Alternative & Renewable Energy Blog

Use sustainable waste fuels rather than feedstocks, this will at least return food prices to pre-silliness levels.

I might point to recent biological work done with bacteria and algae.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel

"The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (40,000 square kilometers), which is a few thousand square miles larger than Maryland, ..."

Increase in food prices due to ethanol use were and are minimal. The farmer gets paid maybe a nickel for the corn in a box of corn flakes. Before ethanol I bought a corn stove and saved a lot of money over natural gas. I was paying $1.85 a bushel for corn. Farmers deserve what they can get for their product. Cellulosic ethanol is not ready yet. As soon as it and high lipid algae are ready to go they will put corn ethanol out of business. The biggest mouths on this are the animal raisers who want cheap animal feed. I just ate half a T-bone, so I am no vegetarian, but we would all benefit from eating less meat. Distillers grain is still available from the corn after the ethanol is produced. It is a preferable feed to whole corn, which is not healthful cattle. The wholesalers and retailers have used this issue to raise prices, and blame it on the farmers. Check out the facts. You are right about the nitrogen rich silt that is going down to the gulf. Ammonia fertilizer should have a tax that goes to cover the recovery of silt from streams, rivers and dams. No till, and ecological fertilizing and crop rotation should be required. We need to put laws in effect to correct the degradation of our environment. This will not happen voluntarily.

Last I heard, some scientist on NPR presented a strong case for Methanol, over ethanol, as the way to go as far as biofuels.

Whenever I get around to focusing or refocusing on Sustainable Energy it is the integration of the multiplicity of sources that seems to be the the real stumbling block.

I hear the sun doesn't shine much in Berlin, but the Germans make some of the best Solar Panels, either Thermal, or PV. - Is this what we really mean when we say Counter Intuitive?

Exploiting all the gas available from weeds, wood chips, corn, or sewage seems to be simply too much for stoves, or HVAC units, electric generators or cars.

As far as Land Fill Gas is concerned, simple little things like jet port sizes for oven burners forestall its use in farm homes with plenty of grass and cows around.

As far as Food and Fuel imperatives it does seem that it is in Brazil, where they get common sensical about this stuff.

The Japanese have bet on batteries and gas to make the Prius, and there are a lot of them in the town I live in.

I have myself come to lean towards External Combustion that will run electric generators, using whatever is best for the location, and a battery to electric road system for cars and trucks, and turbo chargers on HVAC gas operated home heating or cooking units.

(-pressure and self adjusting burner jets, are on my mind for good performance from multipule grades of bio fuels.)

I shall defer to Garthh, and Edignan, Chrisg, TMF, on this subject.

I agree 100% with Edignan (really, I'm not following you ;)

Range Fuels is building a new cellulosic ethanol plant (the first in the US?) near me and they are using left over pine trees from the wood chip industry. They have a proprietary catalytic process not biological one. I did read, however, that the newer biological processes have very high conversion rates with little going to the waste stream.

With the ever growing need for corn and its derivatives, the pressure is definitly on to use non-feedstock raw materials.

I had looked at steam cracking for cellulose, but unless you used solar (or geotherm I suppose) you had to go to REALLY big batches to make it pay.

But did you notice what a short gap it was from "We need a bug to convert this" to HAVING a bug that converts this?

Now we need a bug that eats paper and makes ethanol!

I sure do! You asked we deliver...

"Ingram said he genetically engineered the E. coli organisms by cloning the unique genes needed to direct the digestion of sugars into ethanol. With the ethanol genes, the engineered bacteria produce ethanol from biomass sugars with 90 to 95 percent efficiency."

http://pacbiofuel.blogspot.com/2007/03/plant-to-convert-trash-to-ethanol.html

Conversion of Mixed Waste Office Paper to Ethanol by Genetically Engineered Klebsiella oxytoca Strain P2

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/bp00036a003

Now we need a bug that eats paper and makes ethanol!

Got one www.ire-incorp.com (well, actually a cocktail of microbes), and it makes sugar out of cellulose before fermenting the sugar. There have been public demonstrations since 2005 on hydrilla, cattail, wood chips, paper and cardboard trash, and old johnsongrass hay. Did an 8th grade classroom demonstration using old cotton rags to duplicate the events that led to the discovery of Trichoderma reesei during WWII. Should work just as well on kudzu, european milfoil, giant duckweed, water hyacinth, annual sunflowers, or any other nuisance growth.

