Life in a Grass House
Posted by Stuart Staniford on March 7, 2006 - 2:00am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: corn, ethanol, peak oil, switchgrass [list all tags]
Scouring the web with an eye toward understanding a bit more about the use of biomass-based ethanol as a replacement for gasoline, it has become apparent to me that there are a substantial number of "urban legends" emerging regarding the use of switchgrass as a feedstock for ethanol. More properly, these misconceptions are "rural legends," because at least from this former farm kid's perspective they arise from the fact that most people have very little connection to the land, and as such, are simply blowing a lot of wishful smoke about the details of a biomass-based fuel system. Hopefully the analysis below will shed a bit of light on the subject.
Currently, in the US ethanol is made from corn, which any number of studies have shown is quite marginal with regard to energy return. Paraphrasing Bob Hirsch in his most recent talk, making ethanol from corn is a process by which a certain amount of energy in the forms of natural gas and diesel fuel are used to create an equivalent amount of energy in the form of ethanol, with the primary output being money from government subsidies. However, there is substantial excitement about the potential of using biomass composed primarily of cellulose rather than starch as a feedstock for ethanol - hence the mention of switchgrass by the President in the 2006 State of the Union Address.
Switchgrass is a perennial grass native to the great plains, suitable for marginal lands because it grows well with relatively moderate inputs and can effectively protect soil against erosion. So far so good - one of the major attractions to switchgrass is that it is more environmentally friendly than corn. It contains roughly 15 million btu/dry ton, equivalent on a perfect basis to 200 gallons of ethanol per ton. However, in the distillation process some of that energy is lost, leaving the best estimates of roughly 70 gallons of ethanol per ton after distillation using a state of the art bio-reactor. Estimates for yield range as high as 15 dry tons/acre per year of switchgrass, equivalent to roughly 1000 gallons of ethanol per acre. Corn, by comparison, offers about 140 bushels per acre, with an efficiency of 2.5 gallons ethanol/bushel, or 350 gallons per acre. This is why so many folks are beating their drums over switchgrass - in theory, it can be grown on marginal lands with ethanol yields 3 times that of corn with "minimal inputs." From this description, one gets the sense of legends in the making. Let's take a critical look at some of them.
Legend 1: Switchgrass does not require fertilizer or irrigation (America's strategic imperative: a "Manhattan Project" for energy by Lt. Col. John Amidon).
Fact: Switchgrass is a perennial grass, just like the grass in people's lawns. If you bag all your lawn clippings from your lawn, very quickly you will notice that your lawn will start to become yellow, and your "yield" (the number of times you have to mow) will decrease. This is because of the lack of fertilizer. Each time you remove biomass from an environment, you remove nutrients, and future yields will suffer. Switchgrass is exactly the same - if you harvest switchgrass for biomass, fertilizer must be applied in levels very similar to those applied if corn is the primary crop. The Auburn study showing up to 15 tons/acre of switchgrass applied 100 lbs of nitrogen per acre, and that amount is also recommended by the Iowa State University Extension Office if switchgrass is used for biomass. In addition, phosphorous and potassium (potash) must be applied in amounts consistent to the amount of biomass removed, which actually exceed that necessary for corn.
Regarding irrigation, it is true that you don't need to irrigate switchgrass, just like you never "need" to water your lawn. However, just like your lawn, switchgrass won't yield nearly as well if it doesn't have adequate moisture. In Biomass Yield Stability of Switchgrass Cultivars by Fuentes and Taliaferro, it is shown that the best-yielding switchgrass variety in Oklahoma in a location with 30 inches of precipiation/year provides about 6 tons/acre, while a location also in Oklahoma with 40 inches of precipitation/year yields 8 tons/acre. (Note that both of these were fertilized). Switchgrass yields vary strongly with precipitation - planting the dry plains, New Mexico, or Arizona with switchgrass will not yield much biomass.
Legend 2: It is estimated that 15 percent of the North American continent consists of land that is unsuitable for food farming but workable for switchgrass cultivation. If all that land was planted with switchgrass, we could replace every single gallon of gas consumed in the United States with ethanol. (Sam Jaffe, "Independence Way," The Washington Monthly (July/August 2004)).
