104 comments on The St Louis Renewable Energy Conference - Day 1
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You can get a pretty good pictuure by putting Pimental and ethanol into Google.
He seems to be a respected scientist, although with a focus on insects, at Cornell who was among the first to investigate ethanol EROEI. he often writes jointly with Patzek of Berkeley.
His studies are consistently the most negative, hence his currency on the anti-biofuels side of the park. I have seen some solid criticisms regarding very dated or negative assumptions, however my overall impression is that his work is professional and does provide some very good insights into the problems with corn ethanol. Despite some claims I have heard here, his ethanol work seems to focus only on corn ethanol. I have seen a range of studies in which he also writes on energy content in food.
In the ethanol issue, I think everyone is biased, either promoters or enemies of biofuels. Pimental, in my opinion, is in the second camp. I see Robert Rapier as an exception.
My own take on corn ethanol is it has to be nonsense: industrial monoculture agriculture just can't be that efficient when you sum up all the inputs. And in the end, you will deplete the soils (fertilizer or no fertilizer, the Great Plains are simply several thousand years of glacial effluvium-- when they are gone and their minerals depleted, they are simply, gone).
however
if you throw in an ability to use agricultural waste and/ or cellulosic ethanol, then I can see how it could work.
caveat
that same raw material could be directly used as boiler fuel, where I suspect it would be a more efficient use of energy (Drax power station, the largest CO2 emitter in Europe, was partly powered with biofuel for a while).
further caveat
I don't believe it's a win (the latter case) from a global warming point of view. You take sequestered carbon, burn it, and release it into an atmosphere that cannot absorb the existing CO2.
As discussed on Robert's earlier thread, I do think sugar cane-based ethanol can be EROEI positive and can provide benefits to certain countries over a finite period of time in the future. It is also a huge win in terms of global warming. Sugar cane derived ethanol seems to produce over 80% less emissions per mile than gasoline.
Personally, I think we are at or near a plateau in oil production. While I'm not convinced production levels will drop off sharply, I don't think they will go up much from here ever.
So, I think we need to develop solutions. I am not driven by an unrepenting obsession with the evils of vehicular transportation so I don't see any option for prolonging it as a scream inducing evil.
I fully expect that in 10 or 20 years, we will have a lot less oil available, but will have largely transitioned to an electricity-based transportation system.
It is the interim that worries me. I do think that conservation could be our savior, but don't see any effective means of making it happen other than price. So, I would like to see this done in part throught axes, but am fairly pessimistic that governments will intervene effectively.
Despite all the calls for a Manhattan project, governmnets are craven and inefficient. The thing we have now that is closet to a Manhattan project is the US corn ethanol program , which is a travesty. There is no reason to think the next attempt will be better unless you earn you living at a government funded research lab.
This is all a long winded way of saying that the number of good solutions on the table that can work today is very small. I think we need to take what we can get. Ten years or so of producing ethanol at levels up to or even in excess of double current sugar cultivation is hardly an enormous threat to the environment. In fact, given climate gains, it could be a net plus.
Biodiesel, CTL, tar sands, beef consumption, junk food, the amount of sugar in our diets, etc. all seem far worse for the environment.
I am amazed by how agitated people get over ethanol from sugar cane. I think is is primarily because it does work and to them threatens to prolong the car culture.
But for a country like Thailand, where I live, it makes sense and will happen. The only arguments that I can see against Thailand producing 10% or more of spark engine fuel from sugar are oil prices will come down, pollution and global warming don't matter and spending 10% of your GDP on imported petroleum is just fine.
None of these are true, so Thailand will produce a fuel that is cheaper than gasoline, is produced domestically with almost all domestic content, is a net plus for the environment/climate and offset a masssive transfer of Thai wealth to foreigners.
When electric transport becomes viable, ethanol production will stop. But Thais will be glad they did it.
rant mode on
I suspect but haven't researched it that sugar cane is a pesticide nightmare? My own take on all agriculture is that if it needs massive amounts of pesticide (and herbicide, and fertilizer) its not a long term solution.
