Philippines President Pushes Jatropha Planting for Biodiesel - covers a plan in the Philippines to plant a lot of Jatropha, so that they can launch large-scale biodiesel production. This follows a similar plan from one of the states in India.
Jatropha produces a high percentage of oil making it valuable in biodiesel production.
There's a worldwide push to develop biofuel resources, otherwise known as biodiesel.
In the U.S. this was given a big oomph when GW Bush announced we are addicted to oil, and proposed biofuel research using corn and switchgrass etc. But, consider for a moment, what is the most efficient or effective approach to using biofuels? It's going to be those biological materials which produce the most fuel from a given set of resources.
e.g. The most fuel derived from each acre of ground, or most fuel derived per pound of fertilizer, etc.
In Algae Biomass Already! discusses this and points to a Wikipedia entry on biodiesl that gives the rates of fuel extraction from different feedstocks.
- Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (35 to 45,000 L/km²)
- Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 130,000 L/km²)
- Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130,000 L/km²)
- Jatropha: 175 US gal/acre (160,000 L/km²)
- Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (580,000 L/km²)
- Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (9,000,000 to 18,000,000 L/km²)
So, what's GW doing talking about switchgrass when it's going to be most effective to grow Algae?
In India we have Indian State to Plant 160 Million Jatropha Plants in Quest for Biofuel Self-Sufficiency showing that the people in India understand this point.
There's a growing movement towards biofuels which may turn into a real strong adoption of them by our society. Theoretically that's a good thing, as the fuel is derived from renewable plant sources. But there's room for many unexpected problems buried in the details. Often it seems we solve one problem and create 10 others.
Carbon cloud over a green fuel An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol.
The story is that some of the ethanol refineries in Iowa are using Coal for part of the refining process. Ah, it's a refinery, and that generally means heating and distilling liquids. The article discusses how it's usual for the refinery to use natural gas, but some of them are using coal. Either way they're relying on some fossil fuel for production of the biofuel.
In effect the biofuel carries along with it some carbon burden from the fossil fuel.
Another issue is how this shows we haven't completely weaned ourselves from fossil fuel, even with biofuels.
Growing Biofuels offers an interesting perspective on what it will take to move biofuels (of which biodiesel is one) from a niche to widespread use. For most purposes, todays biofuels start from the same feedstocks that produce foods like corn syrup or vegetable oil. This makes for an economic entanglement where high food prices causes high biofuel prices.
Another factoid comes from a study in Canada. "Diverting half of Canada's canola oil exports into biofuel production would yield only enough biodiesel to meeet 2.7 percent of current diesel demand in Canada". Indicating that meeting biodiesel needs by diverting food production is a little counterproductive.
The article goes on to discuss an alternative approach. Using biomass the source is not from material normally meant for food, but is instead leftover biological material like wood chips.
Choren Industries (partnered with Royal Dutch Shell) has developed a method derived from the Fischer-Tropsch method. That method was used by the Nazi Germany war machine to power their war machines even when they didn't have a source of regular oil. The Fischer-Tropsch method allowed them to convert coal to gasoline. Choren has refined the method and is using it to turn any biomass into a liquid fuel.
In the State of the Union speech, GW Bush mentioned Ethanol as a resource "we" should develop. There's been a big scramble towards Ethanol since. Ethanol has some interesting characteristics, in that it's a liquid fuel that's very compatible with gasoline. Unlike biodiesel, ethanol can be readily burned in a gasoline engine and, in fact, ethanol is widely used today in the U.S. Just watch for a sticker on the pump saying "This gasoline may contain ethanol".
Brazil leading effort to boost ethanol use discusses ethanol production and use in Brazil. During the 1970's the "military dictators" then ruling the country pushed for ethanol production and mandated its use in vehicles. That has turned into a golden spot in the Brazillian economy, and they use ethanol rather than gasoline in nearly half of domestic passenger fuel demand.
Brazil has an interesting advantage with all those sugar canes, in that it's sugar which produces alcohol.
This means the U.S. can't directly replicate what they're doing, we don't have domestic sugar cane production to any great degree. Further, when you mention Ethanol, the corn farmers in Iowa get dollar signs in their eyes, and the corn producer lobbiests have been controlling debate around ethanol.
But I want to gather up some details from the article, so here goes.
The article focuses on one plant that works "around the clock" that is distilling 92,500 gallons of ethanol daily that is trucked away for immediate sale at the pumps. But it can only do this during the sugar cane season, apparently (March to November). This means to cover the period outside that season they'll need fuel storage facilities.
This at the end seems to be a critical point:
In Sao Tome, the cooperative that owns the ethanol distillery is betting on its best profits since it bought the operation in 1993. Cocamar's production cost is $1.10 per gallon, and wholesalers are buying the fuel for $2.68 - up from $1.44 last year.
