Not All Biofuels Are the Same
Corn-based ethanol has been giving biofuels a bad name. The real solution is biodiesel — a green, efficient energy source that won't starve the planet.
Due to a confluence of legislative concerns about America’s energy future and an international food shortage, some leaders in Washington are rethinking America’s commitment to alternative fuels, especially biofuels. Because corn-based ethanol dominates the headlines, many now wonder whether our search for sustainable alternatives to petroleum pits fuel versus food and disrupts policies that mandate a percentage of our national fuel supplies consist of biofuels.
Biofuel critics allege three concerns when debating this subject: 1) biofuel production depletes food supplies; 2) biofuels do not actually reduce carbon emissions; and 3) some biofuels are developed from “invasive species” of plants that negatively impact local ecosystems.
It is time for all to take note: not all biofuels are the same and we can have food and fuel at the same time.
Over the past year, a multitude of companies have been conducting research on the use of alternative sources such as algae, cellulosic materials (biomass), and other non-food feedstocks for the production of various types of biofuels. While these efforts have generated positive results, the one biofuel that shows exceeding promise for long-term sustainability is biodiesel.
Biodiesel from non-food crops such as camelina, for example, preserves America’s food supply. A distant cousin to canola, camelina can prove to be a high-quality, competitively priced energy crop; while boosting farm revenues, it can benefit both the environment and national energy security. Farmers can rotate camelina on land currently growing cereal crops, or on marginal lands where traditional crops are too input-intensive or uneconomic to grow. The meal produced from crushing the camelina to create the oil can even be used in the production of high omega-3 enriched feedstock for livestock. Similarly, soybeans, the most common feedstock for biodiesel creates a meal used as animal feed. While the use of meal for animal feed gets little attention, one can see that biodiesel really creates a food-plus-fuel scenario.
Biodiesel significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. An overwhelming body of data demonstrates the carbon benefits of biodiesel. For every unit of energy it takes to make domestic biodiesel, 3.5 units are gained, giving biodiesel the highest energy balance of any commercial liquid fuel. It also has a 78 percent life-cycle carbon dioxide reduction, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy. This takes into account everything from planting the soybeans to delivering biodiesel to the pump. Furthermore, the use of biodiesel substantially reduces unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter.
Another factor seldom discussed about biodiesel is its potential to be integrated into the oil and gas infrastructure system. Several test runs have demonstrated that biodiesel can be shipped through the oil and gas pipelines; Europe is already running biodiesel through some of its pipelines. While there remain a few regulatory and technical hurdles to overcome, the U.S. has the very real possibility of shipping biodiesel blends in its pipelines within a year. This form of distribution will reduce costs and dramatically reduce the number of trucks, trains, and ultimately energy and emissions required to distribute the fuel.
In 2007 alone, biodiesel’s contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions equaled the removal of 700,000 passenger vehicles from America’s roadways.
Finally, some non-food crops used to produce biodiesel, such as camelina, are non-invasive. In the Global Compendium of Weeds compiled by a Department of Agriculture weed risk assessor, camelina is categorized as a “casual alien” and a species that possibly sets seed, but does not persist, and without human assistance does not develop long-term sustained populations.
In the coming years, we must further increase our commitment to biodiesel fuel, which has the potential to reduce carbon and other emissions; add good-paying, green jobs to the economy; decrease dependence on foreign oil; and increase the availability of soy protein for humans and animals to eat. Biodiesel production is truly a rising tide that lifts many ships.
Jeffrey Trucksess is Executive Vice President for Government and Regulatory Affairs for Green Earth Fuels, a Houston, Texas-based biodiesel company, and serves on the National Biodiesel Board.
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43 Comments
1. Wearyman:I too have been excited about the prospect of Biodiesel. Indeed, I have been so excited I’ve actually been planning on getting a diesel engine passenger vehicle once they become more readily available in my home state of NY state.
However, that excitement has been damped by the catastrophe of Ethanol. I began doing some reading around, and I have come to the conclusion that while Biodiesel stands a better chance of succeeding than Ethanol ever had, it still suffers from the same economies of scale that Ethanol does, just at a lower level.
Essentially, while both Ethanol and to a greater extent, Biodiesel are fantastic solutions for individuals and small communities for fuel cost and concerns, once you start attempting to deploy this technology on a wide scale the entire model falls apart.
