Bio-fuels .... good or bad? 16

[jmw]

Does anyone have any idea of the impact of bio-fuels? pros and cons?
We are no longer talking about recycling used chip fat here, but purposeful production.
Even as Bio-fuels begin to atract attention we hear about grain and meat prices rising, as we should expect when there is competition to turn our wheat into either bread or fuel.
We also have concerns about our environment. Indonesia is said to be prepared to plant more palms for the palm oil and that means more destruction of the forrests (more burning and smoke?) and loss of habitat to the already endangered (how seriously?) Orang Outang.
This report suggests Brazilian sugar cane as a source.

http://www.livemint.com/2007/09/24013816/BPCL-looks-to-tie-up-with-Petr.html

We all know that we are already losing rain forest at an alarming rate so how bad will this be? 600 acres doesn't sound like a whole lot of land but:
[ul][li] how much bio-fuel will it produce?[/li]
[li]Should bio-fuel be organic? (seriously, the impact of chemicals etc isn't just on foods but on the local ecosystems... )[/li]
[li]How much land would be required to produce enough bio-fuel to replace petrol/diesel?[/li]
[li]If we replace petrol/diesel with bio-fuel, how cost effective is secondary refining [/li]
[li]what are the impacts on the oil industry? Does crude get more expensive or less?[/li]
[li]what are the economic impacts of such changes on refining and thus on society?[/li]
[li]What are the questions we should be asking?[/li][/ul]


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[owg]

Time magazine has a 6 page article damning biofuels. Maybe good sense will return over the next 5 or 10 years.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[josephv]

I think this question depends on the source of the bio-fuel. For example the Time magazine article points out that "sugarcane based ethanol is efficient enough to cut emissions by more than it takes to produce the fuel", but that other bio-fuels are net carbon emitters.

 

[moltenmetal]

Sugarcane is produced by dirty, intensive agriculture. So yes, in the short term it displaces some fossil fuel consumption, but it isn't sustainable.

If the bio-source material is going to waste anyway, why not use it for fuel? That depends greatly on what you mean by waste. You need some of the agricultural waste to keep the soil condition decent. And most of the food-based "wastes" such as used cooking oil and rendered animal fats can be used in pet food to substitute for fresh foodstocks. Putting them in your gastank instead just diverts some fresh foodstock into its place.

Then there's the energy you waste to make these bulky, generally solid bio-source materials into anhydrous liquid fuels...

Part of the solution? Perhaps. But not a major one. More distraction than solution in my opinion.

Stop holding out a false hope of a technological fix. Tax carbon and real solutions will be provided by the market. Do not tax carbon and you'll get more fiddling while the atmosphere burns.

 

[Toastie]

As a student I have been watching this lately to see if I want to stay in the oilfield industry or get out. My reasoning is if another fuel source is found and in readily available quantities it the oil market will go down. I am doubting this will happen within the next 5 years, but I feel within 5 to 15 years oil will not be in big demand as much
The main reason I never felt biofuels would work is harvesting area. The only one source so far I can think that will work is using Algae. I was reading a paper recently that said they can grow algae vertically instead of horizontally like the other potential fuel sources so the yield per acre is really high. The article was either on cnn, foxnews, or slashdot

 

[moltenmetal]

Toastie: trees are a lot easier to grow vertically than algae...

 

[PMR06]

In my opinion, biofuels should not use a source that ultimately is better off for human consumption or takes away from arable land. I don't want to drive my car thru the beautiful forests while hungry!

Algae has the highest potential in that it can be grown in facilities built over unusable land (deserts), using non-potable water (possibly salt water).

What kills me over this debate is the closed minded people out there who are just anti-innovation. I am not advocating giving up SUV's and moving into hippy-communes, but I do support finding an alternative to fuel the lifestyle I currently enjoy. Plus, the people that solve this problem and invest in their efforts will make a TON of money!! I hope the innovations happen here in the US, and my financial adviser put some of my money into their stocks!

 

[moltenmetal]

PMR06: you "do support finding an alternative to fuel the lifestyle I currently enjoy". But of course, the lifestyle you currently enjoy is the one you can currently AFFORD. Therein lies the rub.

True alternatives will cost MORE than the status quo, at least in the short term, because the status quo gets to dump sh*t into the atmosphere free of charge. So guess what: the status quo favours technologies that dump sh*t into the atmosphere. Alternatives that don't do this, or do less of it for similar performance, fundamentally cost more- at very least in capital cost terms. Ain't no way to innovate your way out of that one: that one needs an ECONOMIC solution.

So what you want is a different kind of biofuel- snake oil. It not only fuels your SUV, but cures cancer too- if you take enough of it. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of people willing to sell it both to you AND to your financial advisor.

PS: I don't consider myself to be at ALL anti-innovation or closed-minded. I'm just anti-pipedream! Look up how much biological carbon is generated every year by agriculture (ie. on the very best land suited for growing stuff), and compare that to how much fossil carbon we're using every year, and do the math- then tell me whether or not you're still holding out hope for someone to "invent" a new biofuel that will displace even the transportation fraction of the fossil carbon we're burning! In reality, both lifestyles AND energy sources need to change. We'll get to that realization quicker if we give up the false hope of a technological fix.

As somebody who innovates and does process development for a living and has done so for most of my career, I can't for a minute forget that innovation needs underlying economics to fuel it- and preferably not in the form of subsidy or tax credits that are here today, gone tomorrow at the whim of whatever government's in power. Innovation responds to payback- and can't violate the laws of thermodynamics.