About the only thing that could hurt Brazil's ethanol industry now would be an almost unimaginable plunge in international crude oil prices, currently trading above $60 per barrel, said Almir Hawthorne, the distillery's industrial manager.
"Oil could drop to $35 or $40 per barrel, and ethanol producers would still make money."
They're making $1.24 per gallon more profit than last year, due entirely it would seem to the high price for oil. If oil prices did drop again it's clear their threshold for gaining a profit is around $40 per barrel. But I wonder if, at that price, they'll make enough profit to get the excitement that's circling around them.
That's been the sticker for most of the alternative fuels, whether their price per unit is less than the price for fossil fuel.
It seems every time the price for oil goes high, the makers of alternatives are in the limelight. Today that's ethanol (of several kinds), fuel cells, biodiesel, wind turbines, etc. Unfortunately when the price of oil drops again, the alternatives become less attractive.
This is simple economics, with the market (in its short sighted decision making) going to the source with the least cost. Another factoid in the article is that Brazil invested years of subsidies in its ethanol production industry. It's paying off now, and in the future Brazil will remain fueled even when the peak oil phenomena hits and oil is no longer available.
The point to that is in the energy industry it takes a very long time to develop alternatives. Brazil is an example, where it took years before their ethanol industry was self sustaining.
If the U.S. decisioning is based largely on the short sighted approach of "oh, the market will take care of it", well, I think the market moves too quickly for the development of new energy resources.
When they say "the market will take care of it" the scenario is that oil supply becomes tight, and the oil price rises, and then people start scrambling for alternatives that are cheaper. And, we're seeing this effect going on today. But when the real oil peak hits the supply is supposed to drop off very rapidly from the peak. That should cause a rapid rise in prices which would trigger the market to search for alternatives. But if it's going to take years to develop the alternatives, and in the meantime oil supply drops precipitously, "we" won't have those years.
I believe the current high oil prices are not the true oil peak, but instead based on the war(s) brewing in the Persian Gulf. Especially with the war we are threatening against Iran.
The current high oil price is making for an interesting training ground, inspiring the people go through the steps of finding an alternative to burning fossil fuels. Last year people were dumping their SUV's and motorcycles were becoming popular. This year they may be looking for ethanol.
I suppose if the oil prices stay high long enough, like they are now, the makers of the alternatives will have a long enough window to establish themselves. Here's hoping.
The Volvo Group unveils viable new hybrid technology
Today, the Volvo Group presents an efficient hybrid solution for heavy vehicles, which offers fuel savings of up to 35 percent. “We envisage opportunities to accelerate developments in commercially viable hybrids for heavy vehicles. This can be significant for both our customers and for the environment,” says President and CEO of Volvo, Leif Johansson.
The Volvo Group’s hybrid concept provides maximum fuel-saving effects on routes with frequent braking and accelerations, for example in refuse collection, city bus traffic and city distribution. Calculations indicate that fuel savings can amount to 35 percent. Maintenance costs for vehicles can also be reduced through reduced wear on the braking system.
The hybrid concept is designated I-SAM and it consists of a combined starter motor, drive motor and alternator, along with an electronic control unit. I-SAM interacts with Volvo’s I-Shift automatic gearshifting system. The batteries are recharged by the diesel engine and whenever the brakes are applied.
...
This is interesting, and there are several advantages. This is meant for heavy trucks, and one complaint of the typical heavy truck is the noise it makes.
The Volvo hybrid drive train, I-SAM (Integrated Starter, Alternator, Motor), is said to have several useful features:
What's even more interesting is the battery system, by EFFPOWER. It's a lead-acid battery made in a way that's highly suitable for hybrid vehicles. It offers a high power density (for lead-acid batteries) at low cost, and a tremendous number of charge/discharge cycles under shallow discharge.
However the battery technology might not be good in a pure battery EV. Battery EV's see deep discharges, under which the large number of shallow discharge cycles is not an advantage. Shallow discharges are different in nature from deep discharges.
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) plans to invest about $2.3 billion before 2009 to expand its capacity for the production of ethanol and other biofuels and on the development of PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate, a biodegradebable plastic made from plant sugar). See more here: ADM to Invest $2.3 Billion Before 2009 to Expand Production of Biofuels and Plastics
The talk around biofuels, whether it's biodiesel or ethanol, tends to make one think it will help the small family farm to survive. Biofuels means someone has to grow the biological material that go into creating the fuel. That means greater demand for biological material, which will mean higher prices for biological material, and eventually trickle down to more money flowing to farmers. Supposedly.
Or is it only going to enrich the likes of Archer Daniels Midland?
Malaysia is going for biodiesel production in a big way. They are building many palm oil plantations and building biodiesel production plants. I have previous coverage here, here, and here.