Why? Because both Ethanol and Biodiesel DEPEND on a massive over-supply of the organic material required to make them. As we have seen with Ethanol, this becomes a problem when attempting to implement large-scale production, as there really isn’t that much extra organic material around. Yes, there is massive amounts of waste in our system, but NOT at the levels required to create Ethanol.
Biodiesel has the same problem. While it can be made MUCH more efficiently than Ethanol, and can even be made from waste food-oils (old fryer grease, for example) it too still runs into the raw materials supply chain problem than Ethanol. Just a bit further along.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m still excited about Biodiesel, particularly for my own personal fuel needs, as it can be manufactured AT HOME without a special license (we’ll see how long that lasts in NY). Like Mr. Truckess, I also think that Diesel and Biodiesel are good long-term solutions to our fuel issues. Unlike Mr. Truckess though, I don’t think we are at a point where we can reliably create Biodiesel on the massive scales required to fuel America. Not yet.
May 29, 2008 - 4:52 am 2. Bob:All biofuels are the same, because regardless of crop they divert farm land from food and fiber production to fuel production. Biodiesel is no different from ethanol in this regard. The only way to prevent the diversion of farm land is to engage in large scale deforestation, farming of wetlands, etc.
May 29, 2008 - 5:05 am 3. Spinoneone:“For every unit of energy it takes to make domestic biodiesel, 3.5 units are gained, giving biodiesel the highest energy balance of any commercial liquid fuel.”
So, have Mr. Truckess and his group developed perpetual motion? That is what the above statement implies. I seriously doubt that anyone can get 3.5 times as much energy out of a product as was in it in the first place. What he is really saying is that it takes 1 additional unit of energy input to extract 3.5 units of latent energy already extant in the product. It would be of interest to have Mr. Truckess publish both his energy input data and the assumption used to come up with the 3.5 to one ratio.
May 29, 2008 - 5:57 am 4. Monty:I think the *real* answer to the energy conundrum is a “spread spectrum” approach rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. We’ve gotten so used to a single solution (petroleum) because it’s a fantastically dense source of energy that has a huge price-to-energy ratio — for a long time, petroleum was essentially free energy. Even now, it’s still a good bargain, energy-wise.
A “spread spectrum” energy policy will not focus on a single source of energy. Rather, we must target niches: electrical production, transport, passenger cars, residential heating/cooling, etc. We need to look beyond automobiles and towards the bigger picture. Nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, ethanol, biodiesel: all have their uses, and should be pursued. The high price of gas is having the effect of driving entrepreneurship in alternate energy, which is why I oppose government intervention — the market is working as it is supposed to. There is a huge potential here for America to ride the next wave of alternate-energy technology, and wean our economy off of oil.
Oil is not evil. It is a fantastically useful and energy-dense material. Our very civilization has grown from it. But we buy our oil from some very unpalatable regimes, and essentially end up funding the enemy’s war against us. Robert Zubrin’s “Energy Victory” has this calculus right — we must go to alternative energy sources not simply for “green” motives, but for national security motives.
May 29, 2008 - 6:40 am 5. WJ:Nowhere does the author mention anything about subsidies. Does bio-diesel receive taxpayer money? If so, then I am against it.
Let the ethanol in from Brazil without any tariffs and eliminate all subsidies and quotes for ethanol and the like.
May 29, 2008 - 9:10 am 6. CSC:Does it surprise anyone that the writer works for a biodiesel company?
May 29, 2008 - 9:26 am 7. old97fan:Bob,
You are incorrect in your ASSUMPTIONS also. There are plenty of lands that are not forested or wetlands (real or newly created) that are viable for camelina production but not practical for mass food production.
The problem with biodiesel usage is that long term use of biodiesel significantly shorten the life span of an engine due to carbon buildup either on the injectors or the combustion chamber. There are reputable dealers of products that can reduce this problem but don’t eliminate it.
I once thought to use sunflower oil in my diesel. In doing my research I found 10 different independant studies with identical results. Every one of them showed little short term damage (under 100 hrs of usage). But every one of them was ended prematurely (2000 hours of usage or less). Due to dangerous carbon buildup in the motor that would soon cause catastrophic failure. Also, lubricating oil contamination and damage was significant in long term usage.
May 29, 2008 - 10:43 am 8. Jeff Perren:“The real solution is biodiesel — a green, efficient energy source that won’t starve the planet.”
Not wrong, exactly, but at the wrong angle. The solution is to let the free market deliver energy goods and services, unfettered by interfering politicians and busybodies. If, and to the extent that, biofuels were or are valuable the energy companies would deliver them at a marketable price.
