Biofuels are increasingly lumped into a single category of environmentally apocalyptic dead-end solutions. As the food vs. fuel debate rages on, it’s no wonder that the general public believes this.

But not all biofuels are created equal, as the chart above illustrates (click the image to see full size). It’s one of the best depictions I’ve seen of how each biofuel feedstock has completely different impacts on overall greenhouse gas emissions, water and pesticide use, and the energy required to produce the fuel. (Click on the chart for the full image)

The chart was created jointly by faculty members from University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy and published in the Seattle P-I (see the article Bio-debatable: Food vs. fuel).

Before you get too excited, please note that the unit is probably too expensive for your next block party, unless you’ve got an extra $9,995 lying around somewhere. Fortunately, state and Federal tax credits can halve this, but that still keeps it out of the price range of the average American.

How could making ethanol be so expensive? As Thomas Quinn quipped, this is “third-grade science. You just mix together water, sugar and yeast, and in a few hours, you start getting ethanol.” That’s not the hard part; what’s difficult is purifying ethanol to the degree that it can be mixed successfully with gasoline.

Ethanol has been made from yeast-fermentation of grain, fruits, and vegetables for thousands of years. Distillation, which gets around the 15% alcohol concentration limit that kills yeast, followed shortly thereafter. Adding ethanol to motor fuel takes things one step further. To mix properly with gasoline, ethanol must be anhydrous (containing no water) at 100% pure, or 200-proof. Homemade ethanol stills can easily produce 95% pure, or 190-proof, ethanol. But getting that last 5% of water out of the ethanol can require just as much energy as it did to get out the first 95%.

It could be the ingenuity of putting several thousand years of knowledge into one box makes the MicroFueler so costly. It can fill its own 35-gallon tank with E100 (100% ethanol) in about a week by fermenting the sugar, water and yeast internally, then separating out the water through a membrane filter.

Compared to homebrewing biodiesel, which can be done with less than $100 worth of equipment, making ethanol for motor fuel seems complicated and expensive. While sugar appears to be a cheap, ubiquitous resource, according to one expert it takes 10 to 14 pounds of sugar to make a gallon of ethanol. Right now, raw sugar sells in the United States for about 20 cents a pound.

Although the cost of each gallon of ethanol produced in the MicroFueler depends on the price of sugar, electricity, and water, Thomas Quinn maintains that it can be made for somewhere around $1 per gallon. The company is trying to make inedible sugar available from Mexico, which can be bought for as little as 2.5 cents per pound.

I like the idea, but this probably isn’t something that will go mainstream unless the price comes down. If you want more information about homebrewing ethanol, or plans to make your own still (which would be substantially cheaper), see these resources:

• RunningOnAlcohol Library
• JourneyToForever Ethanol Resources

Posts Related to Ethanol and Biodiesel:

• Study: Your Car Can Run On 20% Ethanol
• 6 Ways To Find And Use Biodiesel Anywhere
• Biodiesel Mythbuster 2.0: Twenty-Two Biodiesel Myths Dispelled
• Cellulosic Ethanol Sugar Diverted to Algae Biodiesel Production

Via: NYT
Photo Credit: Popular Mechanics

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.

Why Cellulosic Ethanol Can Be an Environmental Winner

Corn ethanol is produced from kernels — actually only a small part of the corn kernels — the sugars and starches. Herein lies one of the limitations of corn ethanol. You see, sugars and starches comprise a tiny fraction of the corn plant’s mass — about 2-15%. Because only a small fraction of a plant is used to make corn ethanol, the amount you can produce is limited.

Cellulosic ethanol is a different story. Most of the dry biomass — as much as 80% — is typically made up of cellulosic material — the stuff that makes the plant sturdy. So you can make a lot of ethanol using a plant’s cellulose instead of its sugars and starches. (By the way, even if the cellulosic material comes from corn, we still call it “cellulosic ethanol.” Corn ethanol is made solely from the sugars and starches of the corn kernel.)

The Major Advantage of Cellulosic Ethanol

Our guts are unable to digest cellulose, so we typically throw away that part of crops. A lot of it is left on the field or disposed of as agricultural waste. For corn, the cellulosic material includes the corn stover — the leaves and stalk — and the cob.

Remember what made corn ethanol such an environmental negative? A main reason is that it requires that land being used to grow food (or left as forests or grassland) be converted to growing an energy crop. And that leads to lots of global warming pollution.

This is not a problem for cellulosic ethanol — we can simply use the agricultural waste from food crops to make the ethanol and thereby avoid all those emissions.

Why We Can’t Fill Our Tanks With the Cellulosic Stuff … Yet

Unfortunately, right now, producing cellulosic ethanol on an industrial scale is too expensive. Unlike converting a plant’s sugars and starches to corn ethanol, making cellulosic ethanol requires that we first break down the cellulosic material. But because this material is what makes a plant sturdy, the atoms in these compounds are strongly bonded together and that makes them hard to break apart. The processes we have available today to do this are too expensive to make cellulosic ethanol commercially competitive.

