<Daddy, will the lights be on at Christmas? The Oil Drum DrumBeat: December 21, 2007>

119 comments on The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

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Leanan on December 20, 2007 - 8:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

AP has a similar article:

The U.S. currently produces nearly 7 billion gallons of ethanol, all of it made from corn, thanks in large part to government mandates and subsidies included in the 2005 energy bill. The 2007 bill, which passed the House Tuesday and the Senate last week, mandates 36 billion gallons by 2022, with 21 billion gallons coming from so-called cellulosic ethanol.

There are significant obstacles to meeting this goal, however, not least of which is devising a profitable method of producing cellulosic ethanol.

Other challenges include: growing enough feedstock without harming the environment and efficiently transporting it to ethanol refineries; delivering the finished fuel to pumps nationwide; and bolstering consumer demand. The lack of an adequate transportation system for biofuels and limited demand already have squeezed ethanol producers’ profits this year.

And Technology Review has a lengthy series this week called The Price of Biofuels:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

It's pretty grim, for them. (They're usually techno-copians.)

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tirwin on December 21, 2007 - 3:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think that it is impossible to replace sunlight stored for 100 to 500 million years ( oil ) with sunlight stored during the course of one year. Powering down seems to be vital. However, we are going to need other forms of energy. I think ethanol should be one of them. It´s a good fuel ( about 125 octane )is reasonably carbon neutral, and it is possible to grow it sustainably. Farmers years ago produced ethanol from spoiled or unmarketable crops. Food vs fuel is a bogus argument when you consider how many could starve if there are no replacements for petroleum. We have to stop looking for the one energy product that is going to get us out of this mess and realize that we are going to need many diffuse ones.

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jmygann on December 21, 2007 - 1:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

" it is possible to grow it sustainably"

How ?

Where did this come from ? A link please

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tirwin on December 21, 2007 - 3:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You might want to start by googling organic agriculture. From there a good site to start from might be journeytoforever.org/biofuels

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markincalgary on December 21, 2007 - 5:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Evidence that organic agriculture can sustainably produce significant amounts of biofuels is lacking and far from conclusive. (This excepts areas that can grow sugar-cane.) As someone who has spend the last few years studying and practicing organic agriculture, I strongly suspect that it can't be done.

For food crops, where complicated crop rotations can be used, organic agriculture can produce on levels comparable to conventional agriculture, but bio-fuels are a completely different beast. Bio-fuels can be produced sustainably or in significant quantities, but not both.

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WNC Observer on December 21, 2007 - 5:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I've argued for some time now that it is quite feasible for farmers to grow a small amount of oilseed (maybe 5% of total cultivated acreage), and press it themselves to provide them with something to fuel their diesel equipment. This is no silver bullet, but it can work as an alternative technology approach to enable some agricultural mechanization to carry on.

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tirwin on December 22, 2007 - 10:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think an organic farmer can sustainably grow his own fuel. Perhaps a bit more can be produced for sale or barter locally. The thing plants do best is make sugars and starches. These are the base ingredients for ethanol. Bushes like jatropha can be planted as living fences and provide oilseeds for biodiesel. There are some size limits based on amount of labor and its cost. That seems to be the tradeoff. An individual can only farm so much land sustainably. It takes considerable knowledge and skill. Its being done already. We need more organic farmers.

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Nick on December 22, 2007 - 12:29am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"I think that it is impossible to replace sunlight stored for 100 to 500 million years ( oil ) with sunlight stored during the course of one year. Powering down seems to be vital. "

It's important to realize that the process by which oil was created and stored for our eventual consumption was incredibly inefficient, perhaps .000000000001% efficient.

The world is bathed in 100,000TW of sunshine every second, and we only use the equivalent about 4TW.

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tirwin on December 22, 2007 - 11:00am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

¨It's important to realize that the process by which oil was created and stored for our eventual consumption was incredibly inefficient, perhaps .000000000001% efficient.¨

Interesting number. Since no one was around back when oil formed speculating on efficiency is kind of risky.

We might get 100,000 TW of sunshine every second but until someone can figure out how to harness and store it better than plants with less embedded energy than solar panels we still have a problem.