Subsidies, regulations — and possibly worst of all, the perpetual self-righteous nagging of environmentalists and their enablers — are distorting the free exercise of trade.
That’s always bad – morally and practically.
May 29, 2008 - 11:16 am 9. Rich:Spinoneone: “So, have Mr. Truckess and his group developed perpetual motion? That is what the above statement implies.”
Bio-Diesel…as in fuel derived from biological components. Components that get their potential energy from photosynthisis. Not perpetual motion. The sun will probably enter into it’s red giant phase in about 5 billion years, when it’s diameter reaches to about where Venus is right now. Then comes the white dwarf phase followed by the enevitable black dwarf. There’s not going to be a whole lot of bio-deisel production happening on earth when that happens.
May 29, 2008 - 11:26 am 10. Alex Reed:“For every unit of energy it takes to make domestic biodiesel, 3.5 units are gained, giving biodiesel the highest energy balance of any commercial liquid fuel.”
As a comparison, how does petroleum stack up against this?
May 29, 2008 - 11:46 am 11. Scott:“Another factor seldom discussed about biodiesel is its potential to be integrated into the oil and gas infrastructure system. Several test runs have demonstrated that biodiesel can be shipped through the oil and gas pipelines; Europe is already running biodiesel through some of its pipelines. While there remain a few regulatory and technical hurdles to overcome, the U.S. has the very real possibility of shipping biodiesel blends in its pipelines within a year. This form of distribution will reduce costs and dramatically reduce the number of trucks, trains, and ultimately energy and emissions required to distribute the fuel.”
Already being done, only through a more efficient and cost effective method that produces Renewable Diesel directly in an oil refinery. http://www.conocophillips.com/Tech/emerging/Tyson/factsheet/index.htm
May 29, 2008 - 11:50 am 12. Al Fin:I am assuming that Bob and Spinoneone will be voting for Obama this year. Bob doesn’t understand the economics of algae and nonedible seed oil crops. Spin doesn’t understand energy from the sun that goes into biomass. It’s not perpetual motion, spin… it’s solar energy with built-in storage.
Global warming is a crock, and so is the attack on all bioenergy. It takes a village of idiots to support either cause.
May 29, 2008 - 11:59 am 13. syn:Oh goody, we’re going to plow under our beautiful Great Praires because the freakout over fraudulent ‘fossil fuels are THE cause of glowball warming’ is so severe that we cannot even stick a hole in the ground in an area as barren and desolate as the antarctic.
Can the Greenie movement possibly try to understand just how irrational and spastic are these ‘billion mercury-bulbs in our landfill’ ideas?
In any case; why worry about the IDers when the the fraudulent climate change scientists have themselves turned science into a religon.
Scientists are now the freakazoid religious on the level of Mayan priests; they will crucify very virgin available just to prove they’re Gods to be worshipped.
May 29, 2008 - 12:05 pm 14. Aaron:Spinoneone-
The energy comes from the big ball of fire in the sky. No perpetual motion required.
Bob+Wearyman–
May 29, 2008 - 12:09 pm 15. Bob:Some potential biodiesel feedstocks (eg tubes in the desert) don’t require what we’d traditionally consider to be arable land.
Answer to syn, haven’t you realized the Greens aren’t really about protection of the environment. They just want to strangle the economy until we all will accept their Marxist control of all our daily lives.
May 29, 2008 - 12:37 pm 16. EntropyIncreases:Assuming a gallon of gasoline ( a great compact energy source) is roughly equivalent to 1 gallon of biodiesel, which is invalid to start off…
2007 US gasoline consumption estimates are ~390 million gallons/day
1 million acres of camelina produces 100.0 million gallons of biodiesel
So we would need to convert ~4 million acres of crop land a day to biodiesel.
Total farmland in 2002 was 938.28 million acres, of which 434.16M acres were cropland.
Which means we would need > 1,400 million acres of camelina cropland. Sounds like a lot…
So we would need to increase domestic cropland by 3 times to replace oil used to produce gasoline to wean ourselves completely off oil for our cars and not compete with existing cropland. Dual use synergies are not factored into this simplistic analysis.
This also doesn’t include oil consumption from other uses.
(Note: Values are pulled from a variety of sources I just googled that seemed fairly official, government estimates, etc.)
Mr. Trucksess talked a little about infrastructure, but using existing infrastructure will prove difficult if we roll this out gradually, as we must. Also, what kind of cold weather limitations apply to biodiesel?