Sugar is this ridiculously controlled market. Agriculture is overprotected and oversubsidised world wide (yet we let people starve), and sugar is amongst the most controlled commodites (or the most controlled).
A sample, sugar costs 4 times as much for a food processor in the US than in Canada. Thank you ADM company and High Fructose Corn Syrup!
Of course then there is Cuba. If the US wanted cheap ethanol, it should go to Cuba. GWB's election in 2000 and a Cuban kid named ?Rafeal Elian? got in the way.
rant mode off
I'm not sure about CO2 ethanol v. gasoline. I'm not sure how one hydrocarbon can have 80% less CO2 emitted than another. Seems to me the CO2 emission ought to be pretty proportional to the amount of energy released? Again my chemistry is too rusty for this.
Ethanol is a Brasilian solution to a Brasilian problem. I'm not sure it generalises.
Corn ethanol is a US political solution to a US problem. We should seek to minimise damage: there is a level of ethanol which all gasoline could take (5%?) without big switching costs, and the US could simply mandate that across the whole country (thus consuming all the readily available corn ethanol).
It is true that both would release the same amount of CO2, but the net is lower for sugarcane ethanol because the process heat is provided by bagasse, which took up CO2 while it was growing. In the case of gasoline, the process heat is provided by fossil fuels.
However, it is important to realize that diesel to run equipment to grow, transport, and process the sugar cane and additives like chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. require fossil fuels and contribute to green house gas emissions. These factors make corn based ethanol far less preferable than sugar cane based ethanol.
Further, the possibility using renewable sources of energy for stationary production facilities, capturing the CO2 and other green house gases, and re-injecting them deep underground could potentially provide a reduction of green house gases to the atmosphere.
Sugar is one of the most highly subsizdized crops, as you note. But Brazil, Cuba and Australia (if I recall correctly) are market-based and Thailand may lift domestic price caps this year, which they should.
I said it is a niche solution. It does not universalize. I don't think Bulgaria should try to grow sugar cane. But it can reach beyond Brazil to most tropical countries.
I was also thinking about Hawai'i, as I used to live there. It used to be a big sugar exporter, but there is no sugar grown there commercialy any longer. They were priced out largely due to labor costs, but now their is also the issue of land costs. I'm wondering what sort of price sugar would have to fetch in order for it to be economic in Hawai'i again.
I guess I just keep coming back to the can versus will issue. Lot's of these alternatives can/could happen. Whether they will or not is another issue.
2 brothers own most of this resource. One was on President Bush's 2000 election committee, one was a heavy contributor to Al Gore ;-). Cuban American family. Billionaires.
I am vague on the details as this article was about 7 years ago-- jump in someone and correct me.
The US government had a scheme to buy them out. I think the sticking point is whether the land then goes back to being Everglades, (and helps preserve the Everglades by not sucking up the water upstream of the Everglades) or (as the State of Florida wants) the land is allocated to developers (which would be even worse for the Everglades than the current position).
So the US is stuck growing sugar cane, at great ecological harm to a significant and unique bioresource (and tourist area), for very low economic value created (this is sugar after all, a pure commodity) because:
- for domestic political reasons the US cannot import Cuban sugar (see Joan Didion's Miami re exile politics and any number of books and articles about the way the embargo actually strengthens Fidel Castro's regime) which would be the cheapest solution
- the US can't get its act together in the face of land development pressure in Florida
The thriller writer Carl Hiassen always said Florida is his most creative source of ideas: you couldn't make some of the stories he writes up.I have referenced Pimentel's work in passing, but have not used him as a reference for any of my results. I think Pimentel did open himself up to some legitimate criticism by using some outdated data, and some ethanol advocacy groups have done a great job of demonizing him. Therefore, they will not listen to anything you have to say if you use his work as the basis of your argument. They will just say "Pimentel has been discredited", and that is that.
In the ethanol issue, I think everyone is biased, either promoters or enemies of biofuels. Pimental, in my opinion, is in the second camp. I see Robert Rapier as an exception.
