Bioethanol boost

[Urederra]

I found this article in Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) and I think some of you guys might enjoy it.

Bioethanol Boost
[size=+2]Interest in cellulose-based ethanol is rising with the price of gasoline[/size]
Michael McCoy

As President Bush steps up the call for cellulose-based ethanol to help cure the U.S.'s "addiction to oil," fuel ethanol producers, enzymes developers, and the financial community are boosting their commitment to the technology worldwide.

Last week, the banking firm Goldman Sachs announced that it has invested $27 million in Iogen, an enzymes producer that operates the world's only cellulose ethanol facility. The plant, in Ontario, has the capacity to make 3 million to 4 million L of ethanol per year by breaking down and fermenting about 40 tons per day of wheat, oat, and barley straw with steam, enzymes, and yeast.

The announcement followed by days Bush's latest speech promoting the inclusion of $150 million in next year's federal budget for research into new ways of making ethanol.

Goldman Sachs, which joins Royal Dutch/Shell as a major investor in Iogen, says its money will be used to accelerate Iogen's commercialization program. Iogen seeks to build a plant, likely in Idaho or western Canada, that will produce around 170 million L of ethanol per year. Such a facility, however, would cost upward of $300 million, money that no financial backer has yet put up.

Brian Duff, a biochemical process engineer at biofuels consulting firm BBI International, says cellulosic ethanol is economically feasible at today's gasoline prices. Yet the risks associated with building the first plant are huge. "Nobody wants to be the guinea pig," he says. "There's a lot of 'wait and see' going on."

Meanwhile, interest is growing in Europe. Abengoa, a Spanish energy company, is building a plant designed to make more than 5 million L of cellulosic ethanol annually. Iogen, Shell, and Volkswagen are studying a facility in Germany. And the enzymes producer Genencor, which worked with the U.S. government to bring down the price of cellulase enzymes, just joined a French consortium looking to produce ethanol from pulp mill waste.

Here is the source although you might not be able to access it if you are not subscribed. I copied down the whole article, anyway.

Personally, I prefer ethanol in my glass, tenjewberrymuds, It looks like a good idea. Although the article says ethanol production is economically feasible at today's gas prices, I would like to see the maths.

And there is a huge demand of cellulose for other purposes as well. We'll have to plant a lot C4's.

 

[Xanikk999]

I hope this trend continues. I would just love for our government to actually pump dollars into the feul alternatives research they always talk about.

 

[El_Machinae]

As long as it's not corn. That would be awful.

 

[Urederra]

They are talking about cellulose. So, If I understood correctly, they could use leaves and stalks from corn plants, among other plants, to ferment and produce ethanol. The fruits are still for us to munch. Cos we still pay more for eating than for driving, pound by pound.

As a side effect, they will reduce the amount of garbage from crops, if I understood correctly.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

Cellulose ethanol can essentially be made from agricultural waste products. Not just corn, but also wheat and other plants. It's fairly awesome stuff and doesn't have any of the ecological problems that traditional corn-based ethanol might have.

 

[Che Guava]

They are talking about cellulose. So, If I understood correctly, they could use leaves and stalks from corn plants, among other plants, to ferment and produce ethanol. The fruits are still for us to munch. Cos we still pay more for eating than for driving, pound by pound.

As a side effect, they will reduce the amount of garbage from crops, if I understood correctly.

Precisely! Crop residues cost nothing, take little energy to harvest, and can be converted to ethanol by processes that are getting more efficient all the time.

C4's are another good route. Switchgrass grows like a weed (well, to most people it is...) and can provide a bounty of biomass for conversion. This is the way of the future, I beleive...

 

[El_Machinae]

What about the issue of stripping soils of their essential nutriets (ESPECIALLY if we're taking all the biomass) by harvesting even more - just to fill our tanks?

 

[friskymike]

Unfortantely, the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) is very low for most bioethanol production. With corn, you have the obvious problems with the huge subsidies the corn industry receives. Even switchgrass (native to the great plains) has major problems.

Sure, it grows naturally, but once you start harvesting it in large amounts you are taking away the nutrients from the soil (Nitrogen and Phosphorous mainly) with the harvested product, which has to be replaced with chemical fertilisers produced using - guess what - hydrocarbons (natural gas mainly). Then, the distillation process to obtain pure ethanol is also very energy intensive.

I believe bioethanol has its place, for waste agricultural products (although they might be better put back on the land to reduce the amount of chemical fertilisers needed), but its certainly not going to replace all liquid fuels or even come close.

Some reading:

About switchgrass for cellulosic ethanol
Critiquing the 60 minutes puff piece on corn-ethanol
Biodiesel - king of alternative fuels

 

[JerichoHill]

See, notice that friskymike is still all doom and gloom even though R&D into altnerative fuels to solve a problem with decades to come.

