High energy prices are focusing more minds on energy policy. A big push is on to set a national goal of 25% of energy from renewables by 2025.
In Washington this week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, industry leaders (including the three Detroit automakers), farm groups, governors, county officials, and environmentalists launched an effort to have the nation get 25 percent of its total energy from renewable sources by 2025.
This ambitious proposal - dubbed "25x'25" - goes well beyond what Congress and the White House have enacted so far, and it's likely to encounter environmental and economic speed bumps along the way.
The goal of securing one-fourth of the nation's total energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and biogas by 2025 was introduced this week as a concurrent resolution in both houses of Congress. So far, it has at least 30 cosponsors with the number growing daily.
The big downside of such a coalition is that they will make biomass for vehicle ethanol a big component of that drive. Whether that would yield a net environmental benefit is arguable. On the bright side, the ratio of energy out to energy in will rise due to the development of cellulosic technologies and a shift toward switchgrass and other biomass energy sources instead of corn. But the amount of land that would need to move into farm production will still increase substantially. This coalition ought to state how much additional land they expect to use to reach their goal.
At an international level a move toward biomass would be even more problematic for the environment. Picture densely popualted tropical countries cutting down rainforests to plant fields for biomass. Not a pretty picture.
The supporters of this initiative think attitudes are shifting in their direction. I tend toward the "Seen one way" view in this first paragraph.
Seen one way, this new energy effort is a coalition of well-known special interests like ethanol producers, tree farmers, and solar equipment manufacturers. But boosters believe a critical mass of public support has developed that puts a strong political wind at their backs.
One example: The kick off session for the annual meeting of the Western Governors Association this weekend in Sedona, Ariz., focuses on clean energy. The WGA, whose 18 state executives (11 of whom are Republicans) oversee the fastest growing states in terms of population and energy consumption, will propose the development of 30,000 megawatts of "clean and diverse energy" across the American West by 2015 while increasing energy efficiency 20 percent by 2020.
The coalition has a website at 25x25.org.
They have bipartisan support in Congress. (PDF)
“Today we have Republicans and Democrats, rural and urban interests, and representatives from over 140 different farm, forestry and environmental organizations coming together behind a common energy goal for the nation,” said 25x’25 Steering Committee Co-Chair Bill Richards. “This introduction is truly unprecedented.”
Lead sponsors include: Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Collin Peterson (DMinn), Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.)
Does a forest produce more cellulose and more energy per year than a field growing switchgrass? After all, the forest is there 365 days a year. Whereas most agricultural plants are just for a much shorter growing season. How much more energy per acre could be harvested per acre on a tree farm that grows for, say, 10 or 20 years as compared to the same land used for seasonal agriculture? Anyone know?
The bipartisan support is made possible by support from both farmers and environmentalists.
Support has been building for the 25x'25 initiative from all across the country. Over 100 organizations have endorsed the vision, including broad-based farm organizations like the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union, and companies like Deere & Company; as well as environmental groups like NRDC, Environmental Defense and the National Wildlife Federation. In addition, Governors Jeb Bush (R-Fla.), Dave Heineman (R-Neb.), Tim Pawlenty, (R-Minn.), Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont.), Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) and Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.) have endorsed the goal, as have the state legislatures of Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Vermont.
What do the NRDC and National Wildlife Federation think of the idea of shifting millions more acres of land into agricultural uses even as more land gets shifted into residential usage due to largely immigrant-driven population growth? Any lights on in the environmental movement?
The 25x25 coalition claims we can produce lots of energy from biomass.
How much biofuel can we produce?
Producing energy from America's abundant farm and forest lands is an idea whose time has come. In the State of the Union address this year, President Bush set a goal of replacing 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025 - a quantity very similar to 25x'25 (because most of our oil comes from other regions). Oak Ridge National Laboratory reports that we have more than 1 billion tons of unused raw materials each year that could be used to make biofuels. In fact, one of America's leading venture capitalists says 25x'25 is too conservative a goal, and that we can shoot higher and move faster.
A lot of those "unused raw materials" currently serve as food for a large variety of plant and animal species. I'm guessing the "leading venture capitalist" mentioned is Vinod Khosla.
How do we produce that much biofuel?
To get to 25x'25, we will need to use all kinds of plants for biofuels. Today ethanol is made from corn, sugar cane, and sweet sorghum. Biodiesel is made from oil seeds like soybeans and canola and from nuts like coconut, palm, and jatropha. Advanced biofuels can be made from the "cellulose" in trees, grass, agricultural residue (corn stalks, cotton gin, rice hulls), and municipal solid waste. Cellulose makes up the majority of a plant's structure and can be broken down into sugars, which can then be fermented and made into ethanol. The President vowed in the State of the Union to make advanced ethanol available by 2011. Once commercialized, advanced ethanol will be competitive with $35 per barrel oil. Studies indicate that the U.S. can produce 50 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol using only agricultural residue.
