One company, Purevision, is working on a way to convert lignin so that it can be used in glues, sealants, and detergents. “Most plans for cellulosic ethanol processing call for burning the lignin to generate steam and heat to run the process. As a fuel, lignin is worth around $40 a ton. PureVision has devised a way to make a different form of lignin–one with a molecular composition that could make it an attractive material for a variety of industrial products like glues, sealants and detergents. Ed Lehrburger, PureVision’s founder and chief executive, said he thought his lignin could sell for $300 a ton or more. Lehrburger said his company was collaborating with a wood and paper products manufacturer that is interested in using the lignin for a biobased glue for its laminates, plywoods and other products.

Lignin makes up roughly 25% of the total mass of most plants.  Suppose that by 2017 we achieve Bush’s goal of 35 billion gallons of ethanol per year.  Since many experts put the maximum corn ethanol production for the US at around 15 billion gallons, this means that roughly 20 billion of these gallons will need to come from cellulosic sources.  At 100 gallons of ethanol per ton of switchgrass (a huge simplification): 20 billion gallons/100 g/t*.25t lignin/t biomass = 50 million tons.  50 million tons *300 dollars per ton= 15 billion dollars/year.  Say that the only half of this lignin is able to be obtained, it is still a 7.5 billion dollar per year industry.  This is huge.  Of course this all depends on how much it costs to convert a ton of lignin from being worth $40/ton to $300/ton and the details in the article seem to be lacking here.

“Lin and his colleagues are trying to turn the resulting glycerol into a substance called 1,3 propanediol, or PDO, the base material for a substance used in upholstery, carpets, clothing and other applications. DuPont uses PDO to make its Sorona line of fabrics.  “For every gallon of biodiesel you make, you make a pound of glycerol,” said George Kraus, a professor of chemistry at Iowa State, where he is director of the Center for Catalysis and a collaborator of Lin. “A lot of people have been contacting us about burning it, and we say there have to be better uses.”  The price of glycerol, now 20 to 50 cents a pound, could drop as low as 5 cents a pound as biodiesel production increases.  Kraus said the higher quality glycerol made with the new process could command a much higher price. “What we see,” he said, “is an opportunity to make something that might cost 80 cents a pound.”  This isn’t exactly relevant to this site but it is interesting none the less.

Many believe that as more uses are found for what are currently waste streams from biorefineries, the economics of biofuels will improve.  Anyway, the article goes through many other examples like the ones I quoted and is definitely worth a read.

One of the problems that is often brought up regarding corn derived ethanol is that it requires almost as much energy to make as one is able to get out of it. This is not the case with wood waste derived ethanol, KL estimates: “the process at the Upton plant requires less than 20,000 British thermal units to produce a gallon of ethanol, which has about 80,000 BTU of energy.” Since the waste is there anyway and likely would have been burned just to get rid of it, there seems to be very little negative side effect to this process. The only cost of the feedstock is transporting it to the plant. “Bill Baker of Baker Timber Products in Rockerville has agreed to be a supplier of wood waste for the new plant.”

“The U.S. Forest Service and other Black Hills land managers want to thin the forest of its small-diameter trees and other low-value wood materials. A thinned forest is less susceptible to catastrophic fires. It’s also less susceptible to pine beetle infestation.” Plants like these will allow the Forest Service an easy way of disposing of dangerous and excess forest material.

On such a small scale (1.5 million gallons per year is very small for an ethanol plant), the economics of the plant are questionable. KL believes that as larger plants are developed, the costs associated with production will decrease. It will be important to remember though that while the costs of production should decrease as scale increases, the average cost/ton to transport waste to the plant will increase since the average travel distance will increase (the plant will have to pull from a far larger “sphere of influence”). From the Article: “The issue we will need to deal with is purely a transportation cost issue,” Kramer said. He admits that the small scale of the Upton plant makes wood a less cost effective feedstock. “However, on a scaled-up version to 20 million gallons per year, the economics are certainly in favor of the wood waste as a feedstock.”