But that will likely change. Scientists and engineers are working to make a commercially viable form of cellulosic ethanol. Some are developing new chemical processes; others are trying to genetically engineer new microbes that can “ferment” cellulose into ethanol like normal microbes that ferment sugars into ethanol. (The U.S.Department of Energy is helping fund six biorefineries.)

Cellulosic Ethanol Could Help Cut U.S. Global Warming Pollution

By my own estimates, agricultural and forest wastes could supply as much as 35 billion gallons of ethanol per year, saving up to 76 megatons of global warming emissions per year. (These results are somewhat larger than but consistent with other recent estimates (e.g., see Smith et al. 2004).) Such savings would cut a little less than 5% of all our heat-trapping pollution and about 15% of the emissions from the transportation sector.

By mid-century, cellulosic ethanol could supply as much as 86 billion gallons of ethanol, saving a little more than 180 megatons of global warming pollution per year — or almost 12% of America’s total global warming pollution and about 35% of the emissions from the transportation sector.

These are significant numbers. But to reach such levels we would need to grow bioenergy crops such as switch grass. Such cultivation, in turn, would require converting lands for this purpose, and that could raise some of the problems discussed in last week’s post.

The Bottom Line of Biofuels: There Are Winners and Losers

The saying “waste not, want not” applies to biofuels. The best biofuels are made from agricultural or forests wastes or from plants cultivated on degraded or marginal lands. The product from such feedstocks — cellulosic ethanol — is where we should be directing our entrepreneurial energies.

Read more about Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

See also:

CleanTechnica: Gene from Cow’s Stomach Engineered to Create More Affordable Biofuel

Gas 2.0: Mascoma Update — Cellulosic Ethanol Company Adds $10 Million From Marathon Oil

CleanTechnica: First Sustainable Ethanol to Mass Market?

The deal will put Marathon Oil’s Senior Vice President Cliff Cook on Mascoma’s Board of Directors. Marathon President and CEO commented: “This investment in Mascoma’s leading-edge technology reflects our commitment to address increasing energy demand by bringing to market environmentally friendly, renewable fuel derived from non-food domestic biomass.”

Cellulosic ethanol is hot. Let’s hope all this investment money puts it out on the street soon.

Via: AutoblogGreen

But another team of UK environmentalists recently commissioned a report that highlighted a possible loss of livelihood for local peasant farmers, chemical pollution and interference with the ecology in turn threatening tourism and wildlife in the area.

The miller, however, has not publicly responded to these concerns and may as well go ahead with the plans, earlier also opposed by local political leaders. Instead of sweet smell of sugar, the miller, Mumias Sugar (which has no functional website!), also smells a whiff of politics in the air.

“This development would be a national disaster, wreaking havoc with the area’s ecosystem and spelling the end for wildlife across much of the Delta,” Paul Matiku, a conservationist, said.

“Large areas would become ecological deserts. The Delta is a wildlife refuge with cattle herders depending on it for centuries as well. There is no commitment to mitigation for the damage that will be done and no evidence that local incomes will be in any way improved. The sugarcane scheme cannot be allowed to go ahead.”

This standoff could yet be on for a long time, though. It is believed that most of the biofuel products that will be produced here will be destined for the UK market and environmentalists there are avowed to stop it.

The 130,000 hectare Tana Delta wetlands are arguably Kenya’s largest, most ecologically and biologically diverse, socially and economically important wetland and hosts a wide array of ecosystems including forests, swamps, dunes, beaches and ocean.

It supports exotic plants and animal species, some of which are listed as being endangered. The delta is immensely valuable to the local people who have built an intricate relationship between their lifestyles and the dynamics of the delta’s ecosystems.

It is teeming with lots of bird species and is also home to wildlife like lions, crocodiles and hippos.

An ethanol refinery is also part of the planned project and if the conservationists and environmentalists have their way, US$ 325.5 million investment will be at stake. Although thousands of jobs will be created, environmental groups are concerned that monoculture planting will replace a large area of diverse habitat, and that irrigation will use up large amounts of the available water.

For the locals, the area has also been a battle ground for vicious tribal and clan wars between pastoralist communities and farmers for its resources particularly the crocodile-infested waters of the river Tana and grazing land.

Photo Credit: Flickr

About one-fourth of all corn grown in the U.S. is now cultivated for fuel rather than for food. Meanwhile, the growing demand for both food and fuel is driving commodity prices for crops like corn to record highs. That means, even with the federal government’s generous subsidies for ethanol production, today’s biofuel profits aren’t what they used to be.

While the pro-ethanol corporate types aren’t ready to call it quits entirely, some are shifting into lower gear or putting biofuel plants on hold. Which makes for interesting viewing, courtesy of the Biofuel Deathwatch List at Google Earth. The national map features an assortment of those Google Earth, yellow-balloon-like markers, each one indicating the location of a planned biofuel refinery that has been put on ice because of “unfavorable market conditions.”

On-hold plants range from Pacific Ethanol’s proposed facility near Calipatria, California, suspended last December; to Biotown USA’s planned refinery near Reynolds, Indiana; to the most recent, POET Energy’s proposed plant in Glenville, Minnesota, which the company axed last week citing permitting costs and holdups.