Fact: There certainly is a significant amount of land that is non-productive for agriculture but could be planted with switchgrass. For example, in Iowa roughly 7% of the land is in what is called the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), where the Federal government pays farmers a small amount per acre to keep that land out of production. However, there is a reason why that land is in the CRP program - it's not productive for agriculture! This could be for any number of reasons - poor soil conditions, steeply sloping fields, etc. It is not because the farmer doesn't want to plant the land - land rents for good farmland are substantially higher than the amount offered by the CRP program. Switchgrass would certainly grow on CRP land, but yields would not approach the 6-8 tons/acre on good agricultural land.
Legend 3: Switchgrass yields a certain amount now, but in the future, with selective breeding, etc., it will yield much more.
Fact: Switchgrass is a perennial, and needs to be seeded only once every decade. Is it reasonable to think that Monsanto is going to spend much research effort on seeds that they will only sell to farmers once a decade? Certainly one can select varieties of switchgrass that are more prolific (as has been done already in the Fuentes study above), but it is difficult to see that there will be much yield improvement beyond that, certainly not on timescales of a decade or so. For a wide variety of annually varying weather conditions, soil quality, etc., it is hard to argue that switchgrass yields will exceed the 6-8 ton/acre range. We've been growing alfalfa for many years for biomass with a very high incentive to increase yields per acre, without much success. Switchgrass probably won't be much different.
Legend 4: Switchgrass is substantially cheaper as a feedstock than corn for producing ethanol.
Fact: This is the big one. How do we analyze this? Let's start with the obscure document Estimated Costs of Crop Production in Iowa - 2006. This is a useful document, as it provides insight into not only how switchgrass compares to corn in what can be argued is the best farm state in the US, but provides some insight into how things change over time due to rising fuel costs.
Costs associated with switchgrass are found on page 9 of that document, under "Annual production costs for established alfalfa or alfalfa-grass hay." Switchgrass must be cut, allowed to dry, raked, and then bailed for transport. For large, round bales of switchgrass (the cheapest method), estimated costs are $74/ton for 4 tons/acre yield, and $66/ton for 6 tons/acre yield. Presumably, that can be extended to $58/ton for 8 tons/acre yield, and so on. Note that these costs will generally be higher for smaller fields, another black mark against the use of CRP land for growing switchgrass.
On top of those costs, there will be transportation, which currently is about $0.25/ton per mile. How far will the switchgrass have to be transported? That's a bit more involved. A reasonable sized bioreactor facility would be 10,000 bbl/d, as 200 such facilities in the US would produce about 15% of the daily gasoline usage. Such a facility would use roughly 2 million tons of biomass feedstock per year, which is the output of 250,000 acres at 8 tons/acre. That is an area of roughly 400 square miles, or about 20 miles on a side. Given that rural roads don't run straight, that 20 miles is a fair figure for the average load to travel, leaving travel costs of $5/ton. So, we are talking something in the $60-70/ton range delivered to the bio-reactor. However, that is assuming 100% of the land around the bioreactor is switchgrass. If we instead only plant marginal land, the transportation distance would go up by a factor of 3 (due to the sparseness of the switchgrass fields) to $15/ton, leaving the total cost $70-80/ton. At 70 gallons of ethanol per ton of biomass, this suggests a minimum cost of $1/gallon ethanol simply to get the switchgrass to the facility. Yields less than 8 tons/acre will lead to proportionally higher costs.
How does that compare to corn? That's a bit more dicey, as corn is heavily subsidized. Wholesale corn currently costs about $1.90/bushel, while the Iowa 2006 Crop Production Cost is $3.40 per bushel (if the difference between those numbers seems incredible, remember that you, the US taxpayer, are picking up the tab). Corn is much more dense than switchgrass biomass in terms of energy per unit mass, so transportation costs are much less, certainly under $0.10/bushel. At retail, this suggests a cost of $0.80 per gallon to get the corn to the ethanol facility based upon wholesale, and $1.40/gallon based upon the Iowa Crop Production cost of $3.40/bushel.
Given that the switchgrass costs more to make into ethanol once at the bioreactor due to need for enzymes ($5-10/barrel or $0.20-$0.40/gallon plus extra energy used), there doesn't appear to be any advantage to switchgrass over corn for ethanol. One can always argue that switchgrass/byproducts could be burned for co-generation, making the distilling process less fossil fuel intensive, but a corn ethanol facility could also burn corn/byproducts for the same purpose.
