The Oil Drum

87 comments on The Man Who Wrote the Book on Algal Biodiesel

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SamuM on May 17, 2007 - 10:07am

Thanks for cross-posting this to TOD, RR. Very important, although a bit disappointing (in terms of consequences, not content).

Let me try to put this into perspective:

1st gen biofuels have been basically killed, although some just don't understand it yet. Even part of the MSM admits it these days (corn ethanol, anyone). Sure, 1st gen will get their share of subsidies and the folly will have a short run, but I hope it'll die fairly quickly.

2nd gen cellulosic ethanol is still getting the thumbs up from MSM, although seriously shot down from multiple directions here, in RR's blog

Now, 3rd gen genetically bio-engineered algal biostuff was supposed to save the planet and whatnot. Best scaling, best estimated EROEI and most potential through bio-engineering.

And now? Uh-oh.

I'm starting to get a little dizzy here.

Are there ANY bio-fuels that scale anywhere to useful amounts (1/10 of our current fossil oil consumption) with a worthwhile net energy balance and in economically sustainable way and without depleting soil/sea/ground water/climate?

Or to put it in other words:

Can we please calculate 1st a theoretical thermodynamical process maximum that a bio-fuel production process could achieve, if we could tweak out all the engineering problems.

If this theoretical maximum is worthwhile in terms of:

- CO2/methane/vapor cuts
- net energy balance
- land/logistics/water/solar/raw inputs scaling
- production costs (max 10 x viable current price)

Then a second calculation using an implementation with current known technology (perhaps with a modest 5-15% maximum performance improvement).

Isn't this already done in the initial phase? Isn't it kind of a basic exercise that one needs to do 1st?

THEN and only then should we start to look into implementing, financing, technological breakthrough attemps and theoretical perfectibility.

I think we could have avoided a lot of these follies, if the most knowledgeable people did the calculations first as a two camp battle:

1st camp: prove it that in theory it's worthwhile (with some, perhaps yet unknown, but feasible implementation)

2nd camp: prove it that in theory (using any implementation) it is never worthwhile

Currently it looks to me as without any sound theoretical understanding derived from basic laws of physics, completely silly projects get researched, funded and valuable brain power/time is wasted on things that will never mount up to anything useful (energy-wise).

Or am I completely misreading most of the news about 1st-3rd gen bio-fuel failures?

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kjmclark on May 17, 2007 - 12:26pm

Frankly, I doubt we'll keep all the cars running, but I would personally bet more on biobutanol from pyrolysis of something like locust trees. At least we know that those technologies work.

I'd bet on locust because they are fast growing and really don't need nitrogen fertilizer. Locust is a legume that fixes its own nitrogen with bacteria. It's also a very dense wood with a high heat content:
"Nine-year-old stands exhibited the highest usable heat content 483.4 MBtu/ha for whole-tree biomass and 432.8 MBtu/ha for woody biomass." DOE Energy Citations Database.

Burying the charcoal would increase the soil quality further and sequester much of the carbon as well.

That wouldn't save our drive-through society, but it might keep some ambulances and motorcycle cops in business.

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mbkennel on May 17, 2007 - 2:37pm

Currently it looks to me as without any sound theoretical understanding derived from basic laws of physics, completely silly projects get researched, funded and valuable brain power/time is wasted on things that will never mount up to anything useful (energy-wise).

[sarcasm, but frighteningly familiar]
Oh you silly doomers going on and on about laws of physics!
Why do you put down the triumphant power of capitalism? I bet it's because you're really nasty control-freak communists inside, isn't it!
[/sarcasm]

When people actually do those computations, based on sound theoretical understanding derived from basic laws of physics, it seems to me that so far they nearly always point to the same, unpleasant answer:

It's conservation and nukes. We might get lucky, but everything else is probably just noise.
And for the love of humanity, no coal nowhere!

Uh oh.

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Syntec on May 17, 2007 - 5:21pm

Your perspective leaves much to be desired.

1st gen biofuels are doing just fine.

2nd gen biofuels i.e. cellulosic production paths are well underway.

3rd gen biofuels or XTL biomass->liquid processes are also well underway.

4th gen biofuels i.e. algal and genetic cocktails are -for the moment- research projects.

What everyone fails to recognize of course, is that the production paths of all the above just so happen to compliment each other. Algae biodiesel for instance, would find a ready and inexpensive CO2 feedstock source from corn ethanol fermentation while the exothermic reaction of XTL processes could provide heat for both.

Here's one of the world's first: http://www.dedini.com.br/realese/231006.doc

No, corn ethanol by itself is not going replace 10% of FF usage, however, corn ethanol facilities are the strategic lily pads for the future mass production of renewable LTFs (1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th gen) under the integrated biorefinery construct as supported by the DOE.

Biofuels are not a failure - far from it.

Oh and BTW, Dedini announced today that they have succeeded in producing cellulosic ethanol from sugar cane bagasse for $1/gallon: http://biopact.com/2007/05/dedini-achieves-breakthrough-cellulosic.html

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SamuM on May 18, 2007 - 1:17am

Syntec, I really appreciate you posting here, esp. considering the amount of pessimism often encountered.

However, I don't think your post addresses the crux of my post.

- Are thermodynamic ceilings calculated for various processes?
- Where are we know with current implementation tech (scaling/EROEI/true non-subsidized price)?
- How much is there room for improvement (feasibile)?

Personally I do not give a lot of value to pure economic feasibility studies (production price, investment ROI).

Why?

Way too many externalities & direct subsidies clouding the true resource/energy utilisation of the process.

A process that takes more fossil fuels as inputs (in kJ) and produces energy of lesser quality (lower density) and less in volume (liters) can be made look "profitable" or "cheap", when in fact it is a completely wasteful and stupid process.

At the very minimum the process must be analyzed for (energy quantity x energy quality) input/output. I haven't really seen analyses like these for bio-fuels processes, by the startups themselves.

Again, I'm by no means even a beginner on these issues, but a mere man-of-the-street.

However, having also lived through the period of two other tech-bubbles (biotech and Internet) I know that a lot of useless/scam projects get funded that have absolutely no basis in reality.

And I know that the majority guys funding the projects do NOT care. I know too many investment bankers to know better.

All they care about is their exit strategy with nice profits. The project can go down in flames after they exit for all they care.

So, I hope you forgive me, if I'm unfairly over-generalizingly skeptical on bio-fuels, esp. with all the data that RR keeps posting.

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Syntec on May 18, 2007 - 12:33pm

I see your side of the argument and I agree with you that there are those who will undoubtedly try to 'make a buck as it were'. Such is the nature of capitalism.

That said, funding for any biofuel project must run the wallstreet gamut until such time as a national directive (not long now) is undertaken to address Peak Oil for Peak as you know, portends a liquid transportation fuels crisis; the key component of which is petroleum exposure not fossil fuel exposure per se.

As such, the PIR or Petroleum Input Ratio of any proposed liquid fuel alternative is of paramount importance.

I fully support conservation, rail electrification, carbon taxes, BPHEVs and all the other mitigation wedges, however, as I recently pointed out to an ASPO colleague - North America is not Europe ergo no matter how many wedges we choose to deploy, a mass produced, renewable liquid transportation fuel(s) will be necessary.