And if you think the Biofuel Deathwatch map is interesting, you’ll probably also enjoy another compilation by Earth2Tech: the Google Earth locations of all the recently canceled coal-fired power plants across the U.S.

Last week Coskata announced the location for their pilot demonstration plant, a facility that will begin producing 40,000 gallons of ethanol per year, starting in 2009. While that is only a tiny drop in the proverbial bucket, it’s another step along the path to having a full-scale plant in operation and producing 50 to 100 million gallons of ethanol per year.

Unlike other ethanol producers, the Coskata process will not be producing ethanol from fermenting corn, but instead will be incinerating carbon bearing materials in a plasma arc furnace to produce syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which is fed into the bioreactors where anaerobic bacteria consume the gasses and produce ethanol.

This pilot plant will be using a version of the plasma gasification system to break down the feedstock and produce the syngas the microbes feed upon to produce ethanol. Interestingly enough, the site for the pilot plant is on the grounds of the Westinghouse Plasma Center, near Pittsburgh PA. 25 years ago General Motors (a partner with Coskata on developing and promoting their ethanol manufacturing process) and Westinghouse Electric developed a high-volume plasma torch furnace, called a plasma arc cupola in order to produce molten iron for automotive engine blocks, crankshafts, and brake components. And now, this same technology is being used to provide fuel for transportation.

The feedstock for this pilot plant will include a variety of source materials, including some municipal waste. Presumably, as a pilot plant, they will want to test a range of feedstocks to evaluate performance and efficiency with a variety of materials.

While the plasma arc completely incinerates the materials fed into the furnace, it should not be confused with ordinary trash incineration. The plasma arc strips materials down to their component atoms at extremely high temperatures, and the entire output stream is contained, with the syngas being fed into the Coskata system for fuel production, and other materials forming a slag that can be processed to extract useful minerals. Unlike conventional trash incineration, there is no exhaust from this form of incineration being released into the atmosphere. It stays completely self contained.

And though the Coskata pilot plant may or may not be set up in the same fashion as the StarTech system, the plasma torch can actually draw enough energy for its operation from a inline generator using the heat from the superheated syngas to provide the electricity to run the torch. As long as material is being fed into the system, it will remain self-sustaining. The analysis of this system indicates a ratio of 8 units of energy produced for every unit of energy used to produce it. This is far superior to food-stock based ethanol production methods, as well as some more traditional extraction methods.

More information:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Coskata press release
More About the Coskata Process
GM Announces Biofuel Partnership: Cheap, Green Ethanol?
GM Announces New Cellulosic Ethanol Partnership with Mascoma Corp

Cross-posted at EcoGeek.org

via: GM Next Blog

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.

Mascoma is a 3 year old energy biotech company based in Boston. Their proprietary production process, called Consolidated Bioprocessing, limits the use of chemicals and enzymes required by other biochemical methods to make cellulosic ethanol. There are two basic processing methods: biochemical treatment and gasification (see post on Coskata).

How Does Mascoma’s Cellulosic Ethanol Process Work?

During a conference call today, I asked Chairman and CEO of Mascoma Bruce Jamerson how their process differs from standard biochemical production processes. He described it like this:

Cellulosic ethanol feedstocks are usually broken down by some kind of pre-treatment, like a mild acid bath. At that point, the cellulose (which is basically a chain of glucose sugar molecules) is clipped apart into C5 and C6 sugars by enzymes. Those sugars are then fermented into ethanol by other microbes. Each of these steps take time, and money. The first step after pre-treatment, called hydrolysis, typically requires purchasing expensive enzymes. The best way to reduce the cost and throughput time would be to eliminate some of these steps.

Mascoma’s proprietary microorganims do all of the post pre-treatment steps at once, without the need for separate batches. The advantage of this is decreased throughput time, lower capital cost, and higher yields.

The other big difference about Mascoma is their pretreatment step, which essentially chops up plant material and uses a proprietary process involving heat, water, temperature, and mechanical action to prepare the plant material for digestion. Since it doesn’t use acids or bases to break down cellulose, it avoids chemical use and decreases waste materials.

Mascoma can make cellulosic ethanol out of any non-grain feedstock like switchgrass, corn stover, wood chips, waste wood material.

What are Mascoma’s Plans for Commericalization?

Mascoma is building a demonstration facility in New York, and hopes to have it operating by end of the year. The company is looking at 2010 or beyond before commercial scale facilities are operating.

Mascoma, like Coskata, is backed by Khosla Ventures, and has raised about $90 million in investments.

Is Mascoma Competing with Coskata for Biofuel Supremecy?

During a conference call today, Mary Beth Stanek of GM said that Coskata and Mascoma aren’t really competing with one another, since they offer complimentary approaches to producing ethanol. Bruce Jamerson commented that they’re glad GM is investing in both Coskata and Mascoma because there is such a demand for low greenhouse gas fuels.

How does Mascoma’s Ethanol Compare?

