Back to cellulose ethanol discussion 9

[0707]

Back to cellulose ethanol discussion:

Conventional ethanol is derived from grains such as corn and wheat or soybeans

As more and more corn grain is diverted to make ethanol, there have been public concerns about food shortages. However, ethanol made from cellulose materials instead of corn grain, renders the food vs. fuel debate moot.

On the other way unexploited categories of cellulose material that will be removed from forests will also reduce the risk of forest fires during the warm season as it happened recently in California.

Cellulose ethanol can be produced from a wide variety of cellulose biomass feedstock including agricultural plant wastes (corn stover, cereal straws, and sugarcane bagasse), plant wastes from industrial processes (sawdust, paper pulp) and energy crops grown specifically for fuel production, such as switch grass.

The "woodchips and stalks" represent resources that are currently available from forestry and agriculture, though very underutilized. One of the largest unexploited categories is wood that needs to be removed from forests to reduce the risk of forest fires. Well over 8 billion dry tons of biomass has been identified by the U.S. Forest Service as needing fuel treatment removal. The amount of this biomass potentially available for bio energy uses is estimated to be about 60 million dry tons annually

In times of fuel shortages, fermentation ethanol has been commercially manufactured in the US from cellulose biomass feedstock using acid hydrolysis techniques. Currently, some countries in locations with higher ethanol and fuel prices are producing ethanol from cellulose feedstock. However, it is only recently that cost-effective technologies for producing ethanol-from-cellulose (EFC) in the US have started to emerge.
There are three basic types of EFC processes—acid hydrolysis, enzymatic hydrolysis, and thermo chemical—with variations for each. The most common is acid hydrolysis. Virtually any acid can be used; however, sulphuric acid is most commonly used since it is usually the least expensive.

There are no commercial plants producing ethanol from cellulose biomass in the world, although cellulose ethanol has been produced during war time by processes featuring acid hydrolysis. Several commercial ventures have been proposed involving selling ethanol produced from cellulose biomass into existing chemical or fuels markets, suggesting that cost-competitive production of ethanol from cellulose biomass in these markets, although not bulk fuel markets, is within reach today. Funding for such ventures has however not been secured to date.


With the actual oil barrel prices it is time to clean “our gardens” and start to produce cellulose ethanol.

Luis marques

 

[csd72]

Youngturk,

RE:'I am skeptical of the war for oil angle...'

There are atrocities going on every day in central africa by dictators that make Saddam Hussein look like a pussycat. There was no Coalition invasion to save the people there, amazingly enough there is no oil in these countries either.

You do not honestly still believe the WMD story?

csd

 

[YoungTurk]

Well, hate to hijack the OP, but I never believed it (WMD hype) in the first place. In fact, that was the greatist wag the dog instance in American politics ever. There were other factors, though... family history, religion, political ideology, Al Qaeda war games, AND the oil! I'm not sure which, if any, was the deciding/driving factor.

Back the OP... some links for discussion:
Current State
Under Construction and
Government Support.

And dont forget the elephant dung above! Saved by elephant dung...

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

I suggest we end the politcal stuff there guys, and continue along the direction of the OP.

 

[YoungTurk]

That was accomplished in my post, but thanks for the suggestion, and I agree.

But; ethanol, oil, politics, it is all connected.

 

[hotgas]

Why not put a cellulose to ethanol plant at each landfill. The garbage guys have to take the newspapers and garbage peels there any way. Therefore the cost of collection and transportation is covered by the garbage hauling contract.

There are estimates that one can get about 50 gallons of ethanol from a ton of typical municipal solid waste (MSW). That's where the development should be.

 

[SnTMan]

Aside from the BTU-in vs BTU-out angle, all biofuels suffer from the same limitation, they are solar energy, and solar energy is very diffuse and weak. It will require huge areas of land for any (or all) biofuel(s) to make a serious dent in only our transportation needs, and we still need to grow food. According to the book "The Solar Fraud", ethanol from corn yields a gross of 0.195 W/m^2 of land area under the best scenarios, or considering the energy input to produce the ethanol, 0.047 W/m^2 net. Compared to 200 W/m^2 in the sunlight itself (North America year round average). The most valuable contribution of this book is to place all energy sources on the same basis, namely W/m^2. Certainly clarifies things. According to the author (physicist Howard Hayden), if we were to replace all the energy needs of the US with corn-based ethanol we would need land area equal to seven times the area of the US.

