Monday, July 26, 2010

Cellulosic Ethanol: $2.35 per gallon


Test plots of switchgrass at Auburn University, taken from ORNL report here.




Well, work on cellulosic ethanol has progressed over the last few years and things look good for large-scale commercial application. A recent report put the production costs at $2.35 per gallon, and ethanol produced from switchgrass yields 540% of the energy used to grow, harvest, and process it into ethanol. Equally important, it appears that switchgrass really is carbon neutral, as it absorbs essentially the same amount of greenhouse gases while it's growing as it emits when burned as fuel.

This kind of progress makes it all the more bewildering to read that budget cuts are planned for DOE, or rather, should I say were planned: these things seem to change direction every week.
Now the economy is just about stabilized we do need to slash government spending, but surely not in an area so critical to national security, energy independence and the environment?

34 comments:

  1. the link to the budget cuts is broken

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  2. Great. This should use up lots of valuable land for formally used for growing crops. Very Progressive.

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  3. Anon - cellulosic ethanol uses leftovers from crops...it uses waste biomass. It's not replacing any food crop, it's in fact wringing more value out of the same plot of land.

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  4. Can't tell from the "report" whether those are all actual costs or costs after a variety of tax credits or costs excluding the cost of collecting and transporting the biomass feedstock. I'll believe it when I see real complete numbers.

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  5. "Equally important, it appears that switchgrass really is carbon neutral, as it absorbs essentially the same amount of greenhouse gases while it's growing as it emits when burned as fuel."

    Duh. True of every "crop" that is converted into energy.

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  6. If it's such a good deal, why does it need a subsidy?

    Using "waste" biomass from crops means you're essentially stripmining all the nutrients out of the soil. That's "wringing more value out" in MBA-speak.

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  7. carbon neutral is really great isn't it ? why ?

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  8. If this is truly a commercially profitable process, it should not need a subsidy, in fact it should provide tax income.

    If it needs a subsidy, it probably isn't profitable.

    The example of sawgrass is one thing, to say that leftover biomass from crops would produce the same result is pure idle speculation.

    If anyone in this administration actually considered energy production to be a national security issue, they'd be building thorium nuclear reactors all over the country. One thorium nuclear reactor would provide more usable energy than all the subsidized sawgrass you could grow.

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  9. It needs a subsidy because it's competing against established technology with established infrastructure. The field should be leveled even more by putting the true cost of Oil with respect to us sending out troops out to protect the world supply every decade or so; add in the cost of potential environmental hazards; plus the fact that 50% of our trade defict is energy; all of this should be reflected in the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump but it's not.

    Also switchgrass can be grown and cultivated in areas very unfriendly to regular crops... plus the potential energy disadvantage of ethanol v. gasoline can be eliminated by switching to engines of higher compression because gasoline cannot realize most of its potential energy due to detonation/pre-ignition in an internal combustion engine. Ethanol can stand much higher compression ratios so realized energy from a gallon is equal.

    I say let's put our farmers and rural communities to work rather than financing oil regimes in a world market that wants to see us destroyed.

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  10. Anon 10:06--

    "Formerly", not "formally". Very bright.

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  11. And before anyone goes there; I am highly anti-Obama. I think he has largely destroyed our country both in promise and in practice with his big-government, central-planning, everyone-else-is-an-idiot ideology. This, however, is a promising technology that should continue to be pursued... especially if they are getting real yields in the price range stated.

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  12. "The field should be leveled even more by putting the true cost of Oil with respect to us sending out troops out to protect the world supply every decade or so"

    Except that has nothing to do with the cost of oil per se, but with the cost of maintain freedom of the sea lanes--we've been doing that since 1801. Before you type, try learning some actual history.

    We already pay more for gasoline than it should cost.

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  13. You only need a subsidy if you cannot compete. The alternative fuels will never take off because they lack economy of scale; that's what keeps their price high.

    I used to work designing ethanol purification for corn plants. Sure 100 Million GPY sounds impressive, but is nothing compared to a real oil refinery.

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  14. Jimmy, I appreciate your perspective here, but when you trot out the "war for oil" talking point, you lose people who understand that geopolitics and US foreign policy is a bit more complicated than that. Not that it's complicated at all, but claiming that we should factor in the cost of a war every ten years into the cost of oil is simply a statement of ideology, not of fact.

    I have no problem with pursuing sawgrass, but there are plenty of other more promising energy sources that should be getting funded too, and the current administration's knee-jerk anti drilling policies do more to force us to rely on foreign oil sources than any sawgrass or other bio-fuel subsidy is likely to offset.

    You talk about infrastructure costs and then suggest modifying internal combustion engines, a process that would require decades to accomplish at the same time that those same automobile companies are being beat with the electric club, which means it's highly unlikely that they will invest in both building electric engines AND rebuilding their gasoline infrastructure.

    US energy policy is, and has been for decades, a totally schizophrenic and dysfunctional approach that is driven by a combination of brainless ideology vs entrenched corporate interests.

    There are many, many promising energy technologies that have been ignored for decades. Nuclear energy is at the top of that list. Texas is having to idle their wind turbines because they don't have enough power line capacity to bring it to market.

    What is really needed is a comprehensive rational rethinking of energy policy driven by facts and data instead of ideology and lobbyists. Sawgrass ethanol MIGHT have a place in a revised and rational energy policy, but there are at least half a dozen more promising technologies that are being ignored even while this one is getting what funding it is getting.

    India is ramping up a thorium nuclear reactor infrastructure, and China is looking hard at it. The USA is in a perfect position to pivot from uranium to thorium right now, but I haven't heard even a peep from this administration that they are even aware of it's potential.

    Ideology trumps facts in this, and most previous, administrations.

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  15. I don't disagree that we should not be pursuing all of our other alternatives as well CC; I just don't think this particular one should be dismissed on face. Inexpensive bridge technolgies like FlexFuel will serve cellulosic ethanol as well as its economy of scale that allows local production in rural areas surrounding larger urban consumption areas; that doesn't require mass transportation budgets like oil does. And, if we can make the numbers work as described in the article; you are looking at eliminating 1/2 of our trade deficit. That's got to be worth something. As for electric batteries just don't carry enough power density and quick recharge capacity yet... so a high energy density liquid fuel is a simple necessity for our country right now. I'm suggesting an alternative to gasoline... a little competition to help the consumer not be subject to the whims of a market... particularly one so influenced by America's enemies.

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  16. It needs a subsidy because it just plain costs too much. A gallon of gasoline is produced at much less cost, yet packs much more energy. Ergo, this is inefficiency on rails. And please take the point that this isn't win-win, as the man says, the biomass is not helping fertilize the fields, nor protect the soil overwinter...

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  17. Well, we'll see how this pans out. My guess is that sawgrass ethanol will never be a major factor in energy production for a variety of reasons, some I've stated here, some others have stated, and some not yet stated.

    Every day there is another announcement of "promising developments" in battery technology. If that's not enough to keep electric engines at the top of the subsidy list, there are "promising developments" in super capacitor technology. If that's not enough there are "promising developments" in hydrogen fuel cell technology...

    Assuming that electric engines eventually become viable, all other forms of portable fuel become obsolete overnight.

    Do you really think automobile companies are going to invest tens of billions of dollars in redesigning engines to run on sawgrass ethanol when one major breakthrough in battery technology will make that entire investment worthless overnight?

    Especially since simply opening domestic drilling would provide enough gasoline to keep us driving for decades to come on good old traditional gasoline...

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  18. Anon, the article says the cost is less; and, as I have pointed out, it is not the potential energy of a gallon of gasoline v. a gallon of ethanol that matters. It is the realized energy that matters and due to the fact gasoline pre-ignites in an internal combustion engine at much lower compression its realized energy is only higher using an engine of the least common denominator with respect to compression. Higher compression, boost, and other technologies level the realized energy playing field.

    Gasoline's other benefits are related to the existing infrastructure that is built to process and deliver it... a real advantage but should it be considered a better fuel because of this? Also the points about our energy trade deficit need to be factored in as well.

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  19. I agree... super capacitors would trump all the rest put together. Combination battery/super capacitor technology is very promising in that the regenerative braking as well as the fast recharge capacity is greatly enhanced.

    Hydrogen is a non-starter because of the energy needed to compress enough useable hydrogen into a useful hydrogen cell far exceeds the amount of energy that will every be realized during consumption.

    PiE with overnight recharge has a good niche in daily commuting < 100 miles (with other problems of its own related to power grid, etc)... not sure if people will be willing to give up their spontaneity for the savings though.

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  20. Yes, it costs too much. But that is no reason to subsidize it.

    Costs are high due to the lack of scale. A Fuel Ethanol (FE) Plant is much smaller than a gasoline refinery because oil is a lot more transportable than the feedstocks for FE. So you need a distributed network of refineries because of the nature of the feedstocks.

    The cost differential between a 200 MMGPY vs. a 100 MMGPY plant is about a factor of 1.3. So the economies of scale kills you.

    Next, in a refinery, most of what you have to do is crack the oil and fractionate it. Dead simple with the decades of catalyst technology and separations experience. With FE, you have to ferment, distill and dry. Fermentation is quite touchy and an infection can shut you down for weeks. Then, for every gallon of FE, you need to boil up 9 gallons of water. The process of purification is highly energy instensive and also kills you on the price.

    Then there is the energy density. E85 has something like 17% fewer BTU/gal than regular 87 octane gasoline. So you need to burn MORE E85 to go the same distance. To be competitive, E85 needs to be about 20% less costly than gasoline to be considered an "equivalent" product.

    And let's not forget the effect of taxes. You look at production costs of $2.35/gal. That price does not consider any profit margin for the converter. Also, fuel taxes average somewhere like around $0.456/gallon.

    At a gasloine price of $3.00/gallon, that leaves $0.194/gallon for profit. Hardly worth the hassle. Stated another way, at any gasoline price below $2.81/gallon, FE makes no economic sense.

    So there are huge hurdles for this technology to become cost competitive. Subsidies kill the incentive to find solutions to those problems.

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  21. "Cellulosic Ethanol: $2.35 per gallon"

    This headline is completely misleading and meaningless. That $2.35 gallon of CE does not provide nearly the energy of a $2.69 gallon of gasoline which is even less than a $2.99 gallon of diesel. So, the net cost in terms of $/kJ or, more practically, $/kg-km may be higher in fact. Also, this fails to factor in the tangible (and not-so-tangible) costs of reduced MTBF (mean time between fill-ups). You stand a greater chance of running out of gas somewhere between East Nowhere and Lower Boondocks with ethanol fuels.

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  22. I don't agree with your economy of scale argument because I believe the distributed network close to consumption centers would be more, not less, efficient. Also, assuming you are the same anon, I have addressed the difference between potential efficiency and realized efficience due to a compression ceiling of about 10:1 on gasoline v. 13:1 on ethanol. The same amount of fuel generates the same energy... only ethanol is at a disadvantage running in an engine with compression of the least common denominator. Variable compression isn't really an alternative for flex fuel but you can certainly adjust boost in a turbo flex fuel vehicle and if the fuel was a ready alternative you'd see these options on the market.

    I do appreciate the discussion but I've got to go now. Please, though, don't be too quick to dismiss an energy technology that could put money into the pockets of american farmers rather than foreign dictators hostile to America's interest. There are many tangibles and intangible tangibles that should be considered here.

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  23. cellulosic ethanol uses leftovers from crops...it uses waste biomass. It's not replacing any food crop, it's in fact wringing more value out of the same plot of land.
    Are you suggesting that the switchgrass is being grown simultaneously on the same plot of cropland as other crops? How will that not displace the other crops?

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  24. Sort of the same Anon; call me K.

    Sorry, energy density in BTU/gal is the common denominator. You may be able to extract the energy more efficiently by specifically tuning the engine, but the net result is that on a volume basis, you have more potential energy available in gasoline (115,000 BTU/gal) than in FE (E85 has around 88,650 BTU/gal).

    As for economies of scale, you need to look at two types of costs involved. First capital costs are lower on a per gallon produced basis as you go up in scale because equipment costs do not directly scale with production volume (hence the factor of 1.3 for 200 MMGPY vs 100 MMGPY).