Mascoma said their fuel would incur approximately $1.00 to $1.50 per gallon production cost, completive with gasoline.

GM said they’ve thoroughly evaluated Mascoma’s environmental metrics, which include:

• Greenhouse gas savings: 90-95% reduction when compared to gasoline.
• Commercial stage water use: 2-3 gallons water per gallon ethanol produced (compared to Coskata’s 1 gallon).
• Commercial stage net energy balance: around 1:8-10 (8 to 10 units of energy produced for each put in). Mascoma says they’re currently getting an energy return of 1:5.5 in the lab.

Why Does GM Care so much About Cellulosic Ethanol?

It’s no mystery why GM is interested. They’ve already got 4 million Flex Fuel vehicles (those that can run on 85% ethanol) on the road, and any effort to rapidly commercialize cellulosic ethanol will help them in the long term.

For more on this topic, see GM’s Grand Plan For Solving America’s Oil Dependence.

Update: Mascoma receives $10 million in equity investment from Marathon Oil.

Posts Related to Cellulosic Ethanol, GM, and Coskata:

• World’s First Commercially Viable Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Online 2009
• GM Announces Biofuel Partnership: Cheap, Green Ethanol?
• Video: Coskata Ethanol Announcement From Detroit Auto Show
• Switchgrass Could Displace 30% of US Petroleum Usage With 94% GHG Reduction
• First Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Goes Online, Makes Fuel From Wood Waste
• More About the Coskata Process
• More on Plasma Gasification Technology
• Video: Breakfast with Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors
• Coskata Announces Ethanol Plant for 2010
• A Birds-Eye View of the Coskata Ethanol Process… at CleanTechnica

Who doesn’t want to be green? But beware of automobile ads claiming environmental benefits from home-grown ethanol. Almost all U.S. ethanol comes from corn and, as a fuel, corn just isn’t as “amaizing” as they say.

“What if we could live green by going yellow?” one TV spot asks. “What if we could lower greenhouse gas emissions,” it continues, promisingly, “with a fuel that grew back every year?” Sounds great doesn’t it? Sorry folks, it’s just not so.

With corn ethanol, we are barking up the wrong stalk. This so-called yellow fuel is not green and the rush to it is misguided. The negatives of turning corn into fuel far outweigh the positives. First a little background.

A short history of ethanol

Ethanol has been around for a long time. Some of the earliest forms of life on Earth — anaerobic bacteria — used fermentation to produce ethanol and in the process extracted energy to drive their metabolic functions. In prehistoric times humans fermented grains and other biomass to make ethanol. Most of you have encountered ethanol in your lives — in beer, or wine, or the harder stuff. Ethanol is simply alcohol.

Using ethanol as a fuel dates back to the nineteenth century. It powered some of the earliest automobiles, including Henry Ford’s first car, the Quadricycle. Interest in reviving and expanding the usage of ethanol in cars today has grown, in part, because of its perceived climate benefit.

When we burn fossil fuel, excess carbon dioxide (CO₂), the chief global warming pollutant, is released to the atmosphere. This, at least in principle, should not be the case for ethanol or other biofuels (fuels produced from plants and wastes). When ethanol is burned, its carbon is converted to CO₂, just as in fossil fuels. But because the carbon in biofuels is pulled directly from the atmosphere via photosynthesis, it would seem that burning ethanol does not, in and of itself, represent a net source of new CO₂ to the atmosphere. (See the Department of Energy’s diagram below.)

As it turns out, it’s not that simple.

Why ethanol is not effective at fighting global warming

To get the whole picture you have to consider ethanol’s entire life cycle — the energy inputs and global warming pollution arising from every step in the production process, such as:

• cultivating and harvesting the crop,
• refining the crop to ethanol, and
• its transportation to market.

Corn is a particularly hungry crop — it requires lots of water and nitrogen fertilizers. The application of fertilizers creates nitrous oxide. Though it’s called laughing gas in the dentist’s office, in the atmosphere it is no laughing matter — nitrous oxide is about 120 times more potent than CO₂ at trapping heat.

As you can start to see, corn ethanol is ineffective at fighting global warming. A research team from Princeton University led by Tim Searchinger pointed out an obvious but little appreciated fact about biofuels in a recent study. Growing crops for fuel requires cropland dedicated to that purpose. That can create a market imbalance.

For example, the seemingly simple decision to grow corn instead of soybeans creates a demand for soybeans that can only be met by someone else adding cropland to grow soybeans. Typically this entails destroying important rainforests or grasslands. This transformation of land spews huge reservoirs of carbon stored in that land into the atmosphere in the form of CO₂, leading to further global warming. It is mind-boggling but probably true: U.S. farmers growing more corn drives the destruction of tropical rainforests in Brazil as more land is converted to soybeans. Now that’s a global economy.

The Searchinger team’s results suggest that when land-use changes are factored into the equation any possible climate benefit from corn ethanol is canceled out. Searchinger’s models stunningly show that it would take 167 years of continuous corn ethanol production before it would begin to switch from a climate loser to a climate helper. That’s way too long to wait with global warming bearing down on us.

