The Oil Drum

THE PRIMITIVE SOLUTION-ETHANOL, AND THE DESPERATE SEARCH FOR A PORTABLE LIQUID FUEL

In one of her excellent recent posts on Peak Oil, possible oil alternatives, and where our energy comes from in America, Gail the Actuary has included the following chart, which is extremely useful:

http://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/fossil-fuel.jpeg

It is educational to just study this chart, and think for a bit. Some patterns may stand out to you (they did to me, but I have a tendency to be a “visual” brain side type, witness my fascination with the “one cubic mile of oil” illustration!)

1. Only one of the segments shown in the pie chart is consumed principally for transportation, and transportation is almost completely reliant on it alone. it also happens to be the biggest segment of the pie, at 40%. That segment is petroleum.

2. Only one other segment of the pie can be used for transportation in any measurable way at this time without massive investment and infrastructure. That segment ties for the second biggest segment of the pie. It is natural gas (and of course it’’s derivative product, LPG), tied with coal at 23% of U.S. energy consumption.

3. So we can calculate that 63% of the pie can be used for transportation fuel without heavy infrastructure investment, research, and delivery system creation.

4. The remaining 37% of the pie can most efficiently and productively be turned to transportation use by way of electrified transportation. It is the only viable way that nuclear and renewables can be used. Only coal of the remaining alternatives can be used in transportation as a liquid or portable transportable fuel, but it would require CTL (Coal to Liquid) manufacturing, at best still a very expensive and somewhat experimental system on so large a scale, and with serious carbon release issues. There are of course technical limits on the output fuel, with a synthetic Diesel being the most likely option.

5. Without electrification of transportation, through electric trains or through independent personal electric and or hybrid electric cars, we seem to be near the limit of what the conventional energy system can provide. A new development in liquid fuels would have to be provided.

6. Point 5 above created the dire need for a portable liquid fuel. Alcohol of various kinds (ethanol, methanol, and possibly butanol) and bio-Diesel fuels have so far proven to be the only viable alternatives.

7. The alternative biofuels create new issues. I will not duplicate the work of those to whom I am replying, but leave it to those interested to read for themselves and research further:
http://www.newenergychoices.org/uploads/RushToEthanol-bro.pdf

Questions:
8. Did we race past the development of electrification of transportation too rapidly?
Alan Drake and others has proposed a variety of electric rail systems.
http://www.lightrailnow.org/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StreetcarsDesiredEverywhere/

The most difficult hurdle to overcome seems to be in getting people accustomed to riding mass transit. The trains and streetcars only make sense if they are able to run at near capacity. If they are running near empty, the trains and streetcars can actually be less efficient per person than a very efficient car. (A hybrid car must have at least one person on board to drive it, so it’s minimum capacity is assured)

Electric trains for freight hauling. These seem very viable and should be investigated. seriously.

9. Hybrid and electric cars. These are technically viable. The deciding issue surrounds the durability and expense of the batteries. Even supporters of these vehicles must admit that the batteries are still expensive per kilowatt of storage. The bigger issue is that the customer must at this time carry the risk of battery failure. This is a great barrier to electric cars, and also to “plug hybrids”

10. ”Plug hybrid” vehicles, in which the car is charged on grid current, but has a combustion engine on board for range and performance enhancement have demonstrated extremely high levels of efficiency, sometimes over 100 miles per gallon of liquid fuel on board.
The fuel can be gasoline, Diesel, Propane, natural gas, recaptured methane, vegetable or animal derived oils, and potentially even butanes, ethane, any type of alcohol, or even hydrogen.

Due to the extremely small volume of liquid fuel used, the scale of the infrastructure to provide the fuel is greatly altered.

Conclusion: The infrastructure challenges of such a diverse fuel mix would be challenging, but remember that the volumes would be much smaller. If one looks at the cost and complexity of the proposed ethanol industry, a grid based/diverse fuel automotive fleet does not look so daunting.

With diversity comes redundancy and resilience to a fuel interruption paralyzing the entire transportation fleet. Many vehicles could be built with “multi fuel” capability, further enhancing a smart transportation, grid based transportation system.

The major policy initiative should be an assurance program and a utility/auto/battery/government partnership arrangement, to reduce the risk of battery failure and massive economic loss on the part of the customer. Many of the cars may be leased, and would be returned to the leasing company before the batteries ever suffered noticeable degradation, and the battery materials recycled. If the battery fails prematurely, the customer should be protected.

It goes without saying that the vehicle should be built in as efficient a way as possible for it’s intended use, and that methods should continue to improve in design and manufacturing.

Disclaimer: You will notice that this proposal assumes that the automobile will continue to exist, and be used, into the foreseeable future, in combination with other types of transportation. The individual transportation vehicle is almost impossible to replace in many of it’s roles, and attempting to remove such a crucial piece of transportation from a nation of the size and wealth of the United States would have near catastrophic effects on the nation, and the well being of it’s people. Such a change may be possible over several decades and in a graduated fashion, but only as the culture, society, architecture and design of the nation is changed, and allowed to change, to adapt to such a radical measure.

There is no technical reason that transportation and freedom of movement cannot be maintained reasonably comparable to that now known in the post industrial high technology world. With good design this could be done on less that one quarter to one third of the energy now consumed, and much of that coming from renewable sources.

Ethanol as a motor fuel can be viewed as a primitive, blunderbuss attempt to maintain individual transportation.

Had the money, engineering and effort been spent on a much more elegant and artistic approach, the United States would already be much further ahead in our quest for energy efficiency and security, and a much more ecologically responsible solution.

Roger Conner
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom