Biofuel Industry Hopes to Recover with Next Generation Fuels
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 30 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. He is the author of a new book about the future of transportation – Save Gas, Save the Planet.
Image Credit: Clayton B. Cornell
Is energy cane as water-hungry a crop as sugar cane, and as labor-intensive to harvest? If so, scratch that one off for US energy independence; we didn’t just buy the Everglades back from the sugar industry in order to wreck them again growing overpriced fuel. So, thank Prime someone’s doing research into alternatives to corn ethanol and cane ethanol.
“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.”
For 25+ years we’ve been hearing statements like that from the solar power industry — SHOULD BE ABLE TO.
This article ignores economic comparisons. That leads me to believe it’s very far out in the future, if ever.
Brad, you raise valid issues. Water intensity and growth in areas of biodiversity are important concerns in the use of sugarcane and to a lesser degree energy cane and a number of feedstocks. During the next decades the shift to electric rail and passenger vehicles will moderate the demand for biofuel and petroleum fuel, as water scarcity and land use grow in importance. Energycane goals:
1. Minimizing water use and negative impacts to the quality of drainage waters, including exploring wastewater reuse technologies to support biomass energy production.
2. Maintaining soil fertility and maximizing soil carbon storage and carbon neutrality of biomass energy production systems in humid temperate and subtropical environments.
3. Minimizing sediment and nutrient loss and potential erosion and/or subsidence of associated coastal ecosystems.
4. Improve biofuel production to 1,200 to 2,100 gallons per acre per year.
USDA Energy Cane Research:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/projects/projects.htm?accn_no=412816
What’s wrong with biofuels is that the are hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons produce carbon dioxide and water, two greenhouse gases that the most highly respected scientific organizations in the world believe are causing irreversible, cataclysmic climate change! Let’s not kid ourselves, biofuels are not a solution to carbon in the air!
Here are some basic facts on fuels per acre: 1) bio-diesel (50-100 gallons per acre) 2) ethanol Brazil (727-870 gallons per acre) 3) ethanol USA (321-424 gallons per acre) 4) cellulosic ethanol (1000 gallons per acre) 5) bioelectricity (1500 gallons per acre) 5) photovoltaics (100,000-300,000 gallons gasoline equivalent per acre) The numbers are so wide and in favor of photovoltaics or solar that using crops for fuel should be abandoned. Another waste of government money that can easily be discerned by using elementary mathematics. Ethanol might be use to control emissions. Furthermore these numbers don’t include the fuel to plant the seeds and process the plants. USING CROPS FOR FUEL SHOULD BE ABANDONED! All government monies on biofuels should be eliminated.
All this depends on getting electric cars on the road ASAP.
Glenn,
Yes, biofuels create CO2 when burned, but it’s the same CO2 that was sucked out of the air when they were grown.
Bill,
One advantage to the biofuels is that they are their own convenient storage system that integrates right into the current infrastructure. Solar and wind require a storage system such as batteries (which have their own environmental problems and have a much lower energy/kg than biofuels).
Is your 100K-300K GGE/acre including the energy and resources required to manufacture the photovoltaics (PVs). Since PVs are so expensive, I’m assuming the price reflects an energy-intense manufacturing process as I don’t believe any of the elements are rare enough to warrant the high cost. Price-wise, PVs take ~2 decades to pay for themselves (not including tax breaks), so, energy-wise, it’s probably not too far off to assume it takes at least 10 years to break even.
The thing about all these “advancements” (and please don’t get me wrong - I am totally for the production of all “alternative” fuels, the problem is - they never talk about costs per gallon. Where they are now in terms of what it is costing them in $/gallon. I mean.. the bottom line is precisely that. But then again - the whole pricing system is out of whack with respect to biofuels - because conventional fuels get to dump as much carbon in the air as they like - so that too needs to be addressed.
Tim,
“…part of Brazil’s energy independence, being the source of over 40 percent of their fuel…”
Ethanol is only contributing 16% to their transportation energy.
Source:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-brazilian-ethanol-whoppers.html
Cellulosic is not affordable, and will probably always be just five years away from being affordable.
Energy cane makes ethanol the same way as regular cane–feed sugars to microbes that pee ethanol, burn the bagasse to make energy for the refinery. It is only more efficient because it grows taller and has more bagasse to burn. And it can only be grown in tropical climates, and Brazil can grow a lot more than we can.
A recent study has shown that burning biomass to make electricity is a far more efficient use of land area that turning biomass into liquid fuels, regardless of type of biomass.
Source:
http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/05/electric-cars-get-81-better-miles-per.html
The commenter above was referring to this graphic:
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/img19.gif
You are talking about photo voltaic panels. The solar energy will be captured and stored using molten salts as shown below:
Source:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-thermal-which-technology-is-best-6091/
The comment about carbon was referring to land displacement. If you displace a food crop for fuel someone displaces a carbon sink to grow the food you displaced.It can take decades to centuries to recoup the carbon with the crop.
The ethanol production process has an energy demand in the order of 60% of the final energy yield. Any process that has extra processing on top of this will likely consume even more energy.
Bio methane from anaerobic digestion consumes in the order of 20% of the energy produced in the conversion process. Most of this is electricity which is used or compression of the biogas to remove the non CH4 gasses, and as such can be scheduled to run on off peak electricity.
Digesters can use cellulosic grasses and waste products together and produce a nutrient rich slurry for use as a fertilizer.