So, for the huge environmental price of growing corn for ethanol, what do we get? An increase in the very emissions we need to reduce — the precise opposite of what is needed.

The silver lining of biofuels: Degraded or abandoned land and waste

While ads might encourage you to go green by going yellow, I recommend caution. Given the present source of ethanol in the U.S., it is a bad environmental bet. Going yellow isn’t easy either. Sure you can buy an E85 car (one that runs on a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline). The car companies would love you to because they get a break from the federal government on meeting national fuel economy standards. But try filling your new car with ethanol. As of January 2007, there were only about 1,100 E85 pumps in the U.S. My own take on this is that we could accomplish a lot more, a lot faster by zeroing in on fuel economy.

So that’s the bad news about corn ethanol. But there is a bright spot on the biofuels landscape; it involves using biomass waste and growing feedstocks on land that stores very little carbon. We’ll discuss these solutions in our next post. Stay tuned.

Read more about Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

See also:

Green Options: The Big Dark Cloud in the Ethanol Silver Lining

CleanTechnica: First Sustainable Ethanol to Mass Market?

Gas 2.0: First Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Goes Online, Makes Fuel from Wood Waste

Putting the comment back into context, however, there are a few problems with the logic of this suggestion, and not just that he, Bush, was the creator of the “eat local” concept.

The statement was made in response to a question on the relationship between ethanol and food price increases: (quote from press conference after the jump).

“Actually, I have a little different take: I thought it was 85 percent of the world’s food prices are caused by weather, increased demand and energy prices — just the cost of growing product — and that 15 percent has been caused by ethanol, the arrival of ethanol.

By the way, the high price of gasoline is going to spur more investment in ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. And the truth of the matter is it’s in our national interests that our farmers grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us.

In terms of the international situation, we are deeply concerned about food prices here at home and we’re deeply concerned about people who don’t have food abroad. In other words, scarcity is of concern to us. Last year we were very generous in our food donations, and this year we’ll be generous as well. As a matter of fact, we just released about $200 million out of the Emerson Trust as part of a ongoing effort to address scarcity.

One thing I think that would be — I know would be very creative policy is if we — is if we would buy food from local farmers as a way to help deal with scarcity, but also as a way to put in place an infrastructure so that nations can be self-sustaining and self-supporting. It’s a proposal I put forth that Congress hasn’t responded to yet, and I sincerely hope they do.”

Let’s look at the logic here. If more and more farmland gets diverted to commodity crops for ethanol production, how are we going to provide food for the world AND have land left for local farms? If just fifteen percent of the food price issues were caused by using farmland for ethanol, how is using more farmland for ethanol going to be part of the solution? Not to mention the massive input of fossil-fuel based fertilizers that are used to grow that commodity crop conventionally. Or, the fact that current demand for local food may become greater than what can be supplied with only four percent of our nation’s farms growing fruits and vegetables.

On the chance that this “new” buying local concept of our president’s may sour you on the idea of buying local, please don’t quit. Buying local is your movement. Your choice. Your actions. And they make a huge difference for positive changes in this country.

According to Ryan Grimm at Politico.com, when asked what the President would do if the current iteration of the farm bill made its way to the President’s desk White House spokesman Scott Stanzel replied, “as it stands now, it is not something the president would support.” Stanzel wrote in an email:

“The proposal before Congress would dramatically increase spending, in part by masking additional spending in budgetary gimmicks and accounting tricks.”

Farm bills pass - that’s what they do

Despite the threat, there may be enough Congressional support to override the veto. According to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN), “If the White House is stupid enough to veto this, they’re going to get overridden.”

The farm bill is a very popular funding mechanism for Congressional spending. Every state’s congressional delegation works extremely hard to get their slice of the agricultural pie - not doing so does not bode well in the eyes of powerful ag interests and the voters of agricultural states. In short, farm bills do not get vetoed. At least very rarely do they get vetoed - there are a few exceptions.

One exception to the rule is when a second term president uses a veto (or threatens to veto) an appropriations bill, such as a farm bill - and criticize Congress for loading it with pork and earmarks - without any serious political repercussions. Interestingly enough, the last time a farm bill was vetoed was nearly 10 years ago, when another late second-term president successfully vetoed a farm bill - a veto which Congress made no attempt to override. But the political climate is quite different from that of ten years ago, and I would suspect that this President does not have the political capital to successfully veto the farm bill.
See also: “Small Wind Remains in Farm Bill” :: Green Options (12/2007)

Photo: mike138

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/1MeIgaRfyD4" width="425" height="355" wmode="transparent" /]

If you want to hear more from Glen Kertz, CEO of Valcent Products, see him discuss the details of the Vertigro system:

Alan Doering of AURI says agricultural residues and co-products aren’t waste, they’re potential new revenue streams to power the future.

AURI, or Agricultural Utilization Research Institute of Waseca, Minnesota, is a nonprofit organization that develops new uses for agricultural products and ag-processing co-products.

Alan Doering, an Associate Scientist with AURI, filled me in on steps being taken to utilize every bit of what used to be considered products of the waste stream.

