By John Addison. Scientists know how to make fuel from prairie grasses growing on marginal land. They know how to make fuel from fast growing trees with root systems that extend 25 feet into the ground, sequestering carbon emissions and enriching the soil. They even know how to make fuel from algae. They do all this in their labs every day. The problem is making cellulosic and algal fuel in large quantities at costs that compete with fuels from petroleum such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
This is my second article (previous article) from the 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals sponsored by NREL. 800 global bioscientists gathered in San Francisco to share their research and showcase their progress.
Their progress with biofuels from cellulosic sources is important. Some corn ethanol plants have closed. Once promising corporations, such as VeraSun, are now bankrupt. Lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions for fuel-from-food are being scrutinized. Industry would benefit from biomass that can be grown at much higher yields per acre than corn. Industries such as agriculture, wood, and paper would benefit from making money from waste and from having added revenue sources.
At the conference, Verenium (VRNM) shared their progress. In Jennings, Louisiana, they are producing 1.4 million gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol. The fuel can be mixed up to 10 percent with our current gasoline, saving us from needing almost 1.4 million gallons of foreign oil each year. Some might be delivered as E85. Instead of using corn, which requires high inputs of energy, nitrogen, fertilizer, and water to produce, Verenium is using a crop that produces eight times the energy required to process it – energy cane, a hybrid of sugar cane optimized as a fuel source not a food source.
Sugarcane and energy cane are part of Brazil’s energy independence, being the source of over 40 percent of their fuel. Now energy cane is being grown in some of the more tropical places in the United States. At a time when project financing is difficult, major partners are critical to financing larger commercial plants. In a joint-venture with BP, Verenium plans to build a 36 million gallon per year plant in Florida.
Dr. Stuart Thomas with DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol (DD, DNSCY.PK) outlined their plans to bring a 20 million gallon per year plant on line in 2012. They are evaluating non-food feedstocks with much higher yields per acre than corn, including switchgrass and sorghum. DuPont Danisco anticipates reaching parity with $60 to $100/barrel oil by 2015. The pilot plant will be in Tennessee which is providing $70 million of funding for ethanol from switchgrass.
The long-term potential for biofuels may not be in ethanol, but in renewable gasoline, biodiesel, bio-jet fuel, and biocrude. All contain more energy than ethanol, which only delivers 84,000 BTU/gallon. Gasoline delivers 114,000; biodiesel 120,000.
With better microbes and fewer process steps, Chief scientist Dr. Steve del Cardayre with LS9, presented plans to produce industry standard biodiesel from energy cane. The plant should be able to compete with oil at today’s prices by also producing other valuable outputs, such as chemicals which can be used to make detergents. Synthetic biology competitor, Amyris, is moving even faster in building process plants to convert energy cane into renewable hydrocarbons and bio-jet fuel.
Indeed, creating multiple products from a process plant is likely to be critical to having a profitable industry. Oil refining is profitable because fractional distillation creates many valuable products at one refiner:
· Naphtha which can be processed into chemicals and plastics
· Gasoline
· Jet fuel
· Diesel
· Heavy oils which can be processed into lubricants and asphalt
Gevo will build plants with mass efficiency of over 40 percent that can produce multiple products including:
· Bio-jet fuel
· Bio-diesel
· Isobutanol for other products
Gevo sees opportunities to buy existing moth-balled ethanol plants and retrofit for $30 million per plant, a fraction of building a cellulosic plant from scratch. Gevo’s yeast fermentation process produces heat and steam which would be valuable if co-located with industrial processes that benefit from combined heat and power.
By converting wood waste to next generation fuel, Mascoma has a significant potential to co-locate with existing paper mills and wood processing operations. The same is true for Range Fuels.
Enerkem is being paid to covert municipal solid waste into fuel as it targets 2011 to bring live a 9.6 million gallon per year plant in Edmonton, Canada, and a 20 million gallon per year plant in Pontotoc, Mississippi.
Beyond the cellulosic sources for fuel, covered in this article, is the potential for fuel from algae. A future article will examine the near-term challenges and long-term potential of algal fuel.
As this Symposium took place in California, in Copenhagen, Greenpeace protesters stopped all buses because they use biofuel from food sources. In the future, they may welcome biofuel from wood and waste sources as an alternative to gasoline from tar sands and jet fuel from coal.
This December, the leaders of the world will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to develop a framework for a more promising sustainable future. In Denmark they will be able to visit a new cellulosic ethanol plant developed by Inbicon. The feedstock will be an agricultural waste product – wheat straw. The plant will process 24 metric tons per day of wheat straw, ten times more than a demonstration plant that Inbicon only a few years ago. The plant will be more efficient and come closer to competing with refined oil because the operation will have three products creating three revenue streams:
1. 5.4 million liters ethanol year
2. 8,250 MT biofuel which will displace some coal used by a power plant
3. 11,250 MT of molasses which will be used to feed cattle
Can such operations displace all our need for petroleum? No, but in five years we will see commercial scale next generation biofuel operations. If oil is selling for $100 dollar per barrel, then cellulosic biofuels may lower our cost of fuel. In ten years, all such operations could displace 20 percent of our petroleum use and represent an important step towards energy independence.