Note that I AM NOT anti-biofuels, but the economics are everything.

I would like to see everybody's subsidies withdrawn, and let them fight it out in the marketplace. Never happen.

Regards,

Mike

 

[moltenmetal]

I'm not against biofuels either: in fact I'm strongly FOR them.

What I AM against is two things: wasting food to produce fuel for SUVs, and wasting energy converting one fuel into another needlessly. Ethanol from corn AND biodiesel do BOTH, so I have no love of either. While we continue to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity, there is no point in attemping to use biomass as a means to replace transportation fuels. To do so is to throw away a significant fraction of the solar energy inherent in these fuels.

Clearly, burning natural gas is less complex and cleaner than burning biomass in terms of pollution emissions- but not in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. I'd suggest that biomass is a cleaner fuel than coal on BOTH fronts. And until we STOP burning coal to make heat and power, eliminating IT should be our target. Gasoline can wait until all our stationary power needs are met via renewables like biomass, wind etc. and perhaps nuclear.

 

[jmw]

Unfortunately, since nice Mr Chavez has stopped orimulsion production, and left China in the lurch, they are using more coal again.

Coal is one of the cheapest fuels available. Cheaper than Heavy fuel oil, itself based on refinery waste products. This is especially true in countries where Health and Safety executives do not appear to exist. Possibly they have no HR either (every cloud...).

So it does not take much of an excuse to see coal in resurgence at regular intervals.

In Europe there are also significant coal reserves. Germany has substantial open cast mining of brown coal and Greece, until it accessed the natural gas pipelines was committed to continued use of Lignite. Gas pipeline are, we know, all too vulnerable and gas prices are going up significantly.
In the end the sort of compromises between environment and cost are going to continue.

The losers will be.........?
and in what order will they lose?

Everything has a price, including the environment. Even "Green" fuels and "Green" initiatives. Not all Bio-Fuels are environmentally friendly... unless you think lower CO2 is a fair exchange for the Asian elephant and people getting their food each day.

There would appear to be no holy grail of energy within site.
What we do instead is just juggle the balls in the air. Mineral oils Vs Bio-fuels Vs Wind energy Vs Tidal Power Vs etc. Each has its own economic cost and its own environmental cost. Each has its adherents and opponents. Logic does not enter into it. It is politics, economics and eco-religion.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

JMV makes a very good point that even the "green" options have a negative impact on something.

In my opinion, the situation is fairly simple. We have too many people consuming t0o much energy. This results in problems (problems with pollution, extinction of species, food supply problems, etc). We can either (A) deal with those problems (which will become more severe as the population and energy consumption continue to rise) or (B) we can deal with the root of the problem and use less energy.

I have a feeling the world will choose option A.

 

[IAAWVU05]

The world will make comfort its mistress and choose option A. Growing up in Suburbia, I honestly couldn't fathom a sigficant life style change. Even switching from municipal water to well water is a big enough challenge, let alone not using electricity and getting my vegetables from a garden and taking up farming. My narrow-minded opinion is the less energy we use, the less wealth our society will acquire. Using less energy is comparable to a decrease in salary. In either situation, one would have to work harder to make ends meet. Using less energy = more manual work, and as the white collar American citizen that grew up in suburbia (and not knowing my butt from a hole in the ground if placed on a farm), I would not like to make the changes that the "using less energy" lifestyle would require of me because I don't think I can hack it. I hope to see biofuels work, so the farmer can actually make the money that he is worth in society.

 

[YoungTurk]

What are the byproducts of cellulosic ethanol? Can the nutrients be somehow returned to the soil? Fertilizers are a major energy cost of biofuels.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

"Using less energy = more manual work"

Or it means wasting less energy and being smarter about energy use. The average American could make significant reductions in their energy consumption without affecting their lifestyle. In fact, reducing energy consumption will result in less expenses, so if anything it should help you grow your wealth.

