"Power Plays" Book Review

Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil by Robert Rapier (Paperback - March 28, 2012)

Robert Rapier's "Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil" is an important book to read for anyone who wants to engage in informed discussions on renewable energy and, more specifically, fuel alternatives to oil. It is an easy read, albeit focused on the facts without much embellishment.

The book provides an overview of the current energy paradigm and the salient factors for scientifically comparing various energy options. It doesn't trace the chronological history of oil the way Yergins' "The Prize" does but it gives a sober SWOT (strengths weaknesses opportunities threats) view of energy alternatives. The author uses this background to help explain his interpretation of energy policies that would enhance energy security.

Robert is best at explaining concepts that receive short shrift from journalists in the media. His explanation of "energy return on energy invested" (EROEI), for instance, helps clarify what it is and why it is important.

He is one of my most reliable touchstones for determining what technologies are likely to provide sustainable alternatives to oil. There are many reasons for this. The first postings I read from his R-squared blogs (about six years ago) was a debate with Vinod Khosla challenging the state of the art of conversion technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol. Like many biofuels supporters I didn't want to read that they might not be ready for prime time. Robert was certainly right to suspect Khosla of overhype about the Range Fuels project. Regrettably, it didn't survive commissioning after hundreds of millions of dollars in private and public investment.

While I have been reluctant to cede Robert's point of view on occasions, I have to admit that he has the credentials to challenge some base assumptions about the sustainability and the energy efficiency of many biofuels projects. He is one of the most respected writers on The Oil Drum community blog and Consumer Energy Report. His bio reports "he has 20 years of international engineering experience in the chemicals, oil and gas, and renewable energy industries, and holds several patents related to his work. He has worked in the areas of oil refining, natural gas production, synthetic fuels, ethanol production, butanol production, and various biomass to energy projects." He has a MS in Chemical Engineering and was a Process Engineering Team Leader for ConocoPhillips in Aberdeen, Scotland for six years.

He is occasionally accused of being stubborn and "brusque" but in the midst of overt hype about alternative fuel technologies, it is worthwhile submitting technologies to a skeptical eye - particularly if you are an investor. One of his favorite topics of discussion is promoting "due diligence" to reduce the risk of investment. It merits a full chapter in the current book and a summary list of ten indicators which should be on every analyst's "must consider" list.

His chapter on U.S. Energy Politics gives an interpretation of each of the last eight administrations' (starting with Nixon) declarations for energy independence. It is a subject about which much is promised but not much is achieved. The time is now and I hope this book get broad circulation among policymakers who might otherwise hew to the party line.

I think this book provides much needed information for planning ahead to meet an unpredictable energy future. As Robert affirms at the end, we must not take the availability of our energy resources or our energy future for granted. The longer range we plan now the better able we will be to meet the challenges ahead.

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Woody Biomass: Feedstock for BioEnergy

This article contains the text and some images from the second half of a speech I presented at the Energy from Biomass and Waste conference in Pittsburgh, PA on September 27. It follows from the first half of the presentation titled Woody Biomass: Fuel for Wildfires which shows recent increased wildfire activity and the consequent greenhouse gas emissions from public forests. It suggests that private industry has a strong role to play to help deploy the necessary woody biomass harvesting processes and infrastructure of biomass conversion facilities to make proper forest management economically sustainable.

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Woody Biomass: Feedstock for BioEnergy

I believe that the conversion of biomass to energy represents not only a sustainable, clean alternative to fossil fuel energy but that implementing these emerging technologies can help us solve environmental and ecological challenges of the new millennium.

How can we capture forest fuels to lessen the threat of megafires while simultaneously generating clean, renewable bioenergy?

U.S. Patchwork of Renewable Energy
Right now we are seeing a surge in the development of many decentralized renewable energy installations (click map to enlarge). Wind energy on the coast and wind corridors of the interior, solar energy in the Sun Belt, corn ethanol in the Corn Belt.

But what about the unfilled regions on our patchwork of regional renewable energy projects? What technologies will fit there?

The revitalization of the Corn Belt is illustrative of what could happen in the forest regions of the country-
hundreds of biorefineries, billions of gallon of liquid fuel, stronger feedstock prices, revitalized communities, tens of thousands of jobs, rising land equity and stronger communities.