50 billion gallons sounds like a lot right? Well, divide it by 300 million people. That's only 167 gallons per person. Note that ethanol has a much lower energy density than gasoline. Plus, energy will be used to collect the agricultural residue and operate the ethanol production plants. So the gain is even smaller than that suggested by the gallons per person. We'd be better off accelerating the development high conversion efficiency photovoltaics and better battery technologies. The photovoltaics would use far less land and have less environmental impact. Also, nukes would use far less land as well.
By Randall Parker at 2006 June 09 12:56 AM Policy Energy | TrackBack167 gallons isn't chump change - even with the reduced energy density, that would replace about 20% of my gas usage. It would replace about half my wife's. If we could get this off of "agricultural residue", that would be great. It might not do a hell of a lot for global warming, but that kind of increase in supply would help out with gas prices.
Tom,
Whether it does that much depends on how much energy is used to produce it in the first place. If growth of corn to make ethanol only yields net 20% more energy then that 167 gallons shrinks down to the low double digits.
We need to know what the total efficiency is of the production process. We also need to know how much net energy we get per acre. Do we need an acre per driver? 10 acres per driver? 50 acres per driver? I want numbers.
Biofuels are a subsidy boondoggle. They also reverse environmental progress. Since the early 20th century, much of the US has been reforested. Will that trend reverse as marginal lands reverse to crop production for biomass?
If gas prices or problems in gas supply put the squeeze on the economy, we should gasify coal instead. And only as a temporary measure, until fuel cell technology has been improved.
I live in Illinois, bashing ethanol is not popular here. But I can't help but think biofuels are a racket.
By 2025 we are going into WW III for oil. It will be too little too late unless we immediately start a Bronx Project for Energy, by spending $150 billion per year.
There is a new movie coming: "Who Killed the Electric Vehicle?"
Click below to see the previews of the movie:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/
Click below for rewies of the movie:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/who_killed_the_electric_car/
The only way these guys will be able to stop the creation of vast algae ponds is through a crash government program which will let them do to algae what NASA did to private space launches and what the Tokamak did to fusion innovation.
I don't buy this algae business. The open ponds suffer from takeover by 'weed' algae and insufficient yield; the closed systems suffer from prohibitive capital cost. They also require CO2 injection to achieve high yields, since natural CO2 from the atmosphere quickly becomes a rate-limiting resource even in conventional agriculture. This means you can't site the fields far away from large powerplants, which are mostly not in the places where the algae does best.
If growth of corn to make ethanol only yields net 20% more energy then that 167 gallons shrinks down to the low double digits.
But we don't suffer a shortage of energy. We suffer a shortage of liquid fuel. If ethanol production consumes coal, consider it solar-assisted synfuel. No-one says coal-derived synfuel is impractical just because the fuel output has a lower energy content than the coal input.
Weed algae is not a particular problem if you are looking to convert sun to biomass efficiently or if you are going to use a highly alkaline medium far from alkaline ecosystems. Indeed, the latter allows you to make a solution that is highly absorbant of atmospheric CO2, and you don't even need to rely on gaseous CO2 as the sole source of carbon. Algae are at the base of the food chain -- they're really good at converting lots of things into themselves given solar energy. This isn't a nutraceutical nor even third world tilapia farm we're talking about.
I just don't believe you are going to beat algae for converting sun to biomass combined with low land value.
And then in 2025 when .0001% of energy is generated by these renewables.. they'll plan for 50% renewable by 2060.
use a highly alkaline medium
I concede the point! I think such organisms were not looked at by the DOE studies of a decade ago, but I guess that's the point you're making, isn't it?
Some guys in Australia are using saline-tolerant species Botryococcus braunii:
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/EFM/05-025sum.html
it has 75% oil by dry weight and grows wild in Australia.
Salt is nice because there is a lot of salt water and it is a good stepping stone to mareculture but the species cannot tolerate high salinity. I prefer the salt to be alkaline anyway for the enhanced CO2 absorbtion (although mareculture would be less subject to CO2 limitation). The spirulina producer Earthrise uses a strain from near lake Chad but spirulina generally tolerates reasonably high pH so there might be species similar to B. braunni that can tolerate high pH from near those regions.
The motivation for salt would be to retard evaporation. The vapor pressure of a solution is lower at higher solute concentration, and sodium chloride is several times as soluble as sodium bicarbonate (or carbonate), at least until the water becomes quite warm.
Correction: sodium carbonate is just about as soluble as sodium chloride at room temperature. It's the bicarbonate that's less soluble.
Parker: "A lot of those "unused raw materials" currently serve as food for a large variety of plant and animal species."
Essentially all agricultural waste not burned by farmers is oxydized by fungi and other micro-organisms that are in no danger of becoming extinct. Maybe Parker can get in touch with the Sierra Club to start up a committee to "Save the Fungi". Imagine the great tag lines you could come up with: "A world without fungi is no fun, guy." I'm so impressed by Parker's forays into environmentalism.