I think broad spectrum solutions will be best. Industry appears to be taking us there. What role should government take or should it stay entirely out of the way?
May 29, 2008 - 12:40 pm 17. Mark Buehner:Switchgrass! Don’t worry, if you find it charming there will be a lot more of it once its bioengineered to grow instead of to die.
May 29, 2008 - 12:45 pm 18. EntropyIncreases:“Convert 4 million acres of crop land” should have been ” convert “4 million acres of camelina a day to biodiesel”. There are obvious lags between planting and harvest, etc.
So I would like to see a scaled model of new planting and existing cropland use to ensure sufficient food, feed and energy supplies. Dual use products can be included as both. Talking about various theoretical silver bullet supplies is fine, but not horribly helpful unless we can formulate a decent energy policy, a la Zubrin.
Otherwise I am with Wearyman and accede to Monty…
May 29, 2008 - 12:47 pm 19. Koblog:I used to think burning food was really silly, then found how little of our food is actually being used for ethanol, even as our food production increases.
Robert Zubrin’s methanol/ethanol/E-85 argument is sound: make all vehicles flex fuel capable so the market can respond.
The problem is that we don’t have the basic American component in place to lower the price of gasoline: competition. Yes, there are many oil companies but they all use the same raw material…oil, and it’s not even our oil.
If all options available to me are petroleum based (regular, hi-octane or diesel) and the price of petroleum is set by the world market, the price will be out of our control.
If, however, I could pull into a fuel station and see foreign petroleum-based fuel at $4 or $5 per gallon and domestically-produced alcohol at $3 per gallon or less, which do you think I will put in the tank?
As I see the sudden backlash against ethanol growing and I see who is criticizing ethanol, my Spider Sense starts tingling.
Do you see who’s screaming the loudest against ethanol? Hugo Chavez and the UN. (And to a lesser degree in a self-preservation move, the oil companies.)
They see that every dollar we spend on domestically-produced American ethanol is a dollar not exported to the Iranian mullahs, the Saudi sheiks and the South American dictators. No wonder they’re screaming.
If American creativity came up with a true alternative to oil, Chavez and OPEC would have a lot less to spend on weapons to assure their tyranny and to pad their Swiss bank accounts.
The first and most-achievable shot across OPEC’s bow is ethanol alcohol. It’s here now and it can work. The next is methanol: non-food-based alcohol. You aren’t going to drive on wind or solar power. You can on alcohol. Nuclear power could allow us to drive electrically, but good luck getting any new power plants of any kind built.
If we actually introduced competition to our fuel market, amazing things would happen.
May 29, 2008 - 12:57 pm 20. Sean:Circulating tubes of algae can produce a constant, year-round supply of biodiesel using a closed-water supply. The water and the land used can both be poor quality and the tubes can be arranged verticaly so you get 3d (not just 2d) use of the land. The CO2 from production and burning the fuel nets out.
May 29, 2008 - 1:18 pm 21. JohnTS:This post is from the farm, just so you get the truth and not the hype. First of all, corn that is primarily consumed by humans is called sweet corn and that corn takes up about 600,000 acres out of the roughly 15 million acres planted to corn. So, the corn you eat as FOOD isn’t the corn product that you eat at your dinner table. The corn that is used for ethanol is what we call field corn. That corn is also used to make corn syrup and fructose as well as other industrial products such as plastic bags (bio degradable). The bulk of the field corn is used to feed cattle, pigs, chickens and other livestock. All ethanol production does is take some of that cattle feed and send it to an ethanol plant where it is ground, mixed, and fermented to make ethanol. Once the sugar is removed from the corn in the fermenting process the corn is then removed from the ethanol tank, dried and processed into millers grain for cattle feed. The result is that all of that corn that is used for etahnol production is also used for cattle feed. It diverts nothing from the average Joe and Jane’s kitchen table, nor does it remove feed grain from livestock.
Turn now to the energy used to produce ethanol. Ethanol production is a new technology and it is going through the usual process of enhancement. Energy used to make ethanol has been cut in half over the past several years. Also, new ethanol plants are being constructed near feedlots where manure can be turned into methane gas and that methane gas produces the energy to make the ethanol.
As for other farm products. Soybeans and corn work well together because these are complimentary crops that are grown in rotation. One year corn, the next year soybeans. Soybeans leave nitrogen in the soil, and corn then uses that nitrogen. So the total acreage of corn and soybeans is very complimentary. Other grains grown on the farm, wheat for example, are not used in the manufacture of any bio energy product. Yet, the price of wheat has gone up. So don’t think that ethanol is driving up the cost of food.