Turkey droppings are fueling a power plant that serves 40,000 homes. Syrup derived from the making of ethanol is being used to power the plant that makes the ethanol. And there’s more on this amazing work in my interview with Alan.

doering-final.mp3

Currently, the average price for a gallon of E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) is $2.67. That’s amazing if you think about it, since a gallon of ethanol requires about 16 lbs. of corn to produce.

Take a look at this interactive map to see what E85 costs in your area.

Via: gas2.org

AAMCO, one of the world’s largest chains of automotive service centers, has started an initiative designed to promote environmental sustainability and energy efficiency across the nation.

The Eco-Green Auto Service initiative will certify automotive centers that meet a stringent set of criteria while adding services that cut emissions, improve mileage, and reduce hazardous waste associated with owning a vehicle.

AAMCO is also promoting alternative fuels by installing E85 conversion kits that allow vehicles to run on ethanol blends up to 85%. Their service centers will use kits provided by Flex Fuel US ®, called the FLEX-BOX SMART KIT™, which is the only ethanol conversion kit fleet-certified by the EPA.

The FLEX-BOX is an aftermarket bolt-on kit that continuously monitors the engine’s emissions and delivers supplementary fuel injection as needed, since blending high levels of ethanol into gasoline will make the engine run lean.

As I mentioned yesterday, auto manufacturers tend to make a big fuss out of vehicle conversions like this one. General Motors has done so with their plan to convert half their fleet to run on 85% ethanol by 2012, and there really isn’t an incentive for them to convert older vehicles. I haven’t found out how much these conversions cost yet, but AAMCO’s website indicates that up to 85% (coincidence) of the conversion price can be offset by state tax credits.

Only one problem though: all the ethanol in the US is currently made from food. If you feel like filling your gas tank with corn, the price of a gallon of E85 is only $2.67, although that works out to about the same price as gas when you factor in the lower energy content of ethanol. Converting the nation’s automobile fleet to E85 doesn’t seem to make sense until cellulosic ethanol facilities go online.

AAMCO’s Eco-Green auto service has other important attributes besides ethanol conversions though. They’ll be attempting to create a “closed-loop environment” to recycle materials and eliminate waste streams, such as recycling waste transmission fluid into fuel to power heaters or air conditioners. AAMCO will also be using water-based cleaners to avoid hazardous solvents and will be using biodegradable lubricants (like vegetable oil) in their hydraulic equipment.

“We are creating a closed-loop environment for our centers, where whatever comes in is reused, and whatever goes out has minimal or no environmental impact,” says Todd Leff, AAMCO’s CEO. “Our franchisees are converting their centers into the cleanest car care businesses on the planet. I’ve long believed the automotive aftermarket industry can do more to minimize its impact. Now AAMCO centers are out to make a difference.”

To learn more: AAMCO’s Eco-Green auto service and Flex Fuel US ®.

To find an environmental friendly auto-service center, click here.

Related Posts:
Scania’s Ethanol Diesel-Engine, Runs On Biodiesel Too
“Perfect Storm” Inflating Food Prices Worldwide
Sick of Gas?: Convert Your Car To Run On Electricity

Scania (part of Volkswagen) builds modified, heavy-duty diesel engines designed to run on almost pure ethanol (E95, or 95% ethanol, with a 5% ignition improver).

If that sounds weird, that’s because it is. US auto manufacturers make a big deal out of converting cars and trucks to run on ethanol/gasoline blends of up to 85% ethanol. Scania has done better than that for 15 years, and guess what, their engines can run on 100% biodiesel too, without any modification.

Scania’s compression-ignition (CI) ethanol engine is a modified 9-liter diesel with a few modifications. Scania raised the compression ratio from 18:1 to 28:1, added larger fuel injection nozzles, and altered the injection timing. The fuel system also needs different gaskets and filters, and a larger fuel tank since the engine burns 65% to 70% more ethanol than diesel (whoa! see below). The thermal efficiency of the engine is comparable to a diesel, 43% compared to 44%.

While Scania originally introduced this technology for “heavy commercial vehicles in urban operation” (city buses), they’re now extending it to trucks as well. Scania maintains that with existing technology, the transition to renewable fuels can be painless. Since in the last 15 years they’ve put 600 ethanol buses on the road (mostly in Sweden), the company seems to know what it’s talking about.

Scania is also working to develop ethanol refueling infrastructure, which should make it easier for smaller transport companies to invest in ethanol-powered vehicles.

But why not use biodiesel, since ethanol requires about 1.5x more fuel usage? Scania’s answer may raise a few eyebrows: “the farming capacity [for biodiesel] is insufficient for the huge need foreseen for the transport industry.”

Unless you take EU spokesman Michael Mann’s comments seriously (he said that Europe can grow enough fuel to meet 10% of it’s transportation fuel), Scania must be betting on cellulosic ethanol. The intensifying food vs. fuel debate isn’t taking this issue lightly, as I’ve written about here and here.

