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Andris Piebalgs on Bio Fuels
Posted by Euan Mearns on March 16, 2008 - 11:15pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: andris piebalgs, bio fuels, energy efficiency, eroei, european commission [list all tags]
This week European Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, moves the debate onto the key issue of bio-fuels. The comment I left on his blog pursued the theme of EroEI and energy efficiency. If you feel strongly about bio-fuels then PLEASE call by Andris Piebalg's blog and leave him a polite, forceful, well documented message.
Andris Piebalgs drives a Saab 9-5 that runs on bio-ethanol. By my estimation, the energy efficiency of this vehicle is a meagre 5%. Andris no doubt believes he is doing the right thing and I believe he cares a great deal about European energy. And yet he is driving one of the least energy efficient vehicles ever produced - and he is a physicist. How on Earth have these totally bizarre circumstances come about?
So how have I determined the energy efficiency of a bio-fuel Saab to be 5%. The calculation is as follows:
I have assumed the ERoEI (energy return on energy invested) of tempearte latitude bio-ethanol is 1.2. Sources here and here. Hence the energy efficiency of fuel production is:
Assuming the internal combustion engine efficiency is 30% (combined urban cycle) yields an over all efficiency of 0.3 * 0.167 = 5%.
"And how have these bizarre circumstances come about?" - the answer to that I believe lies in an obsession with CO2 emissions that has lost sight of energy efficiency.
First of all, when biofuels replace fossil fuels, greenhouse emissions are almost always lower. Biofuels are produced from plants that absorb the CO2 they generate when they are burnt. This has to take into account the fertiliser used to produce the crops, the energy needed to convert them into liquid fuels and so on. On this basis, biofuels produced in Europe from rape seed, wheat and sugar beet, typically reduce emissions by 20-50% compared to the oil they replace. Biofuels from sugar cane, waste vegetable oil and second generation biofuels can save 75% or more. Under our proposal, all biofuels used for the EU target will have to save, at least, 35%.
I have to say that in this statement the claims made about CO2 conservation seem accurate - proving that the principals involved are understood by the EU Commission. It is just that the energy cost / energy efficiency has not been taken into account.
Variations in ERoEI with CO2 conserved assuming the energy input to bio fuel production is from fossil fuel.
Andris goes on to say:
And this is why biofuels are so important. Today, there are only three ways to reduce greenhouse emissions: the shift from polluting modes to more energy efficient ones (i.e. rail, short sea shipping, collective transport); the promotion of less consuming cars, by establishing CO2/km targets; and biofuels.
I'm sorry this is just not true. The middle of the three options is of course the most sensible - to concentrate upon energy efficient vehicles. But what about:
1. Electric cars running on renewable or nuclear electricity. This is the future of vehicular transportation - so why are the European Commission not sinking billions into this?
2. Pneumatic cars (which I know very little about) but which are reported to be a viable option.
3. Reducing the speed limits across Europe which will save fuel (the number one priority!) reduce pollution and save lives.
Andris, I would like to emphasise how much we appreciate the opportunity to present these arguments on your blog. In your first blog entry you said you were here to listen. I sincerely hope that is the case and that following the period of listening and analysis that there is a period of action.
Bio-ethanol what hype! Fossil fuels are the donut and ethanol is the hole, with a negative EROEI, and generating a lot of CO2 and nasty waste. Illusion and reality, take your pick.
Bio-ethanol what hype!
VS all that non-bio-ethanol?
nasty waste.
So, when did Ethyl Alcohol stop being the waste product of Yeast and stop being toxic?
Not to mention the question how this is worse than that evil electricity you've railed against.
Seems Andris has made a value judgment in favor of net CO2 emissions. These emissions may seem to be a greater threat to him than running an energy inefficient vehicle.
I do agree that your options, primarily electric vehicles, in my opinion are far more favorable than a bio-fuel driven car -- for a number of reasons not the least of which is a phenomenal efficiency.
As a Yankee, I wonder if competitive electric vehicles are available to the European market.
Cheers and good luck with Andris!
No, he's made a judgment in favour of net EU emissions.