    Next, your operating costs do not scale with production volume. You can have the approximately the same staffing levels whether you have a 200 MMGPY vs a 100 MMGPY - perhaps a few extra people for the larger plant (doubtful), but not a factor of 2.

    So, with lower capital costs and operating costs on a per gallon basis, FE has a real problem in the cost construct.

    As for where the money goes, that may be a valid argument. However, we have reasonable oil reserves in the US - IF the government would allow donestic producers to exploit them. The current administration is doing everything they can to put a stop to drilling in the Gulf. Just as they did to prevent drilling in ANWR.

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  25. Look up switch grass. The reason it is a good alternative is because it grows well where normal crops will not. It's a native grass that doesn't deplete the soil in the ways crops do. As I understand, it's basically just a photosynthesis machine... taking CO2 out of the air... storing the carbon and releasing Oxygen.

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  26. Not to belabor the point, but if we develop thorium nuclear reactors the way we should, we'd have plenty of excess energy to generate all the hydrogen we'd want for fuel cells...

    But again, that's assuming an actual rational look at a comprehensive energy policy where you develop infrastructure that synergizes with other infrastructure instead of throwing money ate the hot trendy green fantasy of the day....

    Which may be the same thing as saying it will never happen...

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  27. "As I understand, it's basically just a photosynthesis machine... taking CO2 out of the air... storing the carbon and releasing Oxygen."

    Which is just what every plant, crop or not, does.

    K

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  28. Switch grass, not saw grass.

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  29. "Now the economy is just about stabilized we do need to slash government spending, but surely not in an area so critical to national security, energy independence and the environment? "

    Just about stabilized? Oh, well, topic for another day.


    If the process is viable, it is profitable, and keep the government out of it so it will see it come to fruition. If it is not viable, it won't be profitable...and that is often the case when reality meets hyperbole...then this will fall by the wayside and better technologies will arise.

    In case you didn't notice, subsidies of best intentions and promising technology by the government...such as with corn based ethanol...are not smarter than marketplace wisdom.

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  30. Yes, and when $2.35/gal cellulosic ethanol hits the market, I will use it to fuel my Unicornmobile and drive straight to the land where it rains skittles.

    After the two-hundredth ridiculous claim of unheard of economies of production for 'green' technologies, and the realization of those claims always ending up being things like the Volt, I am fully justifiebly not just skeptical, but firmly in the 'show me' camp.

    I have a 'study' that says I can get three hundred miles per liter after processing my own gaseous emissions. Where's my subsidy?

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  31. Anonymous said...
    "Look up switch grass. The reason it is a good alternative is because it grows well where normal crops will not. It's a native grass that doesn't deplete the soil in the ways crops do. As I understand, it's basically just a photosynthesis machine... taking CO2 out of the air... storing the carbon and releasing Oxygen."

    First, that land where crops don't grow is what we call "wildlife habitat", already in short supply in many areas of the country. Any time you try to put more land under the plow you're going to be butt-up against the Endangered Species Act very quickly, particularly in prime agricultural land where there's little uncultivated land now.

    Second, in addition to co2 all plants need some combination of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to grow. No known plant can grow without them and those are the nutrients depleted from the soil. Remove all the biomass from the land and those nutrients have to be replaced either with chemical fertilizers, or animal waste. Running up the price of chemical fertilizers is sure to increase the cost of food. Animal waste tends to be applied much too heavily, running off into our streams and lakes where fertilizer run-off is already a big problem.

    Third, there's a need for water, which is in perennially short supply in some parts of the nation. Diverting the agricultural water supply from food production is bound to increase the cost of food and likely mean we will produce less of it.

    Finally, there's no guarantee that farmers will only grow switchgrass on land that won't support other crops. If it's profitable to grow it farmers will, whether they had any surplus land or not. Thus, it's impossible to promise that switchgrass won't compete for land with food crops.

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  32. West said...
    "I have a 'study' that says I can get three hundred miles per liter after processing my own gaseous emissions. Where's my subsidy?"

    Want to take a flier on 23 acres of pinto beans? You could power LA!

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  33. Do these figures factor in the cost and environmental toll of refertilizing the fields to replace all of the nutrients that are removed from the fields when the "waste biomass" is turned into ethanol instead of plowed back into the ground?

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