Most people don’t realize that just a few years ago, before the ethanol ramp-up, the cash price of corn was so low ($2 bucks a bushel) that people were burning corn for heat.
The bottom line is that biofuels do not drive up the cost of food. We still have millions of acres of land that is in CRP and can easily be taken out of that program and planted to crops.
May 29, 2008 - 2:06 pm 22. Laurence:Here is a link that discusses and shows a working model of their process of producing fuels from algae. The people involved are getting patents which means they are my favorite type of person: capitalists who hope to get rich by benefiting the rest of us.
http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/001742.html
They claim:
* 100,000 gallons of biofuel per year per acre for algae crops. This compares to 20 to 30 gallons of biofuel per acre for corn crops.
* If we used 1/10th of the state of New Mexico for this Vertigro system, it could supply all the transportation fuel this country needs.
* The most ideal place to grow algae is in the desert. No farm land is sacrificed, no food crops are sacrificed.
May 29, 2008 - 3:02 pm 23. DG:Listen to JohnTS that is the real story on biofuels. His point about the CRP is also important. There presently is 34 million acres of cropland that the government is now paying to keep OUT of production. Not all of this is quality cropland, but a good portion is. The market is responding to higher prices and that land is slowly (2 million acres per year) coming back off contract and back on line. This will help increase the supply of all commodities and prices will moderate as supply and demand go toward equilibrium. If the government did not have these CRP acreages under contract or if it would early allow opt out of the program, these acres would be available now alleviating these price spikes. Any remaining marginal acres could be used to jump start cellulosic ethanol production. Again our friends the environmentalists are fighting any change to allow early exit from the CRP program without the huge penalty. This means CRP acreages will remain inaccessible for up to ten more years. Thank the greens once again for making our lives difficult, but even more so for making lives of those in less developed countries miserable.
May 29, 2008 - 3:09 pm 24. John F.:“In 2007 alone, biodiesel’s contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions equaled the removal of 700,000 passenger vehicles from America’s roadways.”
Reference? I went looking for one, and found this instead:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/02/07/new-reports-sound-caution-on-biofuels
“Two papers being released online by Science today, however, sound cautionary notes on biofuels, suggesting that they’re anything but carbon neutral…. For palm oil, once the forest was cleared and the underlying peat decayed, it could take 840 years to offset the carbon debt.”
Hmm.
May 29, 2008 - 3:27 pm 25. TH:We’re supposed to jump on this biodiesel willie nillie nelsonwise, and johnts, I’m sick and tired of you ethanol dependents(ie: someone in the business) trying to gloss over ethanol’s worthlessness. If $130 oil isn’t enough for you dufuses to make it without govt. subsidies, the least you can do is shut the f up and go away gracefully. Your crap ethanol is a bunch of farmers and the switchgrass dunce bush taking this global warming scam and capitalizing on it. It has been PROVEN to be a costly joke, nothing more than making the senator grassleyass and his ilk happy. You want simple math proof? The same money we piss away on this shit buys 6 billion gallons of gasoline, that same money gets us 4 billion gallons of this crap. It’s a net energy and money loss…. to you phonies defending it, how’s it feel to act like a democrat?
May 29, 2008 - 3:59 pm 26. Socratease:Someone in our purchasing department followed the “think green” directive and changed our last big purchase of diesel fuel to bio-diesel without checking it out with the people who have to use it. Result: We now have tens of thousands of gallons of bio-diesel that we can’t use sitting in the tanks for our backup generators because the stuff deteriorates over time to where the engines now can’t run on it.
May 29, 2008 - 6:24 pm 27. Redmanfms:“Not wrong, exactly, but at the wrong angle. The solution is to let the free market deliver energy goods and services, unfettered by interfering politicians and busybodies. If, and to the extent that, biofuels were or are valuable the energy companies would deliver them at a marketable price.”
Spot on.
“This post is from the farm, just so you get the truth and not the hype.”
Sniff. Digging the subsidies aren’t we?????? BTW, I don’t believe anybody implied anywhere in this thread that ethanol is produced from sweet corn, but nice little non sequitur to deflect from the true problem with corn-based ethanol, that the numbers don’t add up. Corn-based ethanol is a net energy loser.
May 29, 2008 - 8:07 pm 28. Kevin:“For every unit of energy it takes to make domestic biodiesel, 3.5 units are gained”
-Dubious claim. Can you link some science to that statement, or are we just expected to believe you?