You are on the right track. We can produce enough biomass to meet a large percentage of our total energy needs, especially using our waste too. I am afraid oil will have to be over $100 a barrel though to get us really moving on biofuels. There are a lot of environmentalists that only want solar and wind, and some of them don't even want to be able to see the windmills, or allow the solar in the desert. We have to find a happy medium. I am afraid coming carbon caps may make that impossible. We should also consider turning biomass directly into heat through advanced combustion technology. This would be most useful up north. It can be done through pelletizing, and central or home combustion, but for cities it would be with large plants, and maybe steam heat. My favorite technology for this is plasma gasification. I would like to know if anyone thinks it is an unrealistic technology, or has better ideas.

......salvage this biofuels mess?

I think we are looking at the wrong end of the cow. Utilization of the already available biomass, over a large range of sources, but with very small (decenteralized) biogas generators would have an enormous effect on energy consumption, polution of ground water and runoff. I can imagine every cattle, dairy farm and stockyard with a methane generator, with the excess gas sold to neighbors. (being done now on an experimental level). Here in the NY city watershed, the cost of compliance to runoff regulations exceeds $150,000 per farm. This is paid for by grants from NYC, the State, and the Fed. Septic systems are going for 15 to 20 thousand dollars, with NYC picking up the tab for voluntary upgrades. The alternative for NYC is to put in a 2 Trillion dollar water treatment plant. If The City is willing to intercept this s#!t before it hits the fan, doesn't it make sense for it to be used on the local level?

The cost of intercepting this biomass is already there. It needs to be channeled to a biogas generator, appropriately sized. The end product can be spread on the garden, the fields, or bagged and sold as compost.

So. How about real research money going to sizeing and manufacturing biogas generators, with the attendant reduction in the use of fossile fuels. Let the cows do half the work converting cellulose into fuel.

I gave you a not off topic on your three posts. I don't see anything wrong with corn ethanol as a temporary way to keep oil prices down though. I am in favor of better feedstocks asap. There are plenty of them, and we should have gone that way to begin with. Farmers and ranchers have been very slow to adopt methane and other uses for animal and crop waste. They just don't want to be bothered with it.

Farmers are getting there, depending on industry - dairy has a lot of easy access because they congregate twice a day

Be nice if we could move some of this to feedlots (OK, it'd be really nice to get rid of feedlots in general, I prefer range beef)

links deleted google dairy biofuel methane if interested.

creating a new fuel industry based on corn is as much folley as the current fossil based industry.

First there isn't enough room to grow all the corn we will need to power this country let alone any others.

Second producing fuel from corn is terribly in-efficeint you have to burn 75% of what you make in order to produce it. So you only have a net gain of 25% or to put it another way you have to produce 400% more fuel by corn just to match current oil production. Have we considered the enviromental impact of that much more pollution?

Third. With that low of a profit margin the cost of a mass produced gallon of corn based gasoline will be in the neigborhod of $8.00 at current inflation rates. by the time it actually hits the market it could be much higher.

We need to re-design the combution engine rather than trying to create a new fuel for a technology that is 150 years old. The engine is the real problem.

Hello guest,

Regarding your statement beginning with "third".

Only the Federal Govt. can afford to run any organization with out substantial profit/income. Therefore, fuel sources to produce electricity and transportation will inevitably become too expensive for the less wealthy in this nation, as the cost of living becomes more than the vast majority of this nations population will find affordable.

Typically, this will cause the Govt. to establish a minimum standard, that is, a price per kilowatt hour, that the Govt. determines, that should be made available to each household, based on the number of folks living there, and limit the price that the energy providers can charge for that established energy usage. Energy usage that exceeds the Govt. mandated standard will be charged at rates that are much higher than is charged today to make up for the capital losses that are the result of Govt. regulation.

As long as there are no caps placed on the wages, salaries and "Bonuses" that are paid to those who are employees and management, and most of all "CEO's" of these "Monopolies", their capital "costs" will continue to increase at a much faster rate than the vast majority of the working public. Thus the cost of energy production will vastly exceed the cost that the working public can afford to accommodate. The cure for this is the elimination of these privately owned public utilities through a mandated Govt. buy out and thus the Govt. owns all of the electrical production and distribution system. Bonds should be made available to the public and private investors, with a minimum rate of return established, and as a teaser to promote the public buying of said bonds the earned capital/profits could be tax exempt. This would be a much better security than buying war bonds.