As a final note, there is sensitivity to energy prices in this analysis. However, it appears to go the wrong way for switchgrass. In 2000, the Iowa Crop Cost document states that at 6 tons/acre the cost of switchgrass was $52/ton, rising to $66/ton in 2006, an increase of 27% as the price of diesel doubled. Corn, on the other hand, cost $2.89/bushel in 2000 to produce and $3.40/bushel in 2006, an increase of 17%. This suggests that corn may become more competitive with switchgrass as time moves forward and energy costs rise, exactly the opposite interpretation most people would have anticipated. I attribute this to increased corn yields with time, which makes corn production progressively more efficient.
What's the moral in all of this? If corn ethanol is marginal on an energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) basis, it is very difficult to argue that biomass grown to make ethanol will be any better. To be blunt, if there are concentrated stocks of waste biomass in place, such as at lumber mills, then biomass ethanol probably makes sense. Otherwise, it appears to be more or less equivalent to corn based ethanol - in other words, a wash.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I just switched the laptop's Firefox browser home to TOD. I'll have to work on the rest of the palace computers tomorrow. Rafael controls that stuff, so I'll have to get him to sign off on that. At least he says he's going to get an account on TOD soon, so hey, that's good news.
Congratulations, Kyle, you just got somebody else to pay attention to switchgrass.
I make no claims to having any expertise in this subject [I gladly defer to the experts], but it seems obvious to a layman that if any plant could photosynthesize energy easily at a high ERoEI ratio: we would have a planetary covering of rich, loamy topsoil hundreds of feet thick. Instead, we have rapidly depleting topsoil and the mindless rush to agro-fuels will only make this situation worse.
Somehow the image of thousands of slaves swinging scythes for switchgrass so that only the warlord can power his HUMMERs with machine gun .50 cals springs to mind.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The American Prairies were net builders of soil. This was a complicated ecosystem of plants and animals that produced more biomass than was consumed on a yearly basis. This is why midwest land has so much topsoil even today. Some researchers think Native Americans used prescribed burns to maintain this situation. Jury still out on that one as prairie fires can start naturally.
Removing the grazing herds and tilling the soil resulted in a less efficient system, but more specific crop foods for humans in the short term.
I do believe that one can build soil in a sustainable way (ie. not by importing feed, minerals, or chemicals). Infact, that's my goal on my (future) farm, but I don't believe for a minute that its going to be easy...or all that profitable. Lets hope I'm wrong.
The prescribed burns seems bunk to me. Organic matter is key to building soil. You don't build up soil organic matter by burning up the soul source of organic matter. There might be something there, but I don't see it.
I do believe that one can build soil in a sustainable way (ie. not by importing feed, minerals, or chemicals). Infact, that's my goal on my (future) farm, but I don't believe for a minute that its going to be easy...or all that profitable. Lets hope I'm wrong.
It can be done. www.soilfoodweb.com The works of Albert Howard, and the Rodale institute can give you pointers. Don't forget the rock dust. (you can make the rock dust yourself BTW)
It'll take years, and mostlikely someone will buy your land in the future and 'suck' all the soil value back outta it, but hey, you'll be dead.
No they didn't. I've addressed this misconception in a comment below.
You've outlined much of the reading that has lead me to sustainable farming. Anybody else who would like to start, or transition, to sustainable farming would be well-advised to check out some of this material. ATTRA (http://attra.org) is also a good source of information.
The problem? Nutrients in tropical soils are scarce. The input from burning doesn't last long and the farmer must clear another section of forest (every three years or so if I remember my class notes correctly). Since the forest takes longer to recover than three years, each farmer needs a significant amount of fallow land. The method still works well as long as population density is very low and the farmer is willing to sustain back-breaking amounts of labour.
I greatly appreciate the post. I have an MS in Plant Science and have been baffled by the claims made by switchgrass adherents.
My understanding is that this is not the case. A dozen years ago, I made a similar statement in an ecology class and the professor thought that the issue was important enough to ignore his planned material and spent half-an-hour raking me over the coals. The natives did burns, but their population was too small to have much of an impact. Lightning was by far the bigger contributer, but even so, burns aren't a long-term advantage. You would have seen a similar impact after grazing by sheep or goats as you did after the prescribed burn. In the long-term grazing is the better option.
Infact, ruminants and climate are what made the natural prairies. Lack of water favours grasses over trees. It's only in artificial prairies claimed from forest (ie. my farm) where one has to make an effort to keep the trees from taking the land back. But this effort is better made with livestock or a "brush-hog" than with fire. Rather than recycling nutrients into the soil, burning gassifies most of the nitrogen and potassium that would otherwise be incorporated into the soil. Enlightened farmers don't burn anything that they don't have to.