One issue with Malaysia's plans is they're cutting down their rain forest to build these palm plantations. That, in turn, means new threats to rare species and a reduction of biodiversity. In other words, in the process of solving one environmental problem (environmental degradation from burning fossil fuel) they're creating a different environmental problem (reduced biodiversity).
WWF and palm oil industry join forces covers work by the World Wildlife Foundation to do something in cooperation with the palm oil industry. Through their Forest Conversion Initiative and the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) to develop Better Management Practices for the Malaysian oil palm industry to safeguard high conservation value forests (HCVF) in the country.
This sounds nice ... if some action is going to cause an environmental problem, it's nice there's an environmental protection organization they can partner with to mitigate the problem.
But ... in my mind is another thought. I wonder if this partnership is meant to whitewash the problem? Is this partnership only meant to give the appearance of solving the problem? Or is this partnership taking actions which are truly useful?
As I look at the issues around energy supplies and resources, I'm coming over to the picture in this article: Plant Science Advances U.S. Potential for Ethanol from Biomass ... American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) President Michael Thomashow is quoted discussing how plant science is showing a way towards winning independance from fossil fuels. With plant science you can create organisms which readily produce the same substances which the earth turned into fossil fuels, but you can do it in hours rather than having it take millions of years.
Here's another article on anerobic digesters, giving some details of operation: Anaerobic Digestion Found to Produce Renewable Energy
Denmark To Build World’s Largest Biogas Plant discusses an anerobic digester plant being built in Jutland. It's sized large enough for electricity to 800 homes and heat to 200.
Microreactor for Distributed Production of Biodiesel discusses a development by scientists at the University of Oregon which promises to revolutionize biodiesel production. Producing biodiesel has an involved series of chemical reactions to perform. The Univ of Oregon scientists have developed a simplified gizmo which makes the process very simple, and very quick.
Joint Venture for Animalwaste Sludge to Biodiesel: Concerns a project to take animal "waste" and turn it into fuel.
Here's the context: "The USDA requires facilities that process the 100 million pigs, 35 million cattle, 1.6 billion turkeys, and 8 billion chickens slaughtered each year to use large volumes of clean water to continuously rinse the meats as they are cut and packaged." The formerly clean water is separated from the "protein" and other animal material, that leaves a "concentrated sludge, which is called Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) sludge. The poultry industry alone generates in excess of 2.5 billion pounds—more than 63,000 tanker loads—per year of DAF sludge."
The technosanity question would be what to do with that sludge? It's interesting to wonder what was formerly done with it. Was it just dumped into the wastewater system? Was it turned into any other product such as fertilizer or animal food?
The article discusses a proposed use for this sludge, being developed by Veridium Corporation and Mean Green BioFuels.
James Lovelock is an independant scientist who has been nurturing the Gaia model of understanding the earth. He's published a string of books claiming the planet we call Earth is a living being he names Gaia. e.g. Gaia : A New Look at Life on Earth He began this work as a space scientist advising NASA on how would they determine whether there was "life" on other planets, such as Mars. That is, given the sparse set of instruments we can send to Mars, which ones should be sent to make the measurements required to determine whether "life" exists there. The question sent him to pondering life on this planet, leading him to recognize the planet as a whole being a living organism.
I say this to help give context to an article he has written fortelling a disastrous change in Gaia. The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years He's saying that the global warming phenemona is Gaia developing a "fever", that the historical record of this planet shows several fevers which occurred, and that in the past those fevers took 100,000 years to heal.
When earth has a "fever" it undergoes a climate change with an expansion of desert lands, the heat around the equator becoming unbearable for most life (including humans) and that as a result he expects billions of humans to die.
This may very well be what will occur. We are beginning to see alarming signs such as the melting of the permafrost in the arctic.
However in the recent few days I've heard a couple spiritual teachers talking about the apocalypse period described in the Book of Revelations. That book is a set of visions an early prophet received about the future of humanity. It's a rather disturbing part of the Bible since it describes a horrible war, disease, famine, environmental problems, and more. But the book also ends with a great deal of hope, with a "New Heaven and New Earth". The book is also hard to interpret and understand.
These two teachers, Ron Roth and Gregg Braden, have both studied the ancient writings of a wide range of traditions. They both said a similar thing about the Revelations. First, that many of the predictions in it have already come to pass. e.g. The Ukranian name for Chernobyl means "Wormwood" which, in Revelations, was a star that burned on the earth, which is essentially what happened at Chernobyl.
They both teach about the power of prayer, in an authentic form of prayer practiced by ancient mystics. Both, especially Gregg Braden, talk about the cycles of history recorded in the ancient texts and how the ancient teachings talk about a cataclysmic time which will happen about now. It's not just the book of Revelations, but other ancient traditions predicted apocalypse. But they all suggested prayer as the way humanity could avoid the fate.
It's not too late.