Extra EU demand for biofuels will lead to decreased emissions in the EU, but increased emissions in developing countries as they clear their forests to grow the stuff. Of course, he may respond that EU policy will try to protect those forests, but how well has that worked for world demand for timber? They just dodge or corrupt the system.
Already 17.5% of greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation. Biofuels will only make it worse. Of course, they'll make it worse outside the EU, so he probably doesn't care.
As I describe here, even if the whole world ate minimum rations of grain, ate no grainfed meat or dairy, consumed no fruit, sugar or vegetables or vegetable oil, and if all this was done with a Magical Energy Fairy so that producing the biofuels cost us no biofuels at all, we still only get a single barrel of biofuel per person annually. This compares to current crude consumption of 4.7bbl each, 3.2bbl of which goes on transport.
Developed nations use about 7-15bbl, developing 2-7bbl, and impoverished countries 0-2bbl. So the single barrel of biofuel ain't gonna do much.
On the other hand, a single barrel of biofuel each for the world's population could be about 6bbl for everyone in the US, EU and Japan, and zilch for the rest. Which is probably what our erstwhile EU commissioner has in mind. Rather colonial of him.
Or more likely he's just never sat down to do the arithmetic to figure out how much biofuels could be produced by the world, and compared it to how much fuel we consume today.
I commented, let's see if it passes through.
I think you're being mean. The Saab Biopower is a wonderful little car. It utilizes a variable-speed turbo which allows it to burn ethanol, or gasoline, at a much higher efficiency than it's peers.
It is also being improved upon. In it's new iteration it will be a hybrid, with di, and adjustable valve timing which will allow it to utilize a 1.4 liter engine which will get 37 mpg on ethanol. This in a mid-sized, comfortable car with Good Cross Country Performance. Details here:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/gm-introduces-s.html
If he's using ethanol it's quite likely Brazilian Cane ethanol which can have between 6:1, and 8:1 EROEI. (They burn their bagasse for process heat.)
If he's running ethanol from Corn Plus, in Winnebago, Mn he would be using ethanol with approx 4:1 eroei (they burn their syrup for much of their energy,) and, if he's burning ethanol from one of Poet's new plants he would be burning ethanol with approx. 2.3:1 on a btu basis. Of course, if you consider that this engine burns ethanol much more efficiently than the average engine (it develops about 25% more hp on e85 than on gasoline) I think you have to adjust the eroei numbers up a bit.
Anyway, it's a European car, and he's a European politician; and, it seems to me that you've got to give him some kudos for trying to promote alternatives, even if they're not the exact same alternatives that you would advocate.
Anyway, thanks for posting the picture of a nice car, and have a Good Night.
p.s. I'm going to go back and drool over the car. I think it's a "looker." :)
If you must persist on promoting ethanol, then please be more accurate and talk of "energy return on FOSSIL energy input" instead of EROI. Simply because it must be distilled, no ethanol, sugarcane or otherwise, can get more than a 2 EROI without creative "crediting". That you chose to consider energy from bagasse or energy from other biomass source "non-energy" is physically and thermodynamically unsupported.
Ok. I'll go out on a limb and make a case sugarcane ethanol. Of course it is no panacea, no energy alternative at this point is one, but it can help bridge the gap and promote even raise levels of income on some desperately poor countries.
Sugarcane ethanol does have an EROEI of 8 (against 1.4 for corn). Anyone who has sunk their teeth on a cane stalk knows how much sugar it packs. Sugarcane is an amazing little engine for turning sunlight into sugar/energy. Also in sugar's case you process the WHOLE stalk, not the seeds, and the crushed stalk than can be burned to generate electricity. This biomass, when properly used, is often enough to cover for all the Mill’s needs and even sell electricity off to the grid. Also, on the newer mills, the trucks and machinery run on a mix of diesel and ethanol, and even the crop duster planes fly exclusively on ethanol. This eroei has even room to grow. In 2007, energy from bagasse actually generated amounted to around 3000 MW (including the energy saved at the mill). The association of Sugar Growers estimates that by changing existing boilers the capacity could easily reach 7,6 thousand MW, and by optimum utilization of bagasse and straw the sector predicts a generating capacity of 10 thousand MW by 2012/13.