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Nick on December 22, 2007 - 4:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

" Since no one was around back when oil formed speculating on efficiency is kind of risky."

Well, it's pretty straightforward. If all of our analysis on TOD is to trusted, we have a pretty good idea how much reoverable oil is in the ground. Just divide the energy in the sunshine that fell over millions of years into the energy in the oil, and you have your number. And, it's a pretty low number.

" until someone can figure out how to harness and store it better than plants with less embedded energy than solar panels we still have a problem."

Not really. Even the most energy-intensive silicon panels pay back their embedded energy in a year or two, and the CIGS panels like Nanosolar's pay back in a few months.

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tirwin on December 24, 2007 - 12:01am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

So it is now possible to make silicon panels with energy not derived from fossil fuel. That is something I was not aware of.

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Dan Browne on December 26, 2007 - 9:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Man is it ever tiresome to continually have to refute this argument.

How do you make solar panels (or any other kind of equipment) without energy derived from fossil fuels?

Do it in Quebec or Iceland or Brasil or any of the other places that get a significant chunk of their electric power from renewable non-fossil sources.

This won't just STOP even if we run out of fossil fuel tomorrow.
Jay Hansen is WRONG.

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marcosdumay on December 21, 2007 - 7:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"mandates 36 billion gallons by 2022, with 21 billion gallons coming from so-called cellulosic ethanol."

They could simply legislate the end of the 2nd law of thermodynamics and be done with that...

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practical on December 21, 2007 - 10:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The 21 billion gallons from cellulosic ethanol will never happen for several reasons. As pointed out the first is that the technology to commercially manufacture it does not exist. When farmers started making ethanol big time from corn in the 1980's, the technology was centuries old. Secondly the market for the raw cellulose in what ever form contemplated does not exist. The market for corn did exist with all the benefits of hedging and usefulness in financial planning. Thirdly cellulosic raw material are very bulky by nature, making storage problematic. Corn is stored in bins that have been constructed over the last 50 or more years. There are still problems at harvest in finding storage now. Raw materials for ethanol plants can not simply be left outside because bacteria start to decay the product. This interferes with the bacteria used to make the ethanol causing major problems in the plant. Even in Brazil, if I'm not mistaken, the sugar used for ethanol is stored indoors after being extracted from the cane. Fourthly cellulosic raw materials will be highly labor and energy intensive due to undeveloped infrastructure. The infrastructure (equipment, storage and workers etc.) will not be developed without a market. So the first ethanol plants will have to not only create a new technology but also a new market for the raw material used. All this has to be done while facing stiff, well established market competition from corn ethanol and of course the anti ethanol big oil lobby. As I see it, corn ethanol producers and big oil know this stuff. The 21 billion cellulosic ethanol mandate is a sop thrown to the anti corn crowd to placate them and distract their attention from what is really going on. The corn ethanol lobby won big time with a doubling of the mandate for corn ethanol which will bring corn ethanol's production up to near the maximum possible. Beyond that point mitigation of peak oil has to come from a slowing economy, conservation due to higher prices, and unconventional oil and such.

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Nate Hagens on December 21, 2007 - 11:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

practical - these are excellent insights - I think you're spot on (with exception of big oil being anti corn-ethanol - they probably love it as it increases demand for diesel and natural gas and continues with the liquid fuels infrastructure. In fact, if corn ethanol persists, and cellulosic never lives up to promise, then oil prices will be dramatically higher due to this bill)

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Gail the Actuary on December 21, 2007 - 4:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

What I have been seeing from the one contact I know who is in cellulosic ethanol is that the version that is being persued right now is that from wood, rather than from corn stover or switchgrass or the like, because of the problems you mention. Wood is much easier to transport and store, and there is an established way of marketing it. It seems doubtful to me that there is enough land area to grow all the wood needed - even if marginal land is pushed into service - and wood is harvested after only a few years of growth. The droughts in the Southeast and Southwest will not help the situation.

I agree regarding big oil being anti-ethanol. The largest problem I am aware of is the huge amount of infrastructure that needs to be put in place in advance in order to incorporate more ethanol, whether or not the ethanol really goes on line. This is a big expense that will be wasted (and could have been put to better purposes) if it turns out that the ethanol cannot actually be produced.

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119 comments on The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

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