-Camelina is not a non-food crop. Cows eat it, and humans eat the vegetable oil. Should we create more farmland to make up the shortfall of vegetable oil? If you want to rotate crops, new land must be cultivated for the crop you kicked out (it sounds like corn is the loser). Again, we need more farmland. If you use marginal land, you will get a marginal yield, yet require the same energy to cultivate and harvest. Again, dubious.
“Biodiesel significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”
-Maybe some gases, but it doesn’t reduce CO2 any more than ethanol. In fact, it’s identical. That’s not much of a benefit when even scientists only hype carbon as the culprit. Unless you are a true believer that global warming is going to harm the planet, of course.
If you are considering algae tanks in deserts to make biodiesel, then it makes good sense to set up a pilot and start running with it. If you are talking about replacing fully utilized farmland, then you are just borrowing from Visa to pay Mastercard.
May 30, 2008 - 12:43 am 29. AndrewO:As a farmer, I read all of the above comments. How did this comment section morph into a rant against ethanol?
May 30, 2008 - 3:53 am 30. Sinner:Biodiesel was the topic. First, the subsidy on Biodiesel production is $1 per gallon produced. Second, biodiesel can be produced from other sources such as chicken renderings (chicken fat). Anyone upset about that?
And just to start the flames going, did you know that most biodiesel produced today is first paid the subsidy and then EXPORTED to Europe because of the exchange rate with the dollar.
None of this subject is knee jerk simple. Socialism distorts the markets, but today’s market prices for corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice have more to do with the world wide demand, political upheavel (read Argentina), and the weak dollar than biofueld subisidies.
Funny how the author uses the argument that the remains from his preferred crops are used to feed livestock while failing to mention the very same about corn ethanol.
Now, I not a fan of corn as a feedstock in the long term, but you go to resource wars with the resources you got…
May 30, 2008 - 5:45 am 31. BrianE:The point of CRP land is important to this issue. I’ll accept the 34 million acre figure.
May 30, 2008 - 7:50 am 32. Wearyman:A lot of marginal farm land could be used to produce crops suitable for biodiesel.
As it was explained to me– the production of biodiesel has an inherent advantage over ethanol– the energy input to produce the fuel.
Biodiesel is produced by squeezing the oil from the seed. Ethanol requires distilling– which requires more energy be used.
This by no means will solve our energy problem. But weaning ourselves off ME oil should be a national priority– and a combination of alternative fuels, nuclear energy and even wind and solar should be encouraged.
Granted, any discussion about these alternatives should be based on ACTUAL costs of production– then decide which sources make sense to subsidize.
Aaron-
Fine. But WHO is doing it other than a few TINY research outfits? NOBODY. And how well does something like that scale up? Can we AFFORD to cover our desert and scrub-lands with greenhouse tubes? These things take lots and lots of water, and lots and lots of MONEY to build and maintain, and there is STILL no guarantee that they will be able to scale up enough to fully supply our needs even at today’s demand, much less the increased demands of the future.
My main issue with bio-fuels is not whether they work. We know they work. My issue is whether they SCALE. Right now, they don’t.
Regardless, if we are going to move to bio-fuels, it must be something run by the market, NOT a mandate from on high. Our current mandate system is crippling our food production and driving prices for food AND fuel ever upwards. We need to drop the mandates, drop the subsides, and let the market work it out.
May 30, 2008 - 7:55 am 33. njcommuter:Algae is a fascinating possibility, but remember that it requires water. The hydrogen in the oil has to come from someplace; that someplace is the water, which is consumed at (very roughly) a one-to-one ratio by mass for the oil produced. In addition, the algae will require some nitrogen, phosphorous, and other nutrients. This makes the desert unattractive unless it is near an ocean and the algae can tolerate salt. Since the algae will extract water and concentrate salt, the oversalted brine will have to be returned to the ocean. In addition, the nitrogen, phosphorous, etc. will have to be kept out of the ocean to the degree possible. If your source of these nutrients is agricultural runoff or municipal wastewater, that has to be taken into account in water disposal, too.
The problems are not insurmountable; if algae can produce fuel economically the market will find ways to solve the other problems.
May 30, 2008 - 12:13 pm 34. Friedman Libertarian - Pajamas Media & Not All Biofuels Are the Same:[...] Original Post. Share:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
May 30, 2008 - 5:40 pm 35. DG:I get very tired of people harping on the ethanol and biodiesel subsidies. For example, in 2006 the ethanol subsidy cost $7billion. Why does noone ever compare this to the huge oil and gas tax deductions which depending on whose numbers you cost a multiple of 2-5 times this? Also the Strategic Petroleum Reserve which is necessary due to our dependence on imports costs over $1 billion a year to maintain. Then there are all of the indirects in government sponsored research, state and local etc all of which push these numbers toward $100 billion.
I am for ending all subsidies and letting the markets (us) sort out the best answer. But when you do make sure you end ALL of them.
May 31, 2008 - 8:25 am 36. Brosco Pertwee:To “Spinoneone” the equation is about the efficiency of converting solar energy to fuel. It takes a substantial amount of energy in the form of ammonia fertilizers, etc. to farm corn, ferment and distill the product. As a result you get about 1.2 times the energy out that you put in. Most if not all the biodiesel crops are more efficient in their conversion ratio. Consider the efficiency of a ham sandwich as a photocell you attach electrodes to the top and bottom slices of bread and you get about the same total energy of the ham sandwich plus generated electricity when you eat it. The same cannot be said for fabricated silicon solar cells. While I have not attempted to eat one, the generated electricity is not insubstantial over the life of the cell. So conversion efficiencies are important since in the long run you are converting solar energy (either stored as fossilized coal, ng, oil, produced by plants, produced by the hydrolic cycle, or whatever) to energy. No magic wands, just different efficiencies.
Jun 1, 2008 - 10:05 am 37. James:I am a truck driver and I own my own truck, a 1995 Freightliner with a 12.7 liter Detroit Diesel and I have watched the fuel debate closely because last year I personally bought $33,000.00 dollars of diesel. This year I have almost exceeded this dollar amount already and because of the newly enacted emissions I have noticed my fuel mileage drop from around 7 MPG depending on load and environmental conditions to between 6-6.4 MPG with the same environmental conditions as before. I have recently started using bio-diesel when I can buy it and I have noticed that my fuel mileage has increased to above 6.5 again. Also there is less “clatter” noise and less engine vibration when using bio-diesel in B-2 to B-20 blends, my older year model truck seems to do best on B-5, I have yet to use B-100 so I cannot comment on that but if you do the math for petro-diesel at $4.30 a gallon, 6.2 MPG it is 69.3 cents per mile fuel cost, and for Bio-diesel at $4.45 a gallon, 6.5 MPG it is .684 cents per mile fuel cost, you discover that it costs almost a full penny per mile less for biodiesel even though I am paying 15 cents per gallon more for the pump price. Then you take that .01 cents per mile and times it by the miles I drive per year and you find that in my case I can put around $800.00 a year in my pocket doing basically the same thing. Now I’ve found that depending on what part of the country I’m in, the price of bio-diesel is within a couple of cents per gallon of petro-diesel and that adds even more money to my pocket.
That said I have compared notes with other truck drivers with new trucks and they have just the opposite results. Which leads me to think that a lot of the end result you will get using bio-diesel depends on the blend, the compression ratio of the engine and most importantly the injection timing of the engine, all things that can be tweaked and changed as needed once enough testing has been done to determine the best combination.
Personally I think that using algae to produce “crude” oil to refine into different types of oil products will eventually be the best option once there has been enough research done to work out the scalable problems, considering the current thought is that most of the crude oil we use today came from aquatic algae and other plant life from 15+ million years ago.
Jun 1, 2008 - 12:46 pm 38. MW:Kevin. Of course biofuel all contributes virtually the same carbon to the envirement as oil but…and this is a stupendiously big but, the carbon from any fresh grown fuel does not count the same as the carbon from any fossil fuel. This an elementary fact of greenhouse gas knowledge BTW. The carbon atom added to the atmosphere from a fresh grown crop was just taken from that atmosphere by that same crop and thus is not increasing the carbon in that atmosphere over time. This is not true of fossil fuels which are releasing carbon stored from over millinea, vitually all at once. Problems of biofuel, such as real efficiencies, use of resources, and possible pollution are other issues that really do need to be considered more carefully.
Jun 1, 2008 - 2:06 pm 39. Lou Bauman:Sorry Jeffrey, but the premise of your article is WRONG. “Biodiesel from non-food crops such as camelina, for example, preserves America’s food supply.” How is that?? If it grows on ground that could be used for food crops, then it competes – it does not preserve.
Jun 1, 2008 - 4:50 pm 40. Larry:Nobody is trashing the algae idea on this thread. Does that mean that everybody is on board? It seems like the best choice to me.