Here's the first link that "burning organic matter fertility" yielded on Google:
http://www.new-agri.co.uk/00-1/pov.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060301090431.htm
Basically, rather than burning, they are advocating charring crop residues which leaves much (well, half) of the carbon. My gut tells me (warning: WAG ahead) that it would probably be more effective, and safer (less risk of starting an uncontrolled fire), to just leave the residue in place or let livestock clean it up. Letting a ruminant get much of it's diet from crop residue seems most attractive to me, but letting residue remain as a moisture conserving mulch makes a lot of sense too.
It would be interesting to see the approach in the article compared to the alternatives. Rather than just holding up an orange and saying, "Lood at this nice orange," we could compare it to the other oranges and apples.
The liquid goo can be used locally or FT refined at a central location into traditional fuels, perhaps not so much ethanol.
Did I read an earlier item that said oil per head would decline 25% in a decade? Quick fixes are running out.
gimme an 'H'
gimme an 'E'
gimme a 'M'
gimme a 'P'
But I wouldn't get too excited. When we're talking hemp, we're not talking about an order of magnitude of improvement. The underlying problem, that Kyle brings up, is that you can't get around the soil balance sheet. If you take something away from the soil (ie. grow and harvest a crop) and you don't put it back, you're going to pay the price in following seasons. And the effects are cumulative...
One way around this problem is large-scale composting of human bodily waste. It's a huge improvement over conventional waste treatment, but it's no panacea either. For example, that's a heck of a lot of material to move back to the fields.
This was being applied to range land as fertilizer for perennial grass pasture. The owners had to be careful not to apply too much or too often or they ended up with heavy metals in the forage and then into the cattle.
As many people at this site say. There are no easy answers to our energy and farming issues. I love this site because so many knowledgeable people raise and debate issues scientifically. There is an incredible amount of brain power being brought to bear here on solving some world (literally) shattering problems.
And while I'm on my high horse don't underestimate the intelligence of the farming community. They have been trying alternative crops and practices for ages and are every bit as sharp, intellectually, as many posters at this site. They farm the way they do, often, because of the business climate they must operate in, not because it is always what they want to do.
The farm that I've been following closely (the Nordells, in Small Farm Journal), has been using animal waste as fertilizer. In order to deal with the uneven nutrient additions they also integrate legumes into the crop rotation. The approach looks to be working.
You're thinking on the farming community parallels my own. I sincerely hope that I didn't come off as insulting farmers. The same hope doesn't necessarily apply to agri-business.
The amusing thing is, surfing now, I see that field pea prices are being elevated by corn/ethanol production:
http://www.farmandranchguide.com/articles/2006/02/03/ag_news/livestock_news/live27.txt
A snippet there is:
"Field peas looked to be a promising alternative. The energy and protein content of field peas lies between corn and soybeans."
Care will need to be taken to "close the loop" by sending cellulose splitting process sludge and yeast-derived fertiliser back to where the fuel crops are grown.
Of course it hasn't been done yet, but we talk on and on about many things that haven't been done yet, like cellulose to ethanol. Hasn't been done yet is not necessarily can't or shouldn't be done.
It is very easy for me to see my tractor running around on pellets of switchgrass- without the assistance of any hallucinogens for either of us.
Great! Now, show us some shipping mass produced stirling engines.
Solo and SMC are close to a manufactored heliostat. Kamen likes showing off his, but can't seem to ship. Omcharon claimed to have a $89 1hp nitrogen charged design....yet nothing shipping. Tamin is used in a CHP, and whispergen has went from $30,000 USD to $12000 to $5,000 for their stirling system.
Yet with all this 'hope' - no shpping mass produced stirling, unless you know something I do not.
As for where the stirlings are, well, that's a hard one. Always I get the same answer--NOT ECONOMIC. (Right- as long as you don't count the costs of everything else!). And some other doozies, like for example " It pumps water burning straw and weeds? so what, water pumping is woman's work; what do I care?". And "Generates electricity with wood or solar? Hey, if it isn't used in the USA, it must not be first class. Don't try to pass second rate technology off on me!".