In any case, Scania’s work seems to indicate it might not be as hard to create engines that run on alternative fuels as auto manufacturers maintain.

Related Posts:

European Union Defends Biofuel Targets As Food Prices Soar
Biodiesel Myth (Or Fact?) #23: Biodiesel is Raising Food Prices
Mercedes 40-MPG Diesel Hybrid: Cleanest SUV on the Planet
How Biodiesel Fuel-Cells Could Power The Future (And Your Car)

As I reported last week, Europe’s EPA advised suspending the EU’s biofuel targets until a comprehensive environmental analysis could be completed. Barbara Helfferich, spokeswoman for EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, said no way is that going to happen:

“You can’t change a political objective without risking a debate on all the other objectives,” meaning that changing biofuels targets could lead to questioning the entire climate change package.

European Commission agriculture spokesman Michael Mann said the EU isn’t really concerned about using food-based biofuels to meet their targets. Instead, they’re betting on increasing crop yields and the availability of more arable land, both from new member states and a decrease in compulsory “set-aside” (fallow cropland).

Mann even went so far as to say the US is primarily at fault for increasing food prices.

Whoever or whatever is at fault (see “Perfect Storm” Inflating Food Prices Worldwide), the increasing cost of food has already sparked violent protests in Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritania, the Philippines and other countries. Troops have even been deployed in Pakistan and Thailand to guard against food seizure from fields and warehouses.

In the midst of a food crises, it doesn’t take a skeptic to doubt the EU’s ability to meet their biofuel targets without further impacting food prices.

For more information on the role biofuels are playing in increasing food costs, see the following posts:

“Perfect Storm” Inflating Food Prices Worldwide
Biodiesel Myth (Or Fact?) #23: Biodiesel is Raising Food Prices
Europe’s EPA Advises Suspending Biofuel Targets
2015: 30% of US Corn Harvest Will Be Gasoline
Which is Worse: Exporting $1 Billion Per Week or Growing Fuel?

Photo Credit

Zoellick called it a “perfect storm of things coming together…” and listed 7 different issues contributing to the increasing cost of food, which led to rioting in Haiti and Egypt last week, along with a general strike in Burkina Faso:

1. High energy prices (which affects production and shipping costs).
2. Increase in demand from developing countries: “going from 1 meal a day to 2 meals a day” leads to an increase in the amount of food needed.
3. More meat in diets in developing countries.
4. Increased production of biofuels.
5. Droughts in important growing regions, including Australia and Europe.
6. Reduced food stocks.
7. Commodities trading/futures trading: food being used as a financial instrument.

Zoellick underscored that none of these issues was solely responsible for increasing food prices, but NPR’s host Steve Inskeep pressed Zoellick on how much biofuels were contributing.

He noted that a recent report released by the World Bank seemed to indicate that biofuels were the primary issue, but Zoellick maintained that it wasn’t that simple. Rather, the “combinations of events have led to an emergency situation.” But he also said:

“Biofuels is [sic] no doubt a significant contributor. It is clearly the case that programs in Europe and the United States that have increased biofuel production have contributed to the added demand for food.”

Listen to the Morning Addition radio broadcast (only 5 minutes): World Bank Chief: Biofuels Boosting Food Prices, or see last week’s post, Biodiesel Myth (Or Fact?) #23: Biodiesel is Raising Food Prices.

Related Posts:

Europe’s EPA Advises Suspending Biofuel Targets
Biodiesel Mythbuster 2.0: Twenty-Two Biodiesel Myths Dispelled
2015: 30% of US Corn Harvest Will Be Gasoline
Which is Worse: Exporting $1 Billion Per Week or Growing Fuel?

Photo Credit

This new kind of corn, in an ideal scenario, would allow the kernels to be used as food, while the (formerly) wasted part of the corn plant could be converted to biofuel. A gene from a cow’s stomach, one of the most effective digesters of plant sugars in the world, is implanted into a corn cell using genetic engineering, fundamentally changing the corn plant. As reported in Biofuels Journal:

“Cows, with help from bacteria, convert plant fibers, called cellulose, into energy, but this is a big step for biofuel production. Traditionally in the commercial biofuel industry, only the kernels of corn plants could be used to make ethanol, but this new discovery will allow the entire corn plant to be used — so more fuel can be produced with less cost…..Now, the sugars locked up in the plant’s leaves and stalk can be converted into usable sugar without expensive synthetic chemicals.”

Why is this so troubling? Let me count the ways:

1. It doesn’t address any of the larger issues, such as:
2. The pollution caused by large-scale corn production, such as pesticide and fertilizer runoff;
3. The petroleum used to create the synthetic fertilizers, and to harvest the corn;
4. The unknown consequences of releasing this genetically modified food into the environment.

This tunnel-vision approach sacrifices eco-effectiveness on the altar of efficiency. And, once again, we’re side-stepping the issues so that the corn lobby can continue to party on at taxpayer’s expense.

Increased world demand for grains and vegetable oils due to population growth (esp. in China and India), the weak dollar, agricultural production problems around the world, and $100/barrel oil are some of the driving factors accounting for increasing food prices.