Photovoltaic vs. Photosynthesis arrays
I come from Studio City, California which is also the home to the environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. I have had lunch with Ed and seen him give several presentations. At one he stunned his audience. He said “It may surprise many of you to hear that I am a BIG supporter of nuclear energy…" “...as long as it is kept 93 million miles away from Earth.”

Sure enough, Ed has some solar arrays on the roof of his home which convert sunlight into electricity. Here is a picture of him cleaning the arrays because otherwise their efficiency drops dramatically.

I am all for solar cell research to help lower their manufacturing expense and raise their energy conversion efficiency. Solar arrays are good at converting light to electricity but not good at storing the electricity. Here are listed some of their other drawbacks:
• Cells are not renewable
• Expensive to manufacture & install
• Dormant at night
• Cannot store electricity
• Limited climate and regional applicability

I submit that leaves are natures also “solar cells” using sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to create stored energy in the form of sugar. Trees are “solar arrays” that have many advantages over photo voltaic arrays. They reproduce. They work in many more climatic regions of the world, produce and recycle their own solar collectors (leaves), store their energy in the form of sugars, clean the air of greenhouse gases, transpire water at night, and sequester half their dry weight in combustible carbon.

In so many ways, trees are the perfect solution to global warming and the effort to produce renewable energy.

Woody biomass availability
Let me be clear, when we talk about collecting woody biomass we aren’t talking about logging trees.

The USDA identified woody biomass as small diameter trees and underbrush, the residues of the logging and forest products industries, and urban wood waste. In their Billion Ton Report they estimated that there was over 367 million tons of woody biomass produced each year in the U.S. Here, as abroad, it is the number one renewable energy technology for creating steam, heat, and electricity. And it is growing.

With woody biomass being produced at so many locations throughout the country it is easy to see that their conversion to electricity and biofuels could fill significant patches on our national renewable energy “quilt.”

In fact, for generations, the forest products industry has utilized burning woody biomass to generate steam, heat, and electricity. The biggest drawback with combustion is the emissions it generates - but modern systems include scrubbers for removing toxins and particulate matter. New wood burning systems are being installed to replace coal burning facilities.

As concerns about global warming grows, many companies are looking at gasification systems for more efficient heat recovery and cleaner emissions control. The whole point of gasification systems is to capture emissions so they can be converted into synthesis gas - a clean burning, renewable alternative to natural gas (which is a fossil fuel).

If we add to forest biomass the potential biomass tonnage from growing hybrid poplar and other energy crop trees we could easily see in excess of half a billion tons of woody biomass available for bioenergy conversion each year. Efforts are underway to create new fast growing hybrid trees specifically designed to maximize carbon sequestration, bolster pest, drought, and fire resistance - and streamline processing efficiency.

There is plenty of marginal land throughout the U.S. where hybrid crops could be grown - supplying new energy crop options where other alternatives are not workable. Such “plantations” would help fix the land against erosion, improve water and air quality, and provide enhanced carbon sequestration capacity.

Furthermore, the sugar storage capacity of woody biomass and hybrid trees is a potent source of feedstock for conversion to biofuels. But how do we do that?

Woody biomass conversion technologies
Let’s compare the three generations of conversion technologies for creating biofuels from biomass.


Generation 1 - Sugar Fermentation In sugar fermentation the corn, sugar, or starch is warmed in water with yeast and fermented into an alcohol that is then distilled into pure ethanol. It is a batch process moving from vat to vat that takes approximately 2 days to complete. The primary residues of the process are converted into livestock feed called distiller dried grains (or DDG).

There are concerns about this method of creating ethanol:
1. The feedstock cannot be blended with any other feedstock.
2. The feedstock could be used as food .
3. The amount of energy contained in the ethanol is only slightly more than the energy expended producing it (a factor of 1.3).
4. It is a water-intensive process when you consider the cultivation of the feedstock and the inputs during fermentation.

But, the yield is high and it is a mature technology with over 100 commercial-scale biorefineries in operation and dozens more coming online each year.

Other conversion processes involve converting cellulosic feedstock (like woody biomass) into biofuels. The way that wood stores energy is by photosynthesizing sugars stored in two forms - hemicellulose and cellulose - with a combustible called lignin supplying the fibrous support of the tree.


Generation 2 - Biochemical Cellulosic Conversion The second generation of biomass conversion technologies involves breaking down wood’s molecular bonds using biochemical agents.

The difference between this process and sugar fermentation is the simple addition of the two-day breakdown step (represented in the blue zone). Here enzymes and acids separate the sugars from the lignin - the sugars are fermented and distilled into ethanol while the lignin is combusted to generate steam to heat fermentation. Principal research is focused on developing more efficient enzymes that can be produced at low cost.

Here is how Generation 2 compares with Generation 1.
1. The feedstock can include woody biomass, industrial and urban waste wood.
2. It takes longer but because the sources of cellulose do not require much cultivation and are usually already exist as residues of other processes, so the energy return is roughly five times that of sugar fermentation.
3. It uses more water during the multi-vat process - but there isn’t much water use during forest growth.
4. A major expense is the price of producing the enzymes which include high research overhead and royalties. That price will come down.

There are pilot plants in operation at private and educational research facilities around the world.


Generation 3 - Thermochemical Cellulosic Conversion The 3rd generation technologies use thermochemical processes - primarily gasification or pyrolysis - to break down the biomass into a synthesis gas, or syngas (composed mostly of carbon monoxide and hydrogen), which is converted into ethanol.

Again, a gasifier heats up the feedstock, which can be a blend, with high heat (2,500°F) to create the syngas. Instead of the syngas being sold as a product of gasification, it is exposed to a catalyst or fermented using bacteria that convert it into ethanol and and water.

Range Fuels uses a catalyst to enact the conversion. BRI uses a patented microorganism to ferment the syngas to ethanol.


1. Unlike Generation #1 and #2, the feedstock for generation 3 can be blended with all sorts of alternative raw materials - tires, autofluff, pet coke, municipal solid wastes, etc. - which makes feedstock procurement much more sustainable over the long haul.
2. The specific blend affects the yield with higher energy-content feedstock producing higher yields.
3. It is continuous requiring mere minutes for processing rather than days for generations #1 and #2.
4. It uses very little water - in fact it captures extra water as a product of fermentation.

The Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance of the American Forest and Paper Association recently published the” Forest Products Industry Technology Roadmap.” It illustrates where two conversion steps - one using biochemical and the other thermochemical processes - could be inserted into a standard pulp mill workflow to create new profit streams.

It also forecasts the return the plant management could expect for a typical tons per day volume. This could revitalize the paper and pulp industry. The real key to economic feasibility the commitment of the marketplace to renewable fuels.

In summary …
1. We can limit wildfires by thinning forests
2. Woody biomass stores abundant energy
3. We can use woody biomass to create heat, produce steam, and generate electricity
4. Emerging technologies will produce ethanol from woody biomass
5. Successful deployment of new wood-based technologies can revive stagnant industries
6. New industries can strengthen new communities

Here’s a final thought:

In 1803, Thomas Jefferson signed the Louisiana Purchase - effectively doubling the land area of the United States. He predicted it would take 1,000 years to settle the new territory. We laugh at his miscalculation - after all, it seems that we have settled his land and started to retreat from it - preferring urban life over rural.

But he might have been right. Maybe we are about to engage in renewed settlement of the nation’s rich rural midsection. We have 800 years to go and renewable energy made from woody biomass can play a big role in supplying renewable energy for that future while providing us with the means to manage our environmental sustainability.

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technorati BIOconversion, bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, hydrolysis, syngas, cellulosic, gasification, decentralization

A four-star idea for rating biofuels

Any greenhouse gas cap and trade system for ethanol and other biofuels will be dependent upon an accurate assessment of its carbon footprint - not only the amount of carbon emitted to the atmosphere during usage but also the the carbon lifecycle of the fuel's production.

If coal is the fuel, the carbon emitted is not already part of the above ground carbon cycle and is therefore carbon positive. Plus it takes energy to mine, process, and deliver coal. At the other end of the spectrum, if hybrid poplars are the feedstock, not only are the emissions carbon neutral but the growing trees are effectively sequestering carbon dioxide (with a highly valued carbon negative impact). There are benefits to crops that do not need to be tilled, are perennial, or do not require fertilizers. There are benefits to conversion processes that do not require the use of fossil fuels or electricity.