Until recently, a general rule seemed to hold- people who want stirlings have no money, and people who have money don't want stirlings. But now with the intense interest from NASA and the military, things might perk up in more mundane applications inside the world we ordinary mortals live in. Like maybe tractors. Yes! After all, that would not even take a small fraction of one Pop ($40E9, the amount US spends on soda pop/year)
This is why seed-based biofuels is a better plan, until bio-reactors can be shrunk down in size and cost to accept input from the land where the crop is being generated, thus the crop manager has his/her own enlightned best interest to place the waste material back on the land.
Crops that have deep roots (alfpha can go down 7+ feet, and trees can run deep) will help pull elements from the subsoil and transport it to the topsoil. The closing of the loop (management of the wastes of the animals who use the plants) still needs to be done.
does the sugar crop in Brasil require large fossil fuel inputs and suffer from the same problems as corn and switchgrass?
Boris
London
Yes.
You still need energy input to:
- Process the beets to extract the sugar. Chopping them up fine seems to work.
- Energy to sterelize the water/beet/sugar mixture. A radioactive source (using waste radioactive material) would work, but so does heating the mixture to 'knock out' or at least repress the yeasts competion
- Heat energy to seperate the alcohol from the fermented beets.
After step 1, you may be able to feed pigs the 'beet sqeezings', but squeezing sugar drippin's outta beets will require work. Imagine such a system, now try scaling it up. Can you see how hard that is gonna be?To make grass work with the least energy input - grow a fungus that converts complex carbs into sugar. Such a process exists - Sake. Or make some other burn'n fluid - say Butyonal.
If you go back to the history of WHY we do what we've done, farm animals represent an energy store and element concentrator that humans didn't need to work as hard at to accomplish.
They take low grade feedstock (grass) convert them into a storable foodsource (their bodies) and process/concentrate valuable things like nitrogen, potasium, phopherous in their fecal/urine which humans can place in their veggie gardens to increase yeild.
Conversion of food into ethyl alcohol is a way to STORE the solar energy in a stable and eaiser form, No mice will eat it, no fungus will rot it, and the oils in the seed can't cxause it to 'go bad' anymore. Not to mention, humans seem to be willing to exchange goods/services for ethyl alcohol so they can achieve an altered state of mind/being.
1. Brazilians are supergeniuses, and U.S. citizens are chimps, and that is why ethanol works Brazil.
2. Because there is more sun in Brazil, that changes everything. Didn't you know that there is less sun in temperate climates than in Brazil? Shouldn't that end the discussion?
3. Brazilians are so stupid they are destroying their whole country in five years by growing such huge amounts of cane; that is the obvious the explanation.
4. The laws of physics and chemistry are different in Brazil and other places; obviously that would account for the success in ethanol in Brazil.
5. Switchgrass was advocated by Bush and is therefore stupid. Only people who like Bush advocate switchgrass, and therefore they are stupid or corrupt or both.
6. Because switchgrass is not the total answer to all of our energy needs, it is obviously useless and a totally bad idea.
7. I am shocked, SHOCKED to find that switchgrass yields can be improved with fertilizer and water.
And from these seven indisputable facts, what can we conclude?
Brazil has some advantages. Such as cheap labor - which is only an advantage if you're not one of the laborers.
They also built much of their infrastructure when oil was cheap. The government provided billions of dollars to build the ethanol plants, etc. The cost would be a lot higher if the producers had to pay for it themselves.
And because Brazil has a large amount of undeveloped land suitable for slash and burn farming. Eventually all of the undeveloped land will be consumed, leaving no more land to crop sugar cane without fertilizer inputs. When that happens the ERORI goes negative. Smart! Whats Plan B?
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iea2003/table35.xls
During 2002 the US used 15 Million barrels of liquid fuel/day. Gas, Distillate, Jet fuel, Kerosene.
During 2002 Brazil used 1 million barrels of liquid fuel/day. Gas, Distillate, Jet fuel, Kerosene.
The Other category includes asphalt, coke, aviation gasoline, lubricants, naphthas, paraffin wax, petrochemical feedstocks, unfinished oils, white spirits, and blending components. Of these Brazil used .686 Mb/day and The US 2.479 Mb/day. I suspect the ethanol share of U.S. 2.479 Mb/day is less than 10%. If we give Brazil .5 Mb/d of this .686 Mb/day it equals 33% of Brazil's liquid fuels use (1 mbd+.5 mbd), but the same amount .5 Mb/d is only 3.3% of US liquid fuels use. Brazil is 90% the size of the US, with few mountains and little current desert. There are no other countries with large populations that can come close to this, without drastically cutting their food supply or destroying their rain forests. Also fertilizer prices will be reducing future worldwide crop yields year after year. BTW 10% of 21 mbd is 32 billion gallons of ethanol + biodiesel annually. We are currently projecting 10 billion gallons in 10 years annually.
http://tinyurl.com/bft5h
I realize that vegetable oils and ETOH are different substances, but the article points out shortcomings with the veg oil and biodiesel approach too.