I appreciate that. I have biases like everyone else, but I try to stay objective. Even when I don't agree with the other side, I want them to have the opportunity to have their voice heard. Jay Hanson told me several months back that he could see that fairness was very important to me, and then he started analyzing my childhood to determine why that might be. :-) But there is a big difference to me in being fair, and allowing the other side to make undisputed points. I will let the other side present their view, but if I disagree with it then I will vigorously challenge it. I think this sort of debate is how people learn and grow, including (or maybe especially) myself.
The problem with Pimental (and Patzek) for the corn-ethanol and soy-diesel interests is not that they use outdated evidence, but that they employ a methodology which produces disagreeable results for said interests. Both Pimental and Patzek are scientists with extensive publications in peer reviewed journals.
We need to be careful when repeating lines about 'outdated
data". Who is making that judgement? On what basis?
For the person not willing to compare rival methodologies, there is always the tried and generally true axiom: He who pays the piper calls the tune.
You can try to appear as unbiased as you wish, but once you take a position against the ethanol boosters, that's it buddy, you're on the 'junk science' list (a list started by consultants to the tobacco industry). Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels, but demonization is another favourite tool. And it should be resisted.
Yes, peer reviewed and found wanting insofar as their work on EtOh is concerned. http://rael.berkeley.edu/ebamm/FarrellEthanolScience012706.pdf
I note that the first author listed is an advocate of hydrogen cars, boats and the like. Yup.
Farrell et al criticize Pimentel and Patzek for "incorrectly assuming that ethanol coproducts (... such as dried distiller grains) should not be credited with any of the input energy". In part they justify the credits for by-products by saying "Coproducts of ethanol have positive economic value and displace competing products that require energy to make." That requires proof. There are limited markets for those co-products and I've heard that DDG is not good for livestock in large quantities. Those markets may be satisfied with the existing co-products of the making of processed foods from corn. (Not that I think those processed foods are a great gift to humanity.) I expect many of those co-products would have to be discarded. Even natural gas is "flared" in remote oil fields because its marketing is too difficult. Biodiesel enthusiasts seem to be constantly looking for ways to enlarge the market for their pesky co-products.
Farrell et al "corrected" Pimentel and Patzek's model by "dropping extraneous" [parameters] (sic) "e.g., laborer food energy". Here I agree with Pimentel and Patzek. You can't run the process without labor, and thus analyses of both the economics and the energy balance must take that into account. As well as the embedded energy in farm machinery, etc. If they are including what's convenient for them (co-products), and excluding what's not convenient, how are they better than the researchers that they dismiss?
Their conclusions, nominally somewhat supportive of corn ethanol, show that it is very limited in its benefits. First, it only embodies a small amount of renewable (solar) energy, "5 to 26%" they say. It displaces quite a bit of oil, though, they say, because the energy inputs are mainly from natural gas and coal. (See their Fig. 2.) From the point of view of "reducing our reliance on imported oil" that may sound good. But given that North American natural gas extraction is declining and coal too is finite, currently in short supply in the USA, and the worst fuel from the GHG emissions angle, that's not good news. Even they say that their best estimate is a GHG reduction of 13%, with a lot of uncertainty. That depends on the fuel source for ethanol processing, and currently coal in on the rise in that realm.
They say that "policies aimed at reducing environmental externalities in the agricultural sector may result in significantly improved environmental performance of this fuel." I agree with that, in the sense that it is the huge energy inputs of industrial agriculture in the USA that make biofuels a dubious source of energy. Organic agriculture that is low-input and sustainable may produce some kinds of biofuels with a decent net energy gain, but it is questionable whether that can be scaled up to quantities that would have much impact on the fuel used in our high-energy lifestyle. Also, it is more likely that the optimum biofuels within that scenario would be biodiesels from vegetable oils. That still leaves the food-vs-fuel issue unresolved, along with other externalities that they do mention, but exclude from the calculations: soil erosion and the impact on forests.
Farrell et al make the same dubious statement as discussed here before, that gasoline has a negative net energy, or uses more petroleum input than ethanol. And somehow they don't give petroleum refining any credits for its "co-products"...