Various groups are engaged in the task of coming up with a "green biofuels" rating system that incorporates the "global warming intensity" (GWI) of the fuel, a rating for the kind of feedstock being converted, and the use of fossil fuels in the conversion or refinery process. An excellent article written by Susanne Retka Schill for Ethanol Producer magazine reports on some of the more promising efforts to come up with a system sophisticated and reliable enough to provide industry benchmarks for setting caps and for trading credits. Concurrently, it must be simple enough for commercial and residental consumers to make informed buying decisions. The more comprehensive and comprehensible the system, the better the incentives will be to motivate change to renewable fuels.

Here is a small taste of what is contained in the published article...

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Developing a Biofuels Rating System

Producing four-star biofuels may give producers a leg up when the United States develops a carbon cap-and-trade system. Methods to quantify greenhouse gas emissions and rate biofuels are being proposed and tested in an attempt to incorporate the multiple facets of cropping systems, conversion processes and industry and consumer needs.
By Susanne Retka Schill


The chart shows how a Green Biofuels Index might work for different cropping scenarios and biofuels technologies. GWI is global warming intensity. The formula shown in the middle column generates the number value. One star is awarded for each 40 value units.

All biofuels are not created equal. Renewable fuels have different carbon footprints, depending on the feedstock that's used to produce it, how that feedstock was grown, how far it was transported and how it was converted to ethanol. Before ethanol producers can join cap-and-trade programs or sell offset credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange, the hurdle to quantify and express greenhouse gas performance must be cleared. Although there are several systems and models being developed, EPM talked to researchers involved in two projects that are tackling the challenge from different angles. One is focused on a biofuels rating system, the other models a life cycle assessment of biofuels to provide a glimpse of what the future may hold for biofuels marketing.

In the end, the winners in the greenhouse gas reduction comparisons aren't surprising, but the numerical values are interesting. Switchgrass and hybrid poplar energy crops transformed into biofuels provide the most greenhouse gas reductions when compared with gasoline and diesel, at about a 115 percent reduction, in the long term when soil carbon levels are at equilibrium and no longer sequestering additional amounts. Reed canary grass reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent. The different rotations and tillage systems for corn and soybean rotations reduced greenhouse gas emissions around 40 percent. These numbers compare with current analyses of the corn-to-ethanol production process showing a 20 percent greenhouse gas reduction, Adler says.

The greatest impact on reducing the amount of greenhouse gases associated with energy use by switching to biofuels came from eliminating the life cycle greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use, followed by the storage of carbon in the soil from perennial crops. People most often think of carbon when considering greenhouse gases, but agricultural systems release methane from the soil, which is 23 times more active than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and nitrous oxide, which is 300 times more powerful, Parton explains. Plus, the carbon sequestration effect of no-till or perennial crops has a relatively short-term positive effect on greenhouse gas emissions. "It's a positive for 20 years, then you reach a new equilibrium," Parton says.

Susanne Retka Schill is an Ethanol Producer Magazine staff writer. Reach her at sretkaschill@bbibiofuels.com or (701) 746-8385.


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The Biorefinery Concept Today

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that world biofuel output will double between 2006 to 2012. That is the primary finding from its recently published Medium-Term Oil Market Report.

According to an article from Biopact based on the report findings:

Technology for significant production of second generation biofuels based on lignocellulosic feedstocks isn't expected by the IEA to come into play by end of the 2012 outlook period.

That is certainly true. But in the meantime, considerable R&D is taking place internationally leading to the deployment of a promising number of pilot, demonstration, and commercial-scale biorefineries.

No agency knows this better than the IEA's own IEA Bioenergy group:

IEA Bioenergy is an organisation set up in 1978 by the International Energy Agency (IEA) with the aim of improving cooperation and information exchange between countries that have national programmes in bioenergy research, development and deployment.

On April 25, 2007, the IEA Bioenergy group's annual meeting, ExCo59, was held in Golden, Colorado bringing the world's experts to the home of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to discuss the current status of emerging biorefinery technologies. BioPact has provided a real service by summarizing contents of the information presented at ExCo59.


Thankfully, these Biorefinery Concept presentations have been posted as downloadable PDFs on the IEA Bioenergy website. Several of these presentations are identical to those given at the recent BBI Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo. Those slides were only distributed to attendees.

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