Second, at least in the case of sugarcane and Brazil, ethanol production has not seriously impacted food production: Brazil produces about 4.8 billion gallons of ethanol from sugar cane in 6.3 million hectares. This is less than 2% of the area available for agriculture in Brazil (this calculation excludes the whole of the Amazon). This number is even more relevant when we consider that about 45% of the sugarcane produced in the country goes to make sugar, not ethanol. The government estimates that production could expand by a factor of 10, without seriously impacting other cultures or the Amazon.
Third. Sugarcane ethanol can have a positive environmental impact. The whole production cycle absorbs almost as much CO2 as it produces. The utilization of ethanol as a blend in gasoline (25%) coupled with the utilization of ethanol on flex-fuel vehicles in Brazil avoids the emission of around 4.3 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere per year.
Fourth. Sugarcane, a tropical plant, might be used to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil especially in the poorer countries, in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Of the 50 poorest countries in the world, 38 are net importers of oil, and 25 import all the oil they consume. It is clear that the situation can only get worse as the prices go higher. Many countries spend more on oil imports than on public health. In these very poor countries, famine and what oildrummers call die-offs are already a reality, and famine was widespread long before food prices went up. What keep the poor in the Third World from eating from eating is not a lack of food, but a lack of income. It is symptomatic that food prices went up mainly in the wake of the rise of China and India, as their incomes went up, they consumed more and better food. (more recently demand for corn ethanol also increased prices, but the phenomenon is older).
I do understand the risks that converting arable land to fuel vehicles presents. There is an enormous possibility for abuse, and it is possible (indeed it looks likely) that the US government might be sending the wrong signals by supporting corn ethanol to the extent it is, given its low eroei and immediate impact on food prices.
Still, ethanol (especialy from sugarcane) might deserve a chance. It will most probably not be the silver bullet some claim it would be, but it can help bridge the gap after PO, and in certain conditions really help poorer countries in the tropics not only lessen their oil bills, but also improve living conditions and income. To this end, developed countries with temperate climates might consider dropping clearly sub-optimal bets on corn (US) and /or sugar beets in the EU, and instead invest in better technology for cellulosic ethanol , as well as efficient mills in third world countries.
Cheers
So, onedip, what do you use to fertilize the soil if no part of the cane goes back into the soil?
Ammonia from natural gas, of course! We use fossil fuels to make biofuels!
No, wait, I mean... er... Well who cares anyway, Europe will get to say it's low carbon! Just like Italy boasts of being non-nuclear... while importing electricity from nuclear France. Ahem.
Oh please. Sugarcane is not corn and need far less fertilizer. You might know that sugarcane extracts nitrogen form the air. The nutrients from bagasse ashes are recycled too.
Se this PDF to educate yourself:
http://www.biofuelsnow.com/Ethanol%20From%20Sugar%20Cane.pdf
I guess these CSIRO guys don't know what they're doing, then.
Stupid scientists. There they are thinking that sugarcane requires nitrogen fertiliser, when according to Pholostan it actually adds nitrogen to the ground. They should listen to the random internet guy!
No commonly-used crop adds nitrogen to the soil. Legumes and some leafy vegetables have a fungus/bacteria on their roots which adds nitrogen; this is the reason for alternating wheat with beans in cropping, or introducing alfalfa and other manure crops.
Turning sugar cane into ethanol leaves behind a slurry which is typically disposed of in landfills. Bagasse ashes contain very little nitrogen, however are useful as potash (potassium, with nitrogen and phosophorous one of the three main artificial fertilisers in use around the world).
It's pretty simple, really. If you take something out of the soil, you need to put something back in, or there's less next year. Nowadays we decide to maximise production, taking a lot out, and putting it back in in the form of ammonia and the like. If those artificial inputs are absent, we'll have to put more back in by putting stalks back in the soil, manure crops and the like.
Using the entire crops for biofuels will mean we're taking more out than we put in. So either we use artificial fertilisers to make up for that, or we degrade the land and have to get new agricultural land by deforestation.
Hmm. Or learn how to make biofuels out of beans...
Where do I claim that? Please do tell. What I said was thet sugarcane need far less fertilizer compared to corn.