Cellulosic ethanol is not the only sustainable solution that world leaders will see in Copenhagen. They will see at least 40 percent of the population commuting on bicycles, demonstrating an immediate and very cost-effective way to reduce our need for oil. Many delegates will ride on electric light-rail from the airport and notice the wind farms that deliver the electricity. Some will ride in electric cars that further demonstrate transportation that uses renewable energy.
Next generation biofuels promise to be part of a portfolio of solutions to our current climate and energy problems.
John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and speaks at conferences. He is the author of the new book – Save Gas, Save the Planet – now selling at Amazon and other booksellers.
IEA PVPS Programme NSRs for
Due to economies of scale solar panels less costly as people use and buy more as manufacturers increase production to meet demand, the and price is expected to have capacity of MW when it is completed in 2013. The table below is pure mathematical calculation. Retrieved on 20080414.^ Bugge, Lars Salvesen, Fritjof 20070530. It also depends on the path of the relative to the panel and the horizon. With investment subsidies, the financial burden falls upon the taxpayer, while with feedin tariffs the extra is distributed across the utilities customer bases. Examples include satellites, island communities, remote locations and ocean vessels.
US Solar Industry Year In Review 2006. Wissing, Lothar Jlich, Forschungszentrum & Jlich, Projekttrger 2007 May. Solar Cell Production to MW in FY2010^ Solar firm to double capacity^ Qcells^ Evergreen Solar and QCells Announce Partnership with REC^ Japans Sanyo expands Hungary solar plant^ Sharp Solar Modules^ Sharp Solar celebrates five years as world number one^ Suntech Reports First Quarter Financial Results. Systmes Solaires Le Journal des nergies Renouvelables n 178 pp. IEA PVPS Programme NSRs for The Republic of Korea.
4970. Portugal has an MW plant in Arnstein, with MW power station planned for Muldentalkreis. Retrieved on 20071016.
26, no. National Survey Report of PV Power Applications in Japan 2006. If they are located where photosynthesizing plants would normally grow, they simply substitute one potentially renewable resource biomass for another. Due to the growing need for solar energy, the manufacture of solar cells and solar photovoltaic array has expanded dramatically in recent years. At the outset the FIT was over 3x the retail price or 8x the industrial price. Examples include satellites, island communities, remote locations and ocean vessels.
Retrieved on 20080313.^ Yoon, KyungHoon Kim, Donghwan & Yoon, Kyung Shick 2007 May. Trends In Photovoltaic Applications Survey report of selected IEA countries between and 2006. Siderer, Yona Dann, Roxana 2007 May. Cadmium in its metallic form is toxic substance that has the tendency to accumulate in ecological food chains. Nevertheless, experimental high efficiency solar cells already have efficiencies of over 40 and efficiencies are rapidly rising while mass production costs are rapidly falling.
Tags: Biomass, Solar Cell, solar energy, solar panels
In of the industrialised countries as
Indeed so. This is the sort of question well have to find answers for in our work in rural villages. But instead people chase the mirage of the highest biofuels crop yields in the hopes of finding the right answer to the wrong question. Although sustainable farms require fewer inputs than conventional industrial or factorystyle farms, yields and production are not lower.
However the illegal drug growers might be managing it, its obvious that people estimating how much land it will take to grow enough biofuels arent asking the right sorts of questions. Hemp Biomass for different approach Replacing fossil fuels with biofuels isnt the answer.
That was enough food for million people, produced with few inputs other than urban wastes, and with the use of all readytouse renewable energy technologies in combination as local circumstances require.Energy futures The military needs to take major steps to increase energy efficiency, make massive expansion in renewable energy purchases, and move toward vast increase in renewable distributed generation, including photovoltaic, solar thermal, microturbines, and biomass energy sources… There are quite lot of things they dont include. Over the course of year, if you were to buy only locally produced food, the associated CO2 emissions would be tonnes.
Unsurprisingly, its oil consumption for aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities makes the Pentagon the single largest oil consumer in the world. See Project vehicles. If instead you were to buy only imported foods like those studied here, the associated CO2 emissions would be tonnes. from Fighting Global Warming at the Farmers Market pdf, Foodshare Toronto Imported food releases times as much energy in their buildings as Sweden does, even allowing for climate corrections. The MonsantoCargill model of industrial agribusiness is heading toward its Waterloo.
It was percent greater than There are thousands of them in India. 6, Indias food and energy selfsufficient Talukas are groupings of about 80100 contiguous villages pooled together to achieve critical mass economically. Theres lot to learn, but its simple, and you dont need to find another biodieseler in your area first so you can see their setup in action. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center ERDC, 2005Full report, 1. 2Mb pdfU. S. Local biodiesel brewers around the world are reclaiming millions of gallons wasted every year.
