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Today’s post is by Dr. Bill Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and lead author of the forthcoming blog The Green Grok. This is the second post in a 2-part series on biofuels.
Last week’s topic was why corn ethanol is an environmental loser.
But are all biofuels losers? No. Some can be winners. One of those is called cellulosic ethanol.
What Is Cellulosic Ethanol?
All ethanol — whether it is corn or cellulosic — is the same chemical compound: C2H5OH. You might recall from elementary chemistry courses that the “OH” group at the end of the formula indicates that the compound is an “alcohol.” Alcohols can have varying numbers of carbon atoms. Alcohol with two carbon atoms is called “ethanol.” The other alcohols are generally too toxic to be ingested, and thus ethanol has been the libation of choice down through the ages. (Ethanol used as fuel is rendered nonpotable.)
So corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol don’t signify different types of ethanol, but rather the different material (or feedstocks) used to produce them.
AutoblogGreen reported today that the cellulosic ethanol company Mascoma has received another $10 million for research and development from Marathon Oil. This comes after GM’s undisclosed equity share in the same company was announced last week, and puts the grand total raised in this round of financing at $100 million.
General Motors announced today it would be entering into a strategic relationship with Mascoma Corp., a second-generation biofuel company with the technology to produce cellulosic ethanol from non-food sources via a single-step biochemical conversion.
The undisclosed equity share aims to contribute to joint research and development along with technology exchange, plant siting, and rapid commercialization of cellulosic ethanol technology and infrastructure. This is GM’s second investment in a cellulosic ethanol company, after announcing partnership with Coskata back in January.
Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with biodiesel, but how much do we really know? While biodiesel is easily the most popular alternative fuel available, it’s commonly misunderstood or misrepresented by inaccurate information. Since the most frequent question I get is, “So what exactly is biodiesel, anyway?“, I decided to write a tome covering all the basics—a one stop shop for all your biodiesel- related questions.
It’s been exactly one year since I published the first Biodiesel Mythbuster on GreenOptions.com, and its popularity made a sequel inevitable. By way of a short introduction, here’s what I wrote last year:
Researchers at Michigan State are trying to get corn-stover to digest itself after harvest. Doing so would mitigate the costly pretreatment steps needed for the production of cellulosic ethanol from the non-edible parts of the corn plant.
MSU’s scientists are adding genetic material to the corn’s genome, genes that would normally be responsible for the digestive enzymes produced by fungi and the microbes in cow rumens. The newly transgenic plants store these enzymes in vacuoles in the leaves and stalk in a way that doesn’t affect the plant while it’s alive.
Range Fuels Inc. announced yesterday it has secured over $100 million in Series B funding, an investment that could make it the first company to seriously commercialize cellulosic ethanol. The first phase of construction will produce 20 million gallons of mixed alcohols per year by 2009, and has the potential to expand to up to 120 million gallons.
Range Fuels says their facility will break down any type of plant material (eg agricultural waste or wood chips) by a two-step thermochemical process. This differs from competing methods of producing cellulosic ethanol, which involve breakdown of plant material with heat and/or acid, and treating it with costly ($0.50/gallon) enzymes.
In January, USDA researchers completed a five-year evaluation of another biofuel feedstock with the potential to make a serious dent in US petroleum usage. In the largest study to date, switchgrass has been shown to produce 540% more energy than was used to grow, harvest, and process it into cellulosic ethanol, while reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 94% when compared to gasoline.
USDA geneticist Ken Vogel commented that the study demonstrates switchgrass’s potential to be a major renewable biofuel that reduces GHGs and could “potentially displace 30 percent of current U.S. petroleum consumption.”
It just looks like a pile of trash to most of us, but a new cellulosic ethanol facility may start making a renewable fuel from cardboard and other wood wastes. See the story here.
Photo Credit
The first commercial cellulosic ethanol facility to convert waste wood materials into a renewable fuel went online last month near Upton, Wyoming. After 6 years of development, KL Process Design Group, in conjunction with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, has produced a proprietary enzymatic method to break down wood and waste materials, such as cardboard and paper:
KL’s cellulosic ethanol plant is converting waste wood into a renewable fuel. “It is now possible to economically convert discarded wood into a clean burning, sustainable alternate motor fuel” said Randy Kramer, president of KL Process Design Group, a design firm that has been working in corn ethanol. “We’re proud of what this small company has accomplished, and believe that our design will be a cornerstone from which we can build our country’s renewable fuel infrastructure providing a better source of motor fuel, starting today.”
The press release makes no mention of production volumes or plans for expansion (I’m currently contacting KL about this), but the company could be the first to capitalize on the massive potential of cellulosic ethanol, namely, making fuel from waste products (see earlier post).
The ethanol industry isn’t the only group up in arms about pervasive negative reporting on biofuels (see yesterday’s post: Ethanol Industry: Jobs Are Better Than Food?).
Two soybean growers’ groups have suspended $1.5 million in funding from the University of Minnesota, due to research showing that biofuels could worsen global warming:
The study, by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman and others, said that dedicating huge amounts of land to grow corn, soybeans, sugarcane and other food crops for fuel could drastically change the landscape and worsen global warming. Farmers in the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia and other countries will need to clear forests, grasslands and peat lands on a massive scale to grow more of those crops, according to the research, unleashing far more carbon dioxide from natural vegetation than is saved by the lower emissions of the biofuels.
Is anyone really surprised about this finding? Suspension of the funds appears to be only temporary, until the groups have a chance to meet with the Dean of agricultural science. Jim Palmer, the executive director of the two soybean groups, summed up the situation: “The university hurt the farmers’ feelings, OK? That’s probably the best way to say it.”