And here's the first bits of it:
Worse Than Fossil Fuel
Filed under:
* climate change
* oil
Biodiesel enthusiasts have accidentally invented the most carbon-intensive fuel on earth
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 6th December 2005
Over the past two years I have made an uncomfortable discovery. Like most environmentalists, I have been as blind to the constraints affecting our energy supply as my opponents have been to climate change. I now realise that I have entertained a belief in magic.
...
The last time I drew attention to the hazards of making diesel fuel from vegetable oils, I received as much abuse as I have ever been sent by the supporters of the Iraq war. The biodiesel missionaries, I discovered, are as vociferous in their denial as the executives of Exxon. I am now prepared to admit that my previous column was wrong. But they're not going to like it. I was wrong because I underestimated the fuel's destructive impact.
http://tinyurl.com/bft5h
I realize that vegetable oils and ETOH are different substances, but the article points out shortcomings with the veg oil and biodiesel approach too.
And here's the first bits of it:
Worse Than Fossil Fuel
Filed under:
* climate change
* oil
Biodiesel enthusiasts have accidentally invented the most carbon-intensive fuel on earth
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 6th December 2005
Over the past two years I have made an uncomfortable discovery. Like most environmentalists, I have been as blind to the constraints affecting our energy supply as my opponents have been to climate change. I now realise that I have entertained a belief in magic.
...
The last time I drew attention to the hazards of making diesel fuel from vegetable oils, I received as much abuse as I have ever been sent by the supporters of the Iraq war. The biodiesel missionaries, I discovered, are as vociferous in their denial as the executives of Exxon. I am now prepared to admit that my previous column was wrong. But they're not going to like it. I was wrong because I underestimated the fuel's destructive impact.
You quote a number of 140 bushel per acre yield and 2.5 gallons per bushel ethanol. There is little doubt that barring massive climate change from global warming, we are looking at a 160 bpa and 3 gallon ethanol yield in just a couple of years time.. The most efficent plants and corn producers are probably already there. Those numbers really help the "net energy" case for ethanol.
Switchgrass needing fertilizer -- makes logical sense, however it is probably lower than corn -- average N rates on corn is 150#/acre, where you quoted 100#/N to grow high-yield switchgrass
The transportation issue -- WHY do we assume that the mammoth oil refineries of the past are the most efficent model for the future. I don't know what the barrels-per-day is, but an ethanol plant of 100 million gallon may be optimal size to maximize transport efficencies of the low value feedstock (corn). For switchgrass, the number may be even less, even 5-10 million gallon and have plants dotting the rural landscape every few miles in high production areas may be best economic model under high transportation costs.
All in all, excellent analysis
Stuart - you do great work, and I appreciate it. Now, what do you think about applying a scaling factor to your graph?
I am glad you said fertilizers are necessary for growing grass, because I thought I was an ecoterrorist when I ordered some fertilizer for my hay grass which I harvest twice a year for my horses and the cows of my neighbour.
We now only need a real substantiated article on algae (but some on TOD have already adressed this subject in their posts), and then we can begin with planning for the future.
Algae needs tanks, algae needs food, algae need land to gather photons, and algae needs to be warm. If you are making oil, you need to de-water that oil.
If you look at any of the articles on Algae where they project profitability - they show the algae as the way to re-fix CO2 from a smokestack.
A workable algae plan MIGHT be using sewage to feed the algae, (We'll ignore the toxins in sewage) and glass over the top of the tanks, runways to raise the temprature, while collecting the condensation as a way to 'purify' the water. The US government paid for some research back in the 20th century, but the biggest stumbling blocks will be allocation of resources to set aside land and to make the algae grow tanks.
(If one is looking for a sewage->liquid fuel plan, growing cattails and harvesting 1/3 of the roots every 3 years for the starchy roots and making ethyl alcohol is a known, workable plan. Just need to solve the toxic metals and other nasty chemicals people throw in their waste stream.)
