Economic Impacts of Biofuel Development

The impact of biofuel development should be significant to the economy of any nation that successfully deploys it. By becoming more energy self-sufficient, the balance of trade of otherwise energy-dependent nations should improve dramatically - as it has in Brazil.

However, the impact on the economy of the region producing the biofuels is even more impressive. Iowa was one of the most energy dependent states in the Union. Now, because of corn ethanol, it is one of the most energy independent. The state's economy has improved, schools are better, and land prices are higher - not because of ethanol subsidies, but because of the invigorating impact of the formation of new business ventures and the production of a valuable product to export.

Now a new report from researchers from North Dakota State University, published on the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center website, measures the statewide impact of the corn ethanol industry in North Dakota and projects the economic impact of cellulosic ethanol production on the Midwest and Great Plains states. Of course, the feedstocks for cellulosic ethanol are not only to be found in this region. It is not too much of a stretch to believe that these impacts could be duplicated, if not surpassed, in other regions of the country (and the world) where feedstocks are abundant and the need is greatest.

Summary findings from their report are excerpted below...

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Economic Impacts of Biofuel Development

by Nancy M. Hodur, Research Scientist and Larry Leistritz, Professor of North Dakota State University

In recent years, the most prevalent type of new agricultural processing ventures in the Midwest and Great Plains states has been corn ethanol plants. Like other types of agricultural processing, these biofuel ventures have generally received widespread support, and numerous studies have addressed their contributions to local or regional economies. The rapid growth of the corn-based ethanol industry shows the potential for biofuels. However for biofuels to make a substantial contribution to the domestic liquid fuel supply, the industry must expand beyond corn-based ethanol. Accordingly, substantial resources have been devoted in both the