As to why he believes that Maine should invest in cellulosic ethanol, he says:

“For one, it takes much less energy to grow trees. Fertilizer is not required, and Mother Nature takes care of irrigation. Trees also are available year-round and do not come and go with the growing season.

Wood is not a food source and it has a higher energy yield than corn. Unlike with corn-based ethanol, you get more energy out of the process than you put in.

Rising fuel prices are not the only reason this development is critical and timely. In the age of terrorism, we find ourselves reliant on foreign oil from countries run by hostile regimes, giving them the power to manipulate — or cripple — our economy. Energy independence isn’t just about price security, it is about national security.”

What so many people don’t seem to understand is that it is all about economics.  Wood is expensive.  Most trees (excluding poplars and the like) grow extremely slowly compared with other potential energy crops.  When you include the opportunity cost of the land’s value and taxes etc. it is expensive to own land to grow trees and this is why wood is so expensive as a feedstock (and will only continue getting more expensive as demand rises).

Trees are also a carbon “sink” (see my article on carbon flux), which basically means that they are storing carbon that would otherwise be in the atmosphere contributing to global warming.  If a tree gets replanted, this would seem irrelevant, but this becomes problematic when trees do not get replanted.  Also when trees get replanted, it often leads to a monoculture which is obviously bad for biodiversity.

I am not saying that ethanol from wood is necessarily a poor idea, just that it’s potential is limited.  People often think of the huge amounts of trees that we have in this country and think, what an amazing source of fuel.  It is not nearly that easy, there are a lot of negative consequences to cutting down a lot of trees thus it needs to be done in a sustainable way.  It will certainly be one piece in the cellulosic ethanol puzzle, although it seems extremely unlikely that Maine will become the new “Saudi Arabia” of ethanol.

One more noted section of the article: “Our paper mills can use the leftover wood they usually burn or send to landfills for ethanol creation instead.”

Paper mills burn the leftover material in order to generate power for the plant.  If the wood is instead converted to ethanol then the plants will need to spend millions of dollars more per month on electricity.

Michael Bo Rasmussen, one of the scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Research at the University of Aarhus, believes that sea lettuce could theoretically yield 200 to 500 tons per hectare.  This is orders of magnitude higher than any current land candidates.

Unfortunately, harvesting and processing most seaweed is also expected to be orders of magnitude more expensive than harvesting more traditional biomass crops such as switch grass is expected to be.  If someone can come up with a good way to do this though it would likely be extremely lucrative for the discoverer.

Not very much research has been undertaken since the 70′s, the last time that oil prices sky-rocketed.  Modern researchers will be taking over where their predecessors left of 30 years ago.  The University of Aarhus research will be part of a 16 million dollar program by the Aarhus Research Foundation.

Denmark is a Nordic country, thus it is not expected to produce very much traditional biomass do to land limitations and it’s climate.  Sea lettuce would be a very good substitute for traditional biomass since one thing Denmark does have is a lot of coastline and Sea Lettuce is a salt-water plant.

“Carbon flux is an abbreviated phrase used loosely to refer to the net difference between carbon sequestration and carbon respiration. In this usage, carbon (as CO2) is added to the atmosphere by processes such as respiration, burning of fossil fuels, and volcanic activity. From 3He/CO2 and 3He fluxes, the maximum CO2 flux resulting from magmatic processes is 10×1012 mol/year, and the preferred estimate is 6×1012 mol/year (Marty & Tolstikhin 1998). Carbon is removed from the atmosphere by such processes as plant growth, mineral formation, and dissolution into the oceans.

Given the accepted definition of what constitutes a flux, a more appropriate name for the annual difference between carbon sequestration and respiration would be “annual atmospheric carbon accumulation rate” or “annual global integrated surface flux of carbon” or “annual global net carbon flux” .”