 

[Gymmeh]

Bruno,

You forgot option C)Ignore the issue for immediate prosperity until all the fuel is almost gone, live in a country that has a large military that will take control of all the remaining Fuel supplies in the event of a world war. Meanwhile, leave the threat of global warming and world war in the hands of the next generations/kids.

Although I am with you on option B

 

[btrueblood]

Issues of burning biomass vs. coal vs. natural gas for stationary power are sideline issues, in my book, since all of these could be replaced by carbon-zero technologies (solar (includes wind), tidal, or <gasp> nuculur). Money spent subsidizing these technologies is not wasted IMO. Yes, let's work towards NOT burning coal, nor biomass, for stationary power generation. Green building technologies are available now, and can be retrofit to exisiting buildings, with potential energy savings of 20% or more. I work for a company that offers one such technology; most of our customers see a 1-2 year payback on retrofit costs. You'd think we'd have our door being beaten down, but instead I have time to twiddle away here on this site.

But, back to the topic: until you have a viable portable energy storage system, our transportation system (and thus economy) grinds to a halt without fossil fuels (gasoline, diesel). Ethanol is a viable candidate for the partial offset to even replacement of those fuels, whether derived from corn syrup (US), cane sugar (Brazil) or (hopefully, someday, maybe) switchgrass, forest floor debris, and creosote bushes from California hillsides. Ethanol beats CNG on power density, and beats hydrogen by a factor of 5 or more. Battery storage doesn't come close. Spending money to subsidize ethanol makes sense to me for the same reasons as above. Moltenmetal, you argue that we should focus in one area and ignore transportation; jmw argues, and I agree, we need to be looking in a lot of areas, basically every place that energy is produced or consumed, for possible savings or just ways to do it smarter and with less economic and environmental impact.

"if we were to replace all the energy needs of the US with corn-based ethanol we would need land area equal to seven times the area of the US" -- ARGH! Nobody is suggesting that _all_ of our energy needs would be replaced by ethanol, much less corn ethanol. Ethanol's utility is as a transportation fuel, not for power generation or plastics feedstock, or any of the other uses for the current oil stream. Point out a fuel, or transportation system power supply of any ilk, that beats it?

 

[IAAWVU05]

Speaking of forest floor debris, there are 1000 tons of waste wood from forest floors that fall/decay/whatever each weekend in my home state. Thats about 50 kilotons/year from one state. I don't know if it would be economical to harvest the forests for deadwood and floor debris for raw material, but it is a good idea. One would think that forests would be healthier if they were cleared of dead wood and debris every once in a while.

Switching gears, what if the waste wood went through some kind of pyrolisis and synthetic bio-oil was made from it, instead of ethanol?

 

[csd72]

How does the soil get fertilised for the next generation of trees?

Picking up forest debris sounds like a very bad thing for the environment to me!

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

""if we were to replace all the energy needs of the US with corn-based ethanol we would need land area equal to seven times the area of the US" -- ARGH! Nobody is suggesting that _all_ of our energy needs would be replaced by ethanol, much less corn ethanol"

If we were to rely on photovoltaics for all of the world's (non-transportation) energy needs, assuming 10% efficient solar cells, we would require an area of roughly 200,000 square miles, or roughly 5% of the USA landmass. It's big, but it's reasonable.

 

[YoungTurk]

The majority of the nutrients are in foliage, which is generally not collected. The reason it is necessary to collect forest debris and thin forests is that fire suppression prevents the primary mode of natural clean up (small fires). This leads to over-dense forests with insufficient light penetration and also lets the fuel load increase to a point where catastrophic fires can spread and decimate the (otherwise resistant) mature trees and organisms.

 

[ivymike]

here's an idea for ya... how about using the waste heat of a nuclear power plant to run your ethanol distillery, instead of making such big cooling towers?

 

[csd72]

ivymike,

Brilliant suggestion.

Nuclear (sorry george thats Nucular) technology has come a long way since the current batch of plants were put up. Even Australia, traditionally Nuclear free, is looking at the option of building some.

csd