 

[evelrod]

I've always believed that scientific/engineering community will find "THE" alternative to our energy needs before the present oil supplies run out. Actually, as it was with the predicted end of the coal supplies near the end of the 19th century, I don't believe we will see the end of the oil supply at all in this century. As it was in the beginning of the 20th, I'll just betcha we will find some, perhaps as yet unheard of, energy source. It ain't gonna be bio fuels, that's for sure. We, as a planet, cannot even feed ourselves much less grow enough to supply our greedy power/energy needs!

Rod

 

[PMR06]

moltenmetal, You underestimate both what I can afford and am willing to pay for now. Maybe that does not make me a typical American? And what I do with my money is entirely my business, not yours and especially not the government’s. I’ll pay a premium for my green fuel and zip past the electric go-cart toy cars in my big, American vehicle.

I'm not advocating all biofuels as the saving grace of the transportation industry’s energy crisis. In fact, I don’t even support most biofuels. Any biofuel solution that drives up the cost of food sources, is a negative net energy output, or depletes another natural resource is not a viable alternative. Right now the infrastructure and machinery exists to distribute and consume diesel though, so a diesel based solution is at least feasible. Algae grown on unusable land, using say wastewater treatment output, and results in a net energy output seems like a viable alternative worth pursuing.

I appreciate your future minded solution, which is exactly what we need. But a tax increase will pass on cost increase to consumers who would be getting the same product for more money with no immediate alternative or foreseeable solution. I have NO FAITH in our government to use your proposed tax revenue to solve this crisis any time soon. We can see how the government is solving social security and health care... head in the sand, the next administration will solve it. That is why I pay for my own health insurance, invest for my own retirement and support private industry to provide solutions to these problems.

 

[jmw]

Interestingly, I spoke with someone today who bought a Ford Escape Hybrid a couple of years ago. He received $3000 subsidy to help pay the difference between this and the standard Escape.
When he starts up the engine runs till it is at the optimum temperature to minimise pollution and to top up the batteries.
Since he lives about five minutes drive from home, it means he only gets to run on electric for the last brief part of his journey.
This means he is getting around 25mp(US)g and is dragging around the weight of the batteries.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[KENAT]

That goes for all the current hybrids I believe, they are most effective as I understand it where you have a lot of stopping/starting or at least deceleration/acceleration. Out on the highway or even round town if you don't have much traffic or too many stop signs/lights they don't save much and actually the mass of the batteries is a drag.

It's for this reason that I've previously suggested that hybrid technology at this stage should be focused where it would make most differences such as postal vehicles and other delivery trucks, maybe taxis or even busses in the larger congestion plagued cities. However this seems unlikely to happen on a significant scale.

Once(if) plug in hybrids arrive, and make sense, then they'll start to be more attractive. However, even then they only really make sense if the electricity is made from a greener and/or more efficient source than just burning the gas in the car (or at least moving the point of emissions has significant benefit) - like full electric vehicles.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[SomptingGuy]

I drove a Honda Civic IMA across the country last year. It's a mild hybrid so the engine is always running, but there is a motor/generator that either absorbs or gives out power. It was surreal to drive - like the car knows when you want to brake and helps out. It was also fun watching the charge/assist lights going up and down. The gas mileage was phenominal - 56 mpg over the whole trip.

I wouldn't want to pay to get it serviced though.

- Steve

 

[moltenmetal]

PMR06: no problem for you to do what you want to do. Make electricity on your own property using totally renewable means: solar, wind etc.- or buy this energy from someone else. Electrolyze water to make hydrogen, and compress the hydrogen to 5-10,000 psig to store it. Then modify your big American vehicle's boring old internal combustion engine to run on hydrogen. No fuelcell needed. But MAN, it's gonna cost ya! And no point to it while we continue to use fossil fuels to provide most of our electricity, either.

evelrod: don't hold your breath. We're very unlikely to find some way to stick a plug into vacuum space and extract energy from it. As to your historical example, we switched from one fossil fuel (coal) to others (oil and natural gas). No great technological leap there in terms of the energy SOURCE, though much was done on the discovery, recovery and utilization. But we did discover nuclear power: a mixed blessing in environmental terms for sure. Far from the perfect energy source it was thought to be in the '50s...

 

[evelrod]

Agreed that by 21st Century viewpoint the transfer of our primary energy source is no great technological leap. However, as it was seen from 19th Century perspective...

I am vaguely familiar with the "null space" or whatever the geniuses are calling the theory these days and I have my doubts...But then again, I'm no genius. We'll just have to wait and see...No, y'all will...I'm already too old to see it, I fear.

Rod

 

[owg]

If we start to drive plugin hybrids, how will the transportation fuel tax be applied in the various jurisdictions?

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[evelrod]

Has anyone ever known the feds to have a problem finding ways to tax us? On anything? I have a ghastly picture in my mind...of my electric bill!!!

Rod

 

[SomptingGuy]

owg,

There will need to be an additional electricity meter (I already have two!) that measures electricity used to fuel cars. This will require a different plug and some kind of tamper-proof system.


- Steve

 

[dcasto]

There is a sales tax on electricity, so at least the local jurisdiction will get revenues from plug ins.

The hiway people will do what they do for cars that use propane. You will go down annually and submit your milage and pay a tax on miles driven useing propane. The way it works is if you drive more than about 8000 miles/year the tax is fixed at about $200.

 

[jmw]

Europe's diesel car ownership is leaping ahead while in the UK it is lagging. Why? because in the EU diesel is less expensive that petrol. In the UK it is the other way round.
LPG?
Forget it, in the UK no one trusts the government not to boost taxes once enough people have committed to using it.
So now we should trust the government to do the right thing at last? not likely.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SomptingGuy]

I think mainland Europe simply got a head start over the UK. When I worked for CAV (now part of Delphi) back in the 80's, diesel fueled cars were pretty rare in the UK. There were a few Pugs but not much else. Neither Ford nor GM (a.k.a. Vauxhall) had a diesel worth buying.

- Steve