Dude, be an optimist. The market's already working. Once oil got expensive enough, money started to flow into alternatives. Gradually that money spent will better the refining process, increase its efficiency, and lower the cost.

Nothing stays the same forever...Costs always go down after we learn about how to produce.

What did a computer cost in 1990? What did it do? See my point?

 

[Xenocrates]

I'm with frisky on this (LOL I'm taking sides with a pessimist again!). There is no alternative to reducing consumption.

Switchgrass is promising but taking land out of agricultural prodution isn't necessary a good thing in the long run; it just adds pressure in favour of GM which I am suspicious about.

The main benefit of biofuel is to redistribute wealth to the countryside. The main reason for the poverty in most of the World's countryside is that in the past they provided fuel for transport (oats for horses) and building materials in addition to food. Now it's down to food alone (pretty much) and that has increased competition and reduced prices too much.

Biofuels could make a serious impact in alleviating poverty in the Chinese countryside (especially) but they are not as 'green' as we would all like them to be.

 

[El_Machinae]

Wouldn't biofuel technologies, if they're viable, give a HUGE boost to all those nations unable to compete for global fossil fuels?

 

[Xenocrates]

Yes it's not bad for the third world, as it would push up food prices.

However, profit comes from specialisation and that might mean more starvation. Biofuels will probably always make more profit than food and encourage ruthless land owners to starve people out. At the moment it's not worth doing that because no crop is profitable enough.

Economically I'm for biofuels, but environmentally and socially speaking I'm lukewarm about them.

 

[friskymike]

See, notice that friskymike is still all doom and gloom even though R&D into altnerative fuels to solve a problem with decades to come.

Dude, be an optimist. The market's already working. Once oil got expensive enough, money started to flow into alternatives. Gradually that money spent will better the refining process, increase its efficiency, and lower the cost.

See my post in your thread with the example of the UK's North Sea production:



The early years provided some of the largest, easiest to extract oil providing the first peak in production - but look at the steepness of the decline of that first peak! Rising prices in the late 80s/early 90s led to more exploration and the the use of advanced EOR techniques to temporarily reduce the decline of existing fields, providing a second peak - but now that is declining too at some 15% per year, and there are no more large fields to find, or advanced techniques to use. I believe the world is up near the blue section of that second peak.

Considering the massive size of installed global infrastructure in oil and gas, once the world production starts declining like that all the exploration, advanced recovery techniques or money into alternative energy sources isn't going to be able to keep up that decline, and we are going to have a long, long energy deficit period.

Ethanol is only a niche energy source at best, and the money on bioethanol can be far better spent for great energy return elsewhere. To make up for the depletion rates we will be starting to see, we should be making massive investments in Nuclear & Wind energy right now. The market price signals will come too late, as the depletion curve is not well understood.

Nothing stays the same forever...Costs always go down after we learn about how to produce.

What did a computer cost in 1990? What did it do? See my point?

Computers are very special case in point. What did a car cost in 1990? What did a house cost in 1990? Your example is facile.

 

[friskymike]

Wouldn't biofuel technologies, if they're viable, give a HUGE boost to all those nations unable to compete for global fossil fuels?

Not huge, but certainly every bit helps. Unless you are lucky enough to be blessed with the land and climate for sugar cane cultivation, biodiesel is probably a better bet than bioethanol. For example see this article:

Biodiesel from Jatropha on Degraded Land

 

[Lotus49]

Sugar is the best source to make the fuel from. But, we don't grow sugar here (they do in South America), we grow corn (which is more expensive/less efficient to make fuel from), so, put 50c/gal tariff tax on the Brazilian ethanol, and protect our glorious Mid-west farmers! Yeah... that's it.

 

[searcheagle]

so, put 50c/gal tariff tax on the Brazilian ethanol, and

Actually its 54 cent/gal.

protect our glorious Mid-west farmers! Yeah... that's it.

Actually its to protect the few American sugar cane growers ages ago (I'm thinking it was about 100 years ago). The US started to protect them when we were considering making sugar a major crop in the US. Since then, noone has had the political will or muscle to end it. (It probably doesn't help the corn growers because the government buys up the surplus anyway.)

 

[luiz]

Sugar-based ethanol is the way to go.
The Energy returned/Energy invested ratio is pretty good, in case anyone's wondering.

 

[El_Machinae]

Does that include fertilizer?

As well, how about the ecological effects of ramping up sugar cane production?

 

[luiz]

Does that include fertilizer?

Yeah.
Without any government subsidies, ethanol managed to reach the pumps cheaper than gas.

As well, how about the ecological effects of ramping up sugar cane production?

They're probably bad, but nobody is suggesting switching fully to ethanol.

I think that in the future there won't be a single "great source of energy", like oil is today. There will be many smaller sources, and ethanol will definately be one of them.

 

[JohnRM]

An Ethanol production plant is being built in my area. I think Ethanol is the next best hope for the future of global energy.