This has to do mostly with a net carbon flux from the surface of the earth to the atmosphere.  Basically the carbon “sinks” which consists mostly of plants and oceans, take in carbon dioxide.  The carbon sources (cars, factories, and even breathing) produce carbon dioxide.  For a long time before humans became industrialized, the sinks and sources remained roughly equal so that there was very little net “carbon flux” to the atmosphere.  The atmosphere is currently acting as a gigantic carbon “sink” which will inevitably lead to global warming.  An excellent read regarding this whole process and what we know is available here.

A carbon flux can also be more localized. A more general definition of a flux would be (as wikipedia puts it): “In the study of transport phenomena (heat transfer, mass transfer and fluid dynamics), flux is defined as the amount that flows through a unit area per unit time, the volumetric flow rate.[1] Flux in this definition is a vector.”  In this case it would be measuring the rate of carbon dioxide flow through an area.  Areas with lower CO2 flux will be absorbing more of the CO2 (thus the lower flow rate).  Areas that have plants such as miscanthus which are very efficient at capturing CO2 and turning it into cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin via photosynthesis will have a lower CO2 flux since they are extremely effective at absorbing the CO2 (compared to most plants).

Also, generally when talking about CO2 flux one would use the units kg·m^-2·s^{-1 or} g/(m^2*s) depending on how you wish to write it and how large a mass is being used.  

Rice straw has limited other uses since it has a very high sodium silicate content which is not palatable to livestock and is very abrasive for machinery.  CBEC intends to separate the silicate and use it as an extra revenue stream, selling it to a range of manufacturers.

The plant will be relatively small, processing “35,000 acres of rice straw into 12.5 MMgy of ethanol and 33 million pounds of sodium silicate.”  This is not necessarily a bad thing however as it will cut down on average transportation costs to the plant.  Generally 3.5-4 tons of rice straw can be collected per acre.

The amazing thing is that CBEC will be doing this with no federal or state money.  They have generated enough investor interest to fund their project via investment capital.   CBEC has been doing small scale research for years, it is only relatively recently that they hired Harris group, a respected engineering firm to do an analysis to see whether their research can be scaled into an economical, large scale, continuous process.  Harris group seems to think that this is doable, so the project is moving forward.

The actual process is described by the article to work as follows:

“We wash it, then introduce a mild solution of a strong acid then [which] hydrolyzes out the lignin and the hemicellulose,” Bowers says. “Then a second hydrolysis process occurs where we extract the cellulose from the remaining substrate.” He says the process whereby CBEC hydrolyzes the substrate, removing most of the lignin and all of the silica, is proprietary. “We have designed the hardware and the software to propel a reverse osmosis custom filtration device that we built to do the extraction,” Bowers says. “Through filtration, we separate the silica out and precipitate it as silica sodium oxide, and from the other side we pull out the lignin.” Once the lignin is dried down, CBEC plans to use it as boiler fuel. The company’s sales forecasts indicate the ability to retrieve 34-cents a pound from the more than 33.5 million pounds of sodium silicate, a versatile compound used to make everything from micro-electronics to toothpaste.  Once the cellulose and hemicellulose are separated from the lignin and silica, fermentation begins. “Our fermentation will look just like the corn guys’,” Bowers says.”

I hope that they don’t look exactly the same, if CBEC tries to break down the cellulose like corn starch (using amylase), they are going to be sadly mistaken.  They will be needing to use cellulase which as far as I know still acts more slowly than amylase and will be considerably more expensive.  I wonder whether they are going to just take on the cost of the cellulase or if they have figured out a plan for this expensive item too.  I would be extremely interested in the details of how exactly their second hydrolysis process works as well.

“We’re considering separate five-C and six-C lines”–and how do they propose to enzymatically break down the hemicellulose? I could be very mistaken but as far as I know there is not yet an economical way to break down hemicellulose since hemicellulose consists of so many different sugars.  You would need a multitude of enzymes each being unique to the sugar that they attack.  They could break down the hemicellulose via acid hydrolyis however but that is questionably economical.

Anyway, the company hopes to expand to 11 refineries by 2012 located in California, Texas, and Arkansas.   In the long term they see a lot of potential for global expansion since rice is such a staple crop world wide.  Whether they succeed or not, I guess we will have to wait and see.

“Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday he supports plans to aid farmers in the cellulosic ethanol movement, saying incentives will be necessary to encourage farmers to grow certain crops.

“We have to have an economic driver for this thing,” Thune said.”

Unfortunately the problem with providing subsidies as incentives is that it will put the government in the position of picking winners and losers.  A carbon tax would be more fair, cheaper, provide less opportunity for loopholes, and would be a more efficient mechanism for transitioning to biofuels since the transition would be market driven.

In general, it looks as if the Senate is trying to write the bill to be more in the interest of small farmers than the house version.  Whether this is a good thing or not is a matter of personal opinion.

” The center of Bush’s program, announced in his January State of the Union address, is called “20 in 10″, cutting US gasoline use 20% by 2010. The official reason is to “reduce dependency on imported oil”, as well as cutting unwanted “greenhouse gas” emissions. That isn’t the case, but it makes good PR. Repeat it often enough and maybe most people will believe it. Maybe they won’t realize their taxpayer subsidies to grow ethanol corn instead of feed corn are also driving the price of their daily bread through the roof.”

The most often repeated and first major argument of Engdahl’s is that corn ethanol competing with food increases the price of food and that is why food prices have increased so much in the past 18 months. In fact the main reason that the cost of food has gone up so drastically as of late is because of the rising cost of oil. This is because the cost of the actual corn is only a tiny percentage of the total cost of the food that we consume. To confirm this assessment I would refer interested readers and Mr. Engdahl to this report.

“The late American satirist Mark Twain once quipped, “Buy land: They’ve stopped making it.” Today we can say almost the same about corn, or all grains worldwide. The world is in the early months of the greatest sustained rise in prices for all major grains, including maize, wheat and rice, that we have seen in three decades. Those three crops constitute almost 90% of all grains cultivated in the world.”

When the cost of corn (the main ingredient in corn flakes) accounts for a mere 5% of the total cost of the box of cereal, even if the cost of corn doubles again next year it would still only increase the cost of your box of cornflakes by roughly $.20. This is not going to break anyone’s bank. The 90% figure is sensationalist and doesn’t matter even a little to basic supply/demand as anyone who has taken econ 101 can tell you.

“No advocate of the ethanol boondoggle addresses the huge social cost that is beginning to hit the dining-room tables across the US, Europe and the rest of the world. Food prices are exploding as corn, soybeans and all cereal-grain prices are going through the roof because of the astronomical – US Congress-driven – demand for corn to burn for biofuel.”

Correlation does not imply causation.

“Biofuel – gasoline or other fuel produced from refining food products – is being touted as a solution to the controversial global-warming problem. Leaving aside the faked science and the political interests behind the sudden hype about dangers of global warming, biofuels offer no net positive benefits over oil even under the best conditions.”

This is actually almost true, certain studies indicate that there is close to no net positive benefits from corn ethanol, others indicate slight benefits (generally no more than 30% however). Here is a study which likely is close to the truth. “For GHG emissions, E85 produced by dry milling achieves a 19% reduction, and E85 produced by wet milling achieves a 14% reduction.”

You also completely (and conveniently) neglect the expected carbon emission reductions associated with cellulosic ethanol:”Under the near-future case, for E85, woody cellulosic ethanol reduces petroleum use by
70%, GHG emissions by 102%, and fossil energy consumption by 79%.”

GHG = Green House Gas.