After covering 22 of the most popular myths about biodiesel, I realized I’d only given lip service to a major issue: increasing food prices. In Myth #2, I mentioned that the goal of biodiesel production is to move away from food-based feedstocks.

But until that happens, the question remains: if I use biodiesel made from soybeans right now, am I contributing to the larger problem of increasing commodity prices and starving poor people?

Quick Facts:

• The United States is the world’s largest producer and exporter of soybeans.
• Soybean prices approached a 33-year high last fall, while overall food prices had their biggest jump in 16 years (according to economists). Food inflation rose about 4% in 2007 compared to an annual average of 2.5%.
• World soybean consumption this year is expected to be up 13.2% over two years ago.
• Biodiesel production in the US accounted for 2.8 billion lbs. of soybean oil last year, which amounts to an estimated 20% of the total domestic consumption of soybean oil.
• Soybeans directly compete with corn for agricultural land. Soybean acreage is expected to decline over the next few years due to high demand for corn, which directly increases the price of soybeans.
• Biodiesel production in 2007 was estimated at 450 million gallons. Corn-based ethanol production is expected to exceed 10 billion gallons by 2009.

Taking this into account, it looks like both soy-based biodiesel and corn-based ethanol (even more so) are at least partly to blame for increasing food prices. But that’s not the whole story. Even corn-based ethanol, which is produced in volumes greatly exceeding biodiesel, may only be responsible for 0.2% - 0.3% of the total 4% increase in food prices over the last year.

According to Brent Searle, Special Assistant to the Director at the Oregon Department of Agriculture, food inflation as a whole can’t be pinned to a single source. Responding via email, Brent said that no single study has sorted out all the issues, but several studies have documented how much petroleum prices are affecting things. The 4-5% food price increase in 2007 has been attributed to:

• 0.2% - 0.3% due to ethanol use of corn
• 0.8% - 1% due to gasoline/fuel price increases
• 3.5 - 4 % due to other causes

Here’s an even more thorough list list of the factors affecting food prices (also received via email):

1. A growing middle class in Latin America and Asia that can afford more meat and milk, which has driven up demand for grain to feed cattle and hogs.
2. A drought in Australia in 2006 and 2007 reduced the supply of milk and wheat available for export.
3. Low worldwide wheat prices the past several years have led growers to plant less wheat; additionally, grain traders store less wheat today with “just in time” deliveries, and there are no current government incentives for farmers to store wheat on farm. All this has led to record low wheat stocks, causing wheat prices to soar.
4. Regional pests, diseases, freezes, droughts, floods and other natural disasters all impacted fresh fruits, vegetables, and other produce availability and price.
5. Increases in labor costs, as state and federal minimum wages ratchet up, from farm to processing and the restaurant, affect food prices. 40% of the retail food price is related to labor costs after food leaves the farm.
6. Rising fuel costs, over $100 per barrel, making it more expensive to grow, process, refrigerate, and transport food from the producers to stores and restaurants — impacts all aspects of the food chain.
7. Personal choices – for example, organic milk costs nearly double conventional milk; consumers are choosing to pay higher prices based on preferences.
8. Dollar decline — makes food imports more expensive at the store and creates greater demand for US ag exports. Approximately 30% of fruits and vegetables consumed in the US are imported. They are now more expensive.
9. Corporate profits — an excuse to hike prices. Kroger, 4th quarter 2007 sales up 10% and profits up 18%. Kroger stated it paid 3% more for products. “In our view, periods of moderate inflation is a positive for our business because inflation tends to improve sales.”– VP Rodney McMullen, Jan. 2008. Safeway, sales up 3%, profits up 12%.
10. Marginal impacts from Ethanol demand for corn (US) and sugarcane (Brazil).

So where does that leave us? This topic is worth more serious conversation and analysis than can be summed up in a single blog post. My gut is telling me that the most important factors affecting food prices are the price of oil and increasing worldwide food demand, but all of the factors above may play a role.

I would also wager that corn-based ethanol, which will require about 30% of the US corn harvest by 2015, is a much bigger culprit than soy-based biodiesel if either one is significantly contributing to rising food costs. If you’re worried about using retail biodiesel, talk to your supplier about the source of their oil, and do more research with the links below.

I’m sure you have an opinion about this. What do you think? (Let me just repeat that I am all in favor of non-food based biofuels, some of which were listed in the rest of the biodiesel mythbuster).

Posts Related to Increasing Food Costs:

• European Union Defends Biofuel Targets As Food Prices Soar
• “Perfect Storm” Inflating Food Prices Worldwide
• 2015: 30% of US Corn Harvest Will Be Gasoline

Sources:
USDA Economic Research Service: Soybean and Oil Crops Briefing Room, and
Ethanol Expansion in the United States How Will the Agricultural Sector Adjust?
Reuters (Aug. 8, 07): Cooking Oil to Further Fuel Global Food Inflation
ThePoultrySite.com (Mar. 18, 08): Weekly Outlook: Focus On Soybean Oil

Photo Credit

Special thanks to Brent Searle for providing this information.