Jun 2, 2008 - 5:17 am 41. Larry:Lou – We have lots of land (see above) that we’re keeping in the bank. If we tap into that for biofuel, we don’t affect food supplies. I still prefer desert-grown algae.
Jun 2, 2008 - 8:18 am 42. Jeff Trucksess:Several posts have raised some interesting points I feel compelled to respond to:
The motivation to write this piece came from the need to counter many of the misperceptions of biofuels being perpetuated in the popular press today. If you believe that all you read about this Food vs. Fuel debate is simply accurate, unbiased journalism, I suggest you read Senator Grassley’s comments on the Senate floor on May 15 in which he revealed that a prominent DC firm had been retained to run an anti-biofuels media campaign.
(http://www.hpj.com/archives/2008/may08/may26/Bitingthehandthatfeedsyoudo.cfm?title=Biting%20the%20hand%20that%20feeds%20you%20doesn )
and
(http://grassley.senate.gov/public/releases/2008/051520082.pdf)
To be open, I included the fact that I work for a biodiesel company in the link on my name. In an attempt to narrow the scope of my piece, I focused exclusively on biodiesel. There are far more in depth studies defending the merits of ethanol out there as it obtains much more coverage. If you are interested in what I would consider a more in depth and objective look at biofuels, read Robert Zubrin’s In Defense of Biofuels. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels
The best argument for biodiesel and all alternative fuels is supply/demand for oil. While I have heard varying estimates, API suggested to me that demand was growing at 6% and supply at 3%. Consequently, we now have $130/barrel oil. Can biodiesel replace petroleum demand, no but I would suggest it could easily replace 5% of U.S. diesel demand, and drive investment in second generation feedstocks and technologies such as algae, camelina, and jatropha that are non-food crops that can be grown on marginal land. Biodiesel is not a silver bullet, but it can be a critical piece. Given the effect high energy prices are having on our economy and current global instability, we need every domestic solution we can come up with.
Misc. Notes:
Energy Balance: 3.5 to 1 according to new research conducted at the University of Idaho in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). A table reflecting old data and comparison to other fuels can be found at : http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/renewablefuels/balance.htm
Farmland: Camelina is a often a rotation crop for wheat. Wheat acres are left fallow every 2-3 years. Camelina can be planted instead of leaving acre fallow. Because of its low water and fertilizer requirements it can also be grown on marginal land not otherwise planted. Thus, the meal and oil produced is additive, not competitive. (Camelina oil is not consumed by humans as suggested.) Camelina therefore increases land capacity utilization, it does not compete. Other crops have similar potential.
There is also more land available. The U.S. has about 800 million acres of farmland, 280 million of which are currently cultivated. (Zubrin, 2008) The objective of using developing second generation crops is to utilize marginal land not plow under virgin prairie lands as suggested. According to a study by Texas A&M Agriculture Food Policy Center, Texas alone has 4 million acres of expriring CRP lands, rangelands and center pivot corners.
Usage Integration: We do not suggest using 100% biodiesel. ASTM is currently considering and amendment to its diesel fuel spec D975 which would allow up to 5% biodiesel. Like any fuel however, proper handling and storage recommendations should be followed.
Carbon Footprint: According to NREL, biodiesel’s lifecycle CO2 reduction is 78% (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf) No one would suggest that clear cutting tropical rainforests to grow alternative fuels is positive. To suggest the carbon foot print of biodiesel should be tied to the clear cutting of a forest lacks much scientific basis, especially when 80% of U.S. biodiesel is currently made from soybeans. Only about 5% of palm oil produced is made into biodiesel.
Price of Food: Texas A&M’s Agriculture and Food Policy Center recently conducted a study (http://www.afpc.tamu.edu/pubs/2/515/RR-08-01.pdf) that found that the effect of increased ethanol use on rising food costs are relatively inconsequential. The big drivers of increase in food prices were increased energy costs and speculative fund activity. Additionally increased global demand has a huge influence.
Jun 2, 2008 - 1:20 pm 43. Fred:To be fair, we should include the political cost of paying the OPEC countries hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Without oil money, I don’t think Iran would be the troublemaker it is. Just eliminating that problem would save both blood and treasure.
Most of the oil fields in Iran are near the coast of the Persian Gulf, likewise for the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. It would be easy enough to invade and Internationalize the oil, if we don’t stop to install democracy.
Jun 15, 2008 - 2:06 pm