Corn needs about 160 lb/acre, sugarcane needs about 90 lb/acre. And in the case of sugarcane about 70% of this need can be fullfilled with biological nitrogen fixiation. If you actually read the pdf you would know this.
So,
philistinepholostan, if you use the whole plant, you are not recycling any part of it, and especially not "intensely recycling" it. Ergo, self-sufficiency in nutrients is not possible. I'm glad we agree. So in the end we need fossil fuel inputs, or other inputs, as that pdf document shows (nitrogen is only one input).It's only about 30 pounds per acre. You can easily source enough hydrogen gas from pyrolysis or gasification of a tiny fraction of the bagasse harvested from a field to produce this ammonia if you feel compelled to do so.
I thought that was obvious...
www.biofuelsnow.com
Ok, so with a fully organic approach, in areas of sufficient rainfall and heat, you can get some ethanol, after making place for this crop by clearing away other crops and wildlife reserves, forests etc (because that is what will happen in places like Africa, believe me, and I know because I am an exiled white African). Whoop de do. It leaves me cold. In Africa this crop will be used by the rulers or sold to the Bazungu (white men), and the peasantry will starve. So what's the point of your argument anyway? Is this the answer to peak oil? You make me laugh. Hah ha ha ha.
I have no argument against sustainable tropical sugar cane ethanol made for local consumption. Alarm bells begin to ring when folks start talking about fueling the whole world on this.
And, I would submit this is exactly the direction we're heading, Euan.
Look up what Renergie is doing. Small ten, or fifteen, mgpy plants fueled with sweet sorghum from local fields.
I contend that there are very few counties in the U.S. that could not produce thirty, or forty million gal/yr of ethanol. Obviously, some in the Midwest can easily deliver hundreds of millions. Those desert areas (S. Nevada) that can't, can trade copious amounts of Solar Electricity, or wind, or waste, or wave, etc.
I believe this model could be extrapolated out to the world. Of course, a country such as Brazil, which has at least 150 Million Acres of fertile land lying fallow, and a fairly small population will probably export some percentage of their production.
Those desert areas (S. Nevada) that can't, can trade copious amounts of Solar Electricity, or wind, or waste, or wave, etc.
I'm sure that White paper you are working on covers the costs of the metal used to conduct electrons from the desert to non-desert areas.
When you gonna get that White paper done VS posting on TOD?
Brazil produced more ethanol than anyone, yet its oil consumption has been rising.
There was less gas mileage with ethanol than with gasahol 80/20 gasoline to ethanol ratio.
Ethanol is not good enough to relieve Brazil of its need for oil. Brazil was one of the fastest growing oil producers in the world and had the second largest oil reserves in South America.
Should have written, "Brazil is one of the largest producers of ethanol."
I have made exactly that point several times, only the other way round: the fact that biofuels (any kind) cannot replace a significant part of fossil fuels GLOBALLY does not mean that they cannot (and will not) replace a significant part of fossil fuels in several countries with high biofuel production potential.
Specifically, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, etc. have much lower liquid fuel (and energy in general) usage per capita than OECD countries. Therefore if they maximize the allocation of THEIR agricultural potential into biodiesel production (plus sugar cane to ethanol) for THEIR own use, they will be able to keep running the most important parts of THEIR current economies in the face of a future decline of global oil production (and a much harder decline of global oil exports), and it is just not realistic to expect they will forego that possibility.
Have a look at per capita oil consumption. Brazil uses roughly the amount that Argentina, Turkey, and Romania do. I've not heard that people consider Argentina, Turkey and Romania to be eco-friendly countries. It also uses 1.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily, and an eighth of a tonne of coal per person annually, comparable to Mexico or the Phillipenes.
So it seems like when you add biofuels to a country, it keeps using fossil fuels and uses the biofuels as well. It's sort of like getting a rainwater tank, but drawing the same amount of mains water, just using the rainwater as well.
When you give people a new energy source they don't give up the old one. The old one will only be given up if it becomes inconvenient - with scarcity or heavy taxes raising the price far beyond that of the new energy source.
Anyone who has sunk their teeth on a cane stalk knows how much sugar it packs.
Ever chewed on a bit of sweet corn stalk?
You make the US government look honest. Didn't your mother teach you not to tell porkies?
they probably save some stalks for fertilizer.