The largest sewage systems available are near or in urban areas. Algae using sunlight will require large areas of land. How much is available and what will it cost?
I'm sure Don Sailorman will agree with me that this is where the ethanol process should end: "The resulting liquid must then be purified to increase the alcohol concentration", so that we can have a real party still.
I'd like to quote Kunstler to provoke thoughts:
April 11, 2005
Over in Vermont last week, I ran into a gang of biodiesel enthusiasts. Biodiesel is oil extracted from vegetable crops that can be used to run engines and do other things as a replacement for petroleum. They were earnest, forward-looking guys who would like to do some good for their country. But their expectations struck me as fairly crazy, and in a way typical of the bad thinking at all levels of our society these days.
For instance, I asked if it had ever occurred to them that bio-diesel crops would have to compete for farmland that would be needed otherwise to grow feed crops for working animals. No, it hadn't. (And it seemed like a far-out suggestion to them.) Their expectation seemed to be that the future would run a lot like the present, that bio-diesel was just another ingenius, innovative, high-tech module that we can "drop into" our existing system in place of the previous, obsolete module of regular oil.
Are Biofuels "sustainable"?
It would seem to me that any scheme that involves removing plant material for processing or other use away from where it is grown would eventually deplete the soil of nutrients. I can see biofuels working on a local level, perhaps, where the unusable plant matter gets put back into the soil. But on a larger scale, I just don't see it working for very long.
is the transport of nutrients in and out of the field impossible and maintain a positive EROREI?
Boris
London
Farmers are being hit hard by the high prices of fuel, fertlizer, and pesticides - caused by the high cost of oil. Frankly, I'm worried about how we'll continue to feed everyone post-peak, let alone grow biofuel.
Once water shortages in the Mid-West are factored in the useable land base doesn't look nearly so big. Toss in the amount of water needed for ethanol production and the water shortages get even worse....
It all seems like a vicious spiral. Hope I'm wrong.
Once upon a time we farmed with horses. If I recall correctly (no I was not around!), it took about an acre to grow food for each horse (I'll have to see if I can verify that figure). Of course, we had a hell of a lot less non-farming people to feed then too. However, at even 350 gallons per acre, one could run a fair amount of equipment for each acre. Therefore, while I do not believe Biomass Ethanol or Biodiesel can supply the fuel our nation consumes for transportation, etc, it sounds like it could be sustainable for agricultural purposes only - if each farm set aside a certain amount of acreage for growing fuel for the equipment, especially if we can increase the efficiency of the farming equipment in addition.
For me this was a very timely post, as I have begun to wonder more and more whether this 'miracle plant' was for real. I suspected it was too good to be true to expect one to be able to repeatedly harvest switchgrass without the use of large amounts of fertilizer.
From my admittedly brief exposure to fermentation and enzymatic processes, I also had some of the same concerns voiced in this thread by pomona96 regarding the difficulties in getting such tricky processes to work the way you want them to. Microorganisms can be very temperamental.
In the environmental field someone (usually an academic doing lab-scale research) is always finding a new bug that can degrade some substance that heretofore was considered non-biodegradable. But very few of these 'breaktrhoughs' ever see the light of day in the form of an actual working process.
I'd be curious to know whether the ethanol-from-switchgrass process has actually been tried on the scale of a demonstration project or is still in the lab stage.
Back to corn. In my view, the only legitimate use of ethanol from corn is the making of fine bourbon.
Excellent post. As I have indicated in other posts,here and here inputs to farming and yield and the profitability of crops are not as simple as most people think.
I think many of us in farm states are saying the same thing:
YOU CAN"T REPLACE ALL OUR CURRENT LIQUID FUELS WITH BIOMASS PRODUCED FUEL!
What you can do is make some liquid fuels out of a different feedstock than petroleum or coal. This is a significant statement in itself. Renewable liquid fuels are a step in the right direction. There is still great uncertainty about what feedstock is best. What enzymes are on the horizon. And as pointed out what size plant is optimal.
The other major question is what happens when farmer coops (if allowed to exist) produce sufficient biodiesel and ethanol from their fields to run their farming operations? At that point the only imported energy is fertilizer so how can that be addressed? The economics of this closed loop farming approach are far from worked out or even calculateable at this time.
Really, what we all need to do now is get our liquid fuels demand down into the range where renewable fuels can deliver most of the future needed supply. That is a major change in usage and I don't see it happening (based on current leadership and incentives) for years unless we have a crisis.