A company called Greenfuel Technologies (http://www.greenfuelonline.com/technology.htm) has demonstrated on a large scale pilot project algae bioreactors that can produce "5,000-10,000 gallons of biodiesel and a comparable amount of bioethanol per acre." Even with high capital costs, that kind of productivity will have deep pocket investors standing in line to invest. It is taking a negative value byproduct of coal power generation and converting it into a very high value liquid fuel using a very small fraction of available crop land to produce an energy equivalent of current total petroleum consumption. The main thing holding up investments is no doubt the reasonable perception that when the US finally signs on to mandatory carbon controls via carbon credit trading after the Oil Biz Republicans are swept from office, the investment environment will be much better. So Parker won't have to worry his little mind about devastating the rain forest and all those cute little creatures he has nightmares about greedy biofuel megacorporations crushing under their giant bulldozers.
Another very innovative biofuel technology called "Mixalco" for "mixed alcohol process" converts a wide range of bio-degradable matter into high energy density alcohols highly suitable as fuel for internal combustion engines. The inventor of this technology is a highly creative professor of engineering at Texas A&M University who is close to commercialization of the process that could, using only available municipal waste and agricultural/forestry residues to produce most of the fuel needed for US transportation needs. Listen to Mark Holzapple's distinguished lecture, with accompanying Power Point slides at http://engineering.tamu.edu/research/lectures/ You might learn something. Full disclosure: I am investor in Holzapple's Star-Rotor Corporation.
So just these two biofuel technologies could exceed the the 25 X 25 goals in very short order. If we were to use the $20 B or so wasted on the misadventure in Iraq in one year to develop the technology and infrastructure it could be done in three or four years - the amount of time it took us to develop the atomic bomb from scratch. But Parker and Bush would rather pump billions more taxpayer dollars into nuke power which is decades away from viable technical fixes for it's problems (if they ever can be fixed). Of course, Parker and Bush are called conservatives because they are so respectful of tradition. In this case the multi-generational tradition of pumping vast sums of taxpayer money into the pockets of giant nuke power companies. But I think stupid traditions should go by the wayside. Instead let's invest taxpayer money in ways that help small farmers and small, distributed power companies that run off of renewable energy. It's a system that can be more efficient and much more stable than the old system of pumping more taxpayer money into the pockets of big energy billionaires.
The main thing holding up investments is no doubt the reasonable perception that when the US finally signs on to mandatory carbon controls via carbon credit trading after the Oil Biz Republicans are swept from office, the investment environment will be much better.
And here I was thinking the main thing holding up investments was the prohibitive cost of those closed bioreactors. Good farmland only costs around $5K/acre; how much does an acre of transparent structures cost?
Paul,
Reasonable question and I didn't see it covered on their website. But with the value of the product being on the order of $40,000 per year (20,000 gals X $2/gal) per year it would have to be some pretty expensive stuff to make it cost prohibitive. But it is a pretty high tech system with pumps and controls and lots of pipes, so it isn't insignificant.
My main point is that our failure to aggressively act on greenhouse gasses as the rest of the civilized world is can leave the US in the dust by creating uncertainty or a lack of reasonable incentives to develope the technology so that we will be following rather than leading in that technology.
why is the most basic ,obvious data so hard to find amidst the hype, info-babble, etc? for instance, to compare (solar) energy yield per unit area for various conversion technologies (photovoltaic /"hydrogen economy" vs. biomass / conventional combustion power plant)one first needs to know the energy/area/time yield for various crops; trees, grass, grain/ethanol, etc. to date, i've found only one study that estimated 250,000 acres of "fast growing timber" to supply one 50 megawatt power plant - this works out to about 1/400 that of photovoltaic?! (based on 100w/ft2, 10% conversion eff. and .2avg/peak output ratio for photovoltaic systems, ballpark)
tree:50,000,000w/250,000=200w/acre or.005w/ft2 - sounds awfully low - anybody have better numbers?
p.v.:100w/ft2 received x10% eff. X .2 = a wopping 2w/ft2 -reasonable
-then there's costs: cultivation, harvesting, maintenence,labor etc. to consider for the vavious systems...
anyhow, with the end of the petroleum age looming on the horizon, it's time to bring in some level-headed engineering generalist old-fasioned inventor types and start getting creative and comparing hard numbers for the various options, such as they are. nobody seems to realize that once prices REALLY start to rise and panic, hoarding (wars?) ensue it's a bit late for the massive r&d and reconstruction of an entire fossil- based energy system. but then, no such truly massive conversion is in even the early investigative stage; no-one is looking at the whole picture,especially cost. "alternative energy" seems to be only for the elite who don't count real costs like the rest of us..?
current total u.s. energy use is on the order of 100 quadrillion btu annually or in terms of power about 3 terawatts with everything up and running.for photovoltaics as above for the initial conversion this works out to an area about 250 miles on a side - not trivial whether distributed on rooftops or concentrated in arizona and even if p.v. surface ultimately becomes cheap as window glass and lasts several decades.( power photochemistry for h2o to h2 or co2/water to light hydrocarbon production isn't even being seriously investigated so far as i have been able to find.)
also, post coal/petroleum where do lubricant, synthetics industry feedstocks come from?
come on folks, time to quit screwing around with nebulous, piecemeal alternative energy schemes and get serious about this business. that is , unless you all want to find out what a "post industrial" economy really feels like - mike