Your EROEI figures are bogus, see numerous articles by Tad Patzek. Kudos for "alternatives" my fanny. All alternatives have negative EROEI, and when will the technicians on TOD get off the ideology about this and do some real policy analysis on ALL EI, instead of the cookbook off the shelf phony baloney EI on the energy put into aluminum for solar panels??
Could you say that again in English, please?
EROEI isn't English. It has become its own self-subjective language. The fun thing is it means different things for different people. If you read too much too seriously it quickly comes out as babble. But on the positive side, if you like to play with numbers, it can mean exactly what you want it to. Now that's nice, isn't it?
I understood the EROEI acronym, it was just all the other babble that confused me. Aluminium in photovoltaics? WTF?
I don't think the EROEI is an issue. If you just look, as I did, at how much biofuel can be produced, even with an infinite EROEI and basically dedicating all of agriculture aside from minimum rations to biofuels, we still only get 1bbl of biofuels each - compared to the 3.2bbl we use for transport, and 1.5bbl we use for other stuff today. Comparing then to the 7-15bbl used in developing countries, we immediately see that biofuels are not going to substitute for oil worldwide. Still less will they reduce global CO2e emissions, we'll just swap emissions from burning coal for emissions from artificial fertiliser and deforestation.
Biofuels may, however, substitute for oil for a wealthy elite in the EU, US and Japan, and reduce their local CO2e emissions. As an EU Commissioner is a member of a wealthy elite he probably thinks this is a fine thing. Notice how he boasts of his own biofuel-burning vehicle; he's focusing on himself and people like him, rather than considering the public and global good.
Even with an infinite EROEI biofuels look pretty shit. Talking about their EROEI is just redundant, it's like talking about the powder burns on your scalp when someone shoots you in the leg. Who cares?
I'm sorry. I was just trying to make a joke out of EROEI as everyone seems to argue over it.
I agree. I don't think biofuels will ever account for all fossil fuel consumption. But it can help. I don't know how much it helps with CO2. Seems marginal as well depending on the process.
Aluminum in PV is a dopant and is a very small fraction of the total amount of material. I believe phosphorus is the other dopant. The dopants basically determine which way the current flows.
CJ May also be talking about the Aluminum framing that is on most commercial PV product, but the NREL numbers that give PV a 3-4 year return on ALL their 'Embodied Energy' do include the Al superstructure.
Clif needs to bring in his own or some linked numbers for how these have such considerable uncounted inputs that undoes the 10:1 to 20:1 that PV is often credited with today. Even making the next generation of PV, after the oil has presumably declined will be aided significantly by the recyclability of both Aluminum and Silicon. If we see our population follow the energy curve, as I'm afraid we must, then the need for mining NEW mineral sources may be considerably less as well, as the scrap-piles and excesses that we've produced so far will be more available to recycle into more essential and durable products. That's a lot of old Aircraft Fuselages, Soda Cans, Pentium chips, Cars etc..
Bob
Aluminium in photovoltaics? WTF?
I see you own Ovionics style solar VS what everyone else does - put the PV under glass in an Al frame.
kdolliso said "I'm going to go back and drool over the car. I think it's a "looker." :)
Oh dear, Kdolliso seems to be one of that horrid breed, a fan of the automobile! :-O eeeck! They've infiltrated TOD!
Like kdolliso, I think the Saab is a pretty piece of work, though I am not a fan of the bio-fuel idea. Someone on US TOD said something very clever the other day, when they referred to bio-fuel as a way of converting natural gas to liquid fuel by using our food supply to do it!
The car could be reformed into something spectacular though...use the hybrid version, convert it to plug hybrid, with a very small piston or gas turbine engine using compressed natural gas, methane or propane as a range extender that kicks in only when needed...the efficiencies would be astounding! That is the path forward for automobile based technology, the Chevy Volt and the Saab could be the first two cases to prove the validity...but of course, to accept such an idea, you have to be willing to accept the continued existance of that hated device, the automobile!
RC
Wow. If you think the dollar's getting nuked, take a look at the Rand.
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/6-0&fp=47de064cbb05856c&ei=Dx...
What is the context for this quote?