Finally, a last comment on fertilizers. I never worry too much about Nitrogen. It can get replenished via thunderstorm rains and nitrogen fixing bacteria, which convert atmospheric nitrogen to chemical compounds. And nitrogen is often water soluble so even applied fertilizer migrates quickly through the soil profile (to the point of getting into groundwater). My worry is always Phosphorous (P) and potassium (K) levels. Both of these compounds migrate slowly through the soil profile. Particularly P levels. Once depleted they take a very long time to replace with surface applied fertilizers. This is one problem with woody perennial plants. They take up and require a lot of P & K. If all that is removed via biomass. There will be major fertility problems down the road, that can't be easily remediated.
I am afraid that it will only be when the price of gasoline gets high enough that people will get serious about reducing liquid fuel demand. There will be a sort of game of economic chicken - see who blinks first - who cuts back their usage first.
Over the past two years or so, we have had 30% increases in crude prices. No telling what will happen this year, of course. What we have had so far is enough to get the general populace to start to pay attention - they still haven't a clue what to do about it though. There are lots of people giving the public platitudes about how life will go on as usual with minor changes here or there. Just hold tight and buy another SUV...
(not sure how much you would have to fight solubility to get everything back out).
-Ptone
No solubility as you are using distillation to 'get the alcohol' out. The P and K would be left in the mash.
A low pressure stipping run (which can use sunshine to power), and a temprature controlled run with packing in the colum gets ya 190+ proof.
Proposal: Replace the Payroll Tax with an Energy Tax
Some have argued that the suburbs are dead; the suburbanites just don't know it yet. It's probably more accurate to say that the suburban commutes are dead; the suburban commuters just don't know it yet.
We recommend that the United States abolish the payroll tax (Social Security + Medicare tax) and replace it with either a liquid transportation (petroleum) fuel tax or an overall (nonrenewable) energy tax.
The majority of American households pay more in the payroll tax than in the income tax. This would be a tax cut for most households and it would a massive tax increase on those who are profligate in their use of energy. No matter where one lives, the cost of goods would go up, but if you lived close to where you work, your effective tax rate would go down. Of course, those who persisted in long commutes would pay the price.
There would of course be very powerful forces opposed to this idea--the housing industry; auto industry; airlines; trucking--the list goes on. But the fates of these industries are sealed. It's not a question of if they will contract; it's just a question of when. The sooner it happens, and the sooner these industries start emphasizing energy efficiency, the better off we all will be.
A high gasoline tax does not necessarily equate to a lower standard of living. Norway, with the highest gasoline tax in the world, has the highest standard of living in the world, perhaps partly because their car ownership per 1,000 people is about half of what it is in the US.
There would be some other benefits. As we turned to walking, biking and mass transit, our health would improve. There is pretty much a linear correlation between obesity rates and total miles driven (here in the US, we are the world champs in both categories). In addition, since this is in effect a consumption tax, everyone who now avoids paying Social Security taxes would no longer be able to avoid paying them.
However, the primary reason for implementing the proposal is that it would cause an immediate and massive across the board push for greater energy efficiency and it would unleash enormous free market forces against profligate energy use.
Also, you could sub-divide traffic lanes so a 4 lane highway would now be 8 lanes....
No need for each of the 8 people to go out and buy a motorbike.
Best,
Matt
The problem with these are that they are not point A point B transportation systems (neither are Airplanes or ships) like normal cares and bikes are. You always have to get to the station(stop) or get away from the station to your destination...
Hawai`i is building an ethanol plant. To fuel it, they will be importing molasses. They hope to one day grow sweet sorghum for ethanol (yes, even though they do grow sugar cane in Hawai`i).
It's all possible due to "hefty state and federal tax breaks."
FWIW, I've been cautious about switchgrass ethanol, but I do like switchgrass pellets as a heating alternative. To the extent that they displace oil and natural gas for that purpose, it's all good.
You say "we are talking something in the $60-70/ton range delivered to the bio-reactor," well, deliver them at that price to the pelletizer and I think there is some room for profit.
If I recall correctly wood pellets, and corn for pellet stoves were selling at around $5 for a 40 pound bag this past winter.
That is $ 1.86 to $ 2.04 per 40 pounds.
Rick
So sure, if corn is a super-productive crop, that's something to be happy about.
I'm a vegetarian, so just imagine how much corn I am "saving" by not eating beef. :-)
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003212.html