Tags: biofuel, Biomass, fossil fuels, oil
CDM Baby, CDM
By Guest Columnist Sonia Medina, US Country Manager, Ecosecurities
At 24, a recent graduate from Oxford, I thought the idea of joining a tiny consultancy firm doing carbon reduction projects was something very cool. At the time, I did not mind that I had to cycle 5 miles across town to work at a country house in the outskirts of Oxford. That did not have heating during the winter. Not the kind of job expectation one may have when you have graduated from a so-called good university. But five years later, I have travelled a million miles, visited more than 50 countries across five continents, negotiated contracts to build a portfolio of hundreds of carbon-abatement projects and spent an enormous amount of time learning about other cultures. What a ride!
After that fantastic experience, I thought that the next frontier for climate change is the sleeping giant of the United States and I found myself buying a one-way ticket to JFK to ‘try to figure out how to make it here’ as the new US Country Director for that same firm I joined five years ago (and which now has nearly 300 employees, plus heating). In my first three months, it already feels like going back to that small cold country house in Oxford when it comes to the debates about the science of climate change or the rationale of a carbon market that I hear in NY, DC and Sacramento, but with a twist – I have to facebook people the information about my company – something people in the developing world prefer to do over a beer, rice wine or green tea!
Four years ago, our work really picked up when the Kyoto Protocol was finally ratified by Russia, after years of back and forth. It was almost an anti-climax when they finally decided to go ahead after so much playing around. I guess Putin has always like intrigue games from his days at KGB. It was at that point when the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – a project-based mechanism to generate offsets regulated by the United Nations and part of the Kyoto Protocol – found itself flooded with real demand.
Most of my work these five years has been in building a portfolio of CDM projects worldwide ranging from landfills in Latin America and biomass-to-energy projects in India to industrial energy efficiency in South Africa and China, to name a few. During that time, my relationship with CDM has been of love and hate. There have been days that I thought it was the most fantastic mechanism of the world, that allows people to align themselves to do good, channels foreign investment to clean projects in the developing world and truly promotes sustainable development. Other days I’m convinced that the bureaucracy that the UN has built around the system will make it collapse under its own weight, and I put my hands up in desperation and I think. â€we will never go anywhere!â€
But to be fair, even though the process to get an offset certified through the UN system can be onerous, it is also true that the mechanism does preserve environmental integrity, has helped built enormous awareness around the issue of climate change across continents, has created a pipeline of over 4,000 projects across five continents and has issued over 250 million of high-quality offsets in the last three years. Accomplishments other carbon standards cannot even dream of.
That is why knowing the good and the bad on the CDM, it is quite shocking that policy-makers and industry groups in the US totally ignore the work done and lessons learned from this incredible period of growth. It’s especially ironic when funnily enough, the CDM was actually created by the Clinton Administration back in 1997 when negotiating Kyoto. It is important that knowledge builds rapidly because there is no time to reinvent the wheel. When the Obama administration enacts a cap and trade bill, industry groups know very well that environmentally sound offsets are a key price control mechanism. The US could do a double-service to the world and to itself by fixing the procedural issues of the CDM, and adopting an already-created high-quality pipeline of projects seeking to make real emission reductions.
Next Week: The rights and wrongs of CDM criticisms and why knowing the difference should matter to the US
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Biomass
The Texas Legislature directed SECO to
For of recorded history, biomass was mankinds principal energy source, mainly in the form of wood used for cooking and heating and as foods to fuel human labor and beasts of burden. Wind Wastes that would otherwise be landfilled are particularly good potential fuel source since the producer is charged tipping fee for their disposal. Fuel growing biomass to burn it will normally be the least valuable on this list. This report, which will be released before the start of the Texas legislative session, will include uptodate data on the availability of various renewable energy resources.
Even among wastes derived from biomass as source of energy entails burning it to yield heat that can then drive engines or generate
Glossary biomass still accounts for 15 of worldwide primary energy consumption, but, significantly, the fraction is much higher in developing nations than in developed ones. The Texas Legislature directed SECO to update the assessment of Texas renewable energy resources. Although many specialists have envisioned role for biomass in which it is grown extensively and solely for fuel energy crops, it is probable that this can only happen with at least some valued dual use or coproduct derived from the crop. Manures generated throughout the state, but again concentrated in the Panhandle, also form an important resource.
Other locally abundant agricultural wastes include rice hulls, sugarcane bagasse, and cottonseed hulls. The information on this web page can also be found in that report, The Texas Renewable Energy Resource Assessment, which presents detailed description and assessment of Texas biomass energy resources, including numerous maps and charts. Although many specialists have envisioned role for biomass in which it is grown extensively and solely for fuel energy crops, it is probable that this can only happen with at least some valued dual use or coproduct derived from the crop. The Texas Legislature directed SECO to update the assessment of Texas renewable energy resources.
Even among wastes derived from biomass as source of energy entails burning it to yield heat that can then drive engines or generate electricity. Many mills, including currently five in Texas, generate electricity for local use or occasionally for resale to the grid. Although many specialists have envisioned role for biomass in which it is grown extensively and solely for fuel energy crops, it is probable that this can only happen with at least some valued dual use or coproduct derived from the crop.
Tags: Biomass