They say that cellulosic ethanol may have much better net energy than corn ethanol, but concede that that's just theory thus far, as yet to be realized in practice.
Finally, I think that there is no hope that a massive and complicated process that results in a marginal energy gain could maintain an economy and lifestyle formed on the basis of petroleum that has been, in the past, virtually free, in the sense of an EROEI of 20, or 40, or even more.
So is that the only peer-reviewed scientific paper you could find that "debunks" Pimentel and Patzek?
No not at all, in fact this very paper outlines 4 more studies that debunk Patzek and Pimentel and to this day, Patzek refuses to address his erroneous EROEI calculations when confronted.
Furthermore, there's nothing dubious about Farrel's petroleum input statement -ethanol production reduces petroleum usage- which of course is the most important answer to the most important question regarding ethanol production overall.
I'm sorry you have no hope.
www.defendscience.org
However, I don't think anyone has persuasively argued against the assumption that one should include labor and inputs from machinery. That's like saying we should ignore those inputs if we were evaluating the monetary costs of the enterprise. Try that with the SEC and see far how you would get.
If corn yields are outdated, update the Pimental study and see what happens.
This argument wouldn't be worth having except for the fact that the whole process is so heavily subsidized and the fact that the damn auto companies get to fudge their mileage figures when they make their gas guzzlers E85 capable. And, of course, they concentrate on the gas guzzlers and they get the biggest scam for the buck from that.
I wonder if someone at TOD could arrange a full fledged debate on this site between Pimental or Patzek and one or more of their "debunkers".
Now, of course, we alaready had sort of a debate between Robert Rapier and Khosla. I think Khosla lost by default as he seems to have retreated into the EROIE is irrelevant stance.
I guess if I were making millions off this deal, I would tend to think that EROEI was irrelevant, too.
Just as an example, he used unrealistically low corn yields. The data for that were pretty old, which opened him up to criticism from the corn lobby and allowed them to dismiss his work. As I said, it is not really possible to debate Pimentel with a pro-ethanol person. They will just say "He's been discredited." They can point to some of that data he used to support their point, and that's the end of the argument as far as they are concerned.
If you are technically inclined this article is a modestly interesting read.
No, Jack, you are wrong. Pimental is not an 'enemy of biofuels.' He has calculated the futility of corn, soy, switchgrass, and wood based liquid fuel.
On the other hand, he recognizes the advantage of crop based solid fuel, known as bio-heat:
"BIOHEAT offers the best energy and greenhouse gas balances of the available options and is the most efficient way to produce energy from farmland," says David Pimentel, a keynote speaker at the Guelph Organic Agriculture Conference..." http://www.reap-canada.blogspot.com/
Bio-heat is where science and economics leads when discussing the use of North American farmland for energy production. In the short term, while natural gas is still plentiful and sawdust not yet in short supply (despite rapidly growing demand for wood pellets from Europe), crop based bio-heat remains a small player.
As gas production declines and as demand for pellets/briquettes outstrips sawdust supply, crop based pellets/briquettes demand will surge. The ethanol buyer will need ever larger government welfare cheques to remain competitive with the solid fuel buyer at the farmgate, because the latter will be able to pay more per unit of energy content, since he/she will have so many more btu's to sell (process output) per input unit.
Demand from those choosing not to freeze to death, or see their pipes freeze in less extreme environments, will be as strong as demand from those choosing to drive. Good-bye ethanol. Hello public transport.
Umpteenth law of thermodynamics: you can't heat houses indefinitely by burning the sawdust created in the process of building them.
Unless you build "zero energy" houses, that is. But alas the make-a-quick-buck housing-bubble developers didn't do that. They didn't even use 2x6 studs. And we're stuck with the houses we got, we won't be economically able to rebuild them.
I fully agree with toilforoil's analysis, solid biofuels will rule, since they displace liquid (and gas) fuels better suited for other uses. Although their price is ultimately bound by the price of fossil fuels, even if right now they sell for more, per btu, then oil or gas in some areas. The reluctant pellet buyer quoted here yesterday only had electric heat as the other option.