-)
Do you have anything on a whole house diesel generator running biofuel with solar and battery backup ? ;-)
Say WA? Evergreen State ping
Quick link: WA State Board
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.
Different tools for different jobs. Currently available home generators typically use fuel cells to strip the hydrogen from natural gas, which is far more efficient that combustion.
However, Acumentrics Corp. is producing one that will run on natural gas, propane, ethanol, diesel, biogas, and biodiesel.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/684/
The downside is that they only produce 5kw, which may or may not be enough energy for peak home consumption.
The best applications for solar are not primary power delivery, but marginal power delivery, as well as advanced electrolysis, separating oxygen and hydrogen from water, not for energy production, but for water sanitation.
That is, gaseous oxygen is a good alternative to chlorine to sanitize water. So much so that the US Olympic Swim Team now uses it in their practice pools, because it is much less harsh.
The downside of hydrogen and oxygen production is compression, which is highly dangerous. But this is no problem for sanitation, as the oxygen can be introduced through the pool pump system, by using the Venturi effect. This would also be an efficient way to sanitize a cistern.
Finally, batteries have some limitations that make them less than ideal for energy storage, compared to capacitors, which have had some technological breakthroughs in the last few years. The latter also have more desirable charge and discharge curves.
But it is all in competition with grid energy, which is still very inexpensive, and can deliver as needed. It shouldn’t be neglected as part of the overall possibilities.
A BIT off topic, but I overheard on the radio that the new electric trolleys in Seattle are more expensive than they thought to operate. Seems the cost of maintaining the electrical cables and system is much more than anticipated.
In order to save costs on their electric trolleys - they are thinking of switching to diesal buses. OOPS!! (More of my tax money down the drain).
“While the US production of ethanol will have increased from about 9 Billion gallons in 2008 to 13 Billion gallons this year, the market price of corn has dropped dramatically in the same period.”
Yes, the subsidies distort the market; for instance, in February 2008 corn sold at $5 a bushel, of which about 40% of that price resulted from subsidies, ethanol and otherwise.
Lots of things affect price generally, and while corn prices reached their latest peaks in 2007 and early 2008, yes, they have declined since, as have many food commodities affected by worldwide general recessionary trends; irrespective of domestic market manipulations to boost ethanol production. Those manipulations will, if they continue, become a static feature corn production and prices.
Regardless, it does not matter how “elastic” the production of corn is. If product, or land to grow the product, is diverted from production for food to production for energy, and you have added subsidies to artificially boost that production for energy, the food producers will pay more for their product, at any given time, than they would pay if that diversion was not taking place. Minus today’s ethanol production the U.S. domestic price of corn would be even lower than it is now.
To the extent that fuel ethanol has increased the production of corn, it has increased the supply of non-carbohydrate feed ingredients.
I would be interested to hear your theory as to how corn received a $2.00 per bushel subsidy in 2008. (By the way,July, 2008, corn futures peaked at a little over $7.50 per bushel in June of that year. July, 2010, futures lasted traded on the CME at $3.274, for what it's worth.)
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