“Big Oil is also driving the biofuels bandwagon. Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University and other scientists claim that net energy output from bio-ethanol fuel is less than the fossil-fuel energy used to produce the ethanol. Measuring all energy inputs to produce ethanol, from production of nitrogen fertilizer to energy needed to clean the considerable waste from biofuel refineries, Pimintel’s research showed a net energy loss of 22% for biofuel – they use more energy than they produce. That translates into little threat to oil demand and huge profit for clever oil giants that re-profile themselves as “green energy” producers. “

Joke: What happens when you use crop yield and conversion efficiency data from the 70s when trying to do a life cycle analysis for today?

Punchline: You get data today that would have been a useful argument against ethanol during the 70s!

From the department of energy:

“The most official study of the issue, which also reviews other studies, concludes that the “net energy balance” of making fuel ethanol from corn grain is 1.34; that is, for every unit of energy that goes into growing corn and turning it into ethanol, we get back about one-third more energy as automotive fuel. That may not sound impressive, but bear in mind that while the gasoline that ethanol displaces is largely imported and a high-level pollution source, the mix of energy inputs for producing bioethanol includes much domestic and relatively cleaner energy. On the basis of liquid fuels alone, the net balance is 6.34 (USDA Office of Energy Policy and New Uses, The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update).”

Also, the energy balance from sugar cane is between 8:1 and 10:1.

“The bio-ethanol architects did their homework, we can be assured. It’s increasingly clear that the same people who brought us oil-price inflation are now deliberately creating parallel food-price inflation. We have had a rise in average oil prices of some 300% since the end of 2000 when George W Bush and Dick “Halliburton” Cheney made oil the central preoccupation of US foreign policy. “

As I have already shown, the price of our food is far more dependant on the price of a barrel of oil than the price of a bushel of corn. Obviously as oil prices increase, food prices will increase (with a few year lag since the supply curve does not instantly correct itself).

“Environmental analyst Lester Brown recently noted, “We’re looking at competition in the global market between 800 million automobiles and the world’s 2 billion poorest people for the same commodity, the same grains. We are now in a new economic era where oil and food are interchangeable commodities because we can convert grain, sugarcane, soybeans – anything – into fuel for cars. In effect the price of oil is beginning to set the price of food.”"

The reason that people are starving isn’t because there is not enough food to feed the people of the world, it is because the people of the world can not afford to feed themselves due to lack of jobs. Yesterday I wrote about an article which highlights how a Chinese company is buying up millions of acres of Congo palm oil plantation with the intention of creating massive amounts of biofuel. The Congo people are absolutely thrilled about this as it will create jobs for those who are currently some of the poorest in the world and the money will trickle down throughout the rest of the economy so the people can actually buy some food. I would argue that biofuels are actually going to end up reducing world hunger, not increase it. The areas of the world with the largest starvation also tend to be areas where biofuel crops grow best.

” The green claims for biofuel as a friendly and better fuel than gasoline are at best dubious, if not outright fraudulent. Depending on who runs the tests, ethanol has little if any effect on exhaust-pipe emissions in current car models. It has significant emission, however, of some toxins, including formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, a suspected neurotoxin that has been banned as carcinogenic in California.”

You use hyperbole to the extreme: “Compared with gasoline, ethanol tends to produce less benzene and butadiene, but more acetaldehyde and formaldehyde, when burned.” Basically ethanol produces slightly less of some negative compounds and slightly more of other negative compounds. This isn’t even “dubious” and certainly not “outright fraudulent.”

Anyway, you ignored most of the valid arguments against ethanol usage and argued mostly for the bad ones which have already been invalidated on numerous occasions. For example, I would argue that the implementation by the administration has been relatively poor. The subsidies are depleting an already overreaching budget. A carbon tax and possible other taxes on gasoline and large vehicles would be far more effective.

In conclusion I would suggest that perhaps Mr. Engdahl spend more time researching facts and less attempting (and failing) to prove his slogan: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”

Engdahl, F William. “The great biofuel fraud” Asian Times Online, August 1 2007. <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IH01Dj02.html>