We are all witnessing the results of over paid CEO's, often receiving bonuses that exceed their salaries, as they justify these gifts by cutting costs through the reduction in their workforce. This also carries with it, a reduction in quality, and a reduction in available services regarding their products. EX: eliminate the Factory Service Dept.and scatter the service across the nation among-st a few privateers. This would be OK except that the privateers have little interest in customer satisfaction and quality performance. They know that they are your only option for repairs under product warranties. As they are providing said service for less cost to the Mfg., and know it, there is little motivation to provide quality service, in a timely manner. You are left without any choice.

We are all aware of the enormous salaries and performance benefits that have been paid out to the heads of the top financial corporations even though their leadership has ultimately led to the financial crisis we face today. They should all be charged with fraud, as they have led these corporations into bankruptcy. Facing prison terms is unfortunately the only way to improve this situation. As for Mr. "KING of the PIRAMIDS", prison for the last of his remaining life, as an example, is likely the only way to cause these kinds of folks to go strait. The public is entitled to know that these kinds of folks don't get away with a slap on the wrist.

Clearly this is not a new idea. Many countries around the world have their production of electricity under Government ownership, and these countries are considered "Capitalistic" just as we are.

TMF

You may have forgotten that using a renewable fuel such as corn does not contribute to an increase in Global Co2 ... So I wonder what you mean by more pollution unless you mean that the Ethanol you "added" to the fossil fuel you refined is the problem ... let me understand ... make ethanol out of corn and de-cry a food shortage verses mix the ethanol to add to fossil fuels so it's cheaper to buy so we can afford to operate our cars ... oh I get it now !

Biomass will be a common fuel AGAIN .. it was at the dawn of man ... and it will be in the twilight of man !

Except you forget all the pollution that comes along with high intensity industrialized farm operations, fertilizer and pesticides in surface and groundwater, increased NOx and particulates in the air, etc.. corn is not a particulalrly clean crop to grow. Other grass species that require less fertilizers and pesticides, and retain soil better with less operational impacts, might be a better solution.

Farmers could move to growing sorghum or switchgrass etc. Sorghum wouldn't require much change in the ethanol plants. It would replace corn production however. I have always envisioned using non agricultural land for grasses. America has hundreds of millions of acres of dormant land that could be used productively. Highway roadsides and medians could also be used. Some grasses might be suitable for cultivation in arid areas of California. If under cultivation, they could be set up to avoid the cyclical wildfires that cost so much to fight. Jatropha might be a good choice. Even salt marshes could be harvested. This would be a good way to pull some of the excess nitrogen out of the silt in deltas. Man could enhance wastelands, rather than compete for top quality farmland.

Highways are a good idea, since the States plant those regularly for erosion control, and then have to go through and cut the grasses down for fire suppression. Deltas are wetlands under federal jurisdiction, I suspect fish and wildlife would not give a very favorable biological opinion. Much of the unfarmed deserts in California are high deserts, and much of that land is actually owned by the military for things like weapons testing, or are protected for parks and wilderness. So those are a long shot. The lower desert is intensively farmed and water is imported. Many other spots in areas like the San Joaquin valley have been removed from ag production as offsets for other development areas, or are more profitable as wildlife hunting areas and such than as farm lands. So these are kept looking natural because it is worth more money than farming by far. The hillsides in southern california and such might be good since they are pretty well covered in non-native invasive species anyways that the home owners plant. It would be motivation to harvest the grasses for a market and thereby help reduce fire risk for those people too stupid to live not in the middle of millions of acres of brush on hillsides in a desert.

You would only be harvesting the overgrowth in the marshes. I once watched (on TV) a whole lake full of reeds burn like any other wildfire. I recently saw a satellite picture of California burning. A large part of California and offshore was covered in smoke. Think of all that wasted energy, and consequent pollution. Extreme environmentalists are partly responsible for the wildfires that happen on a periodic basis. The rest is largely just plain stupidity and irresponsibility. These fires are predictable every five to ten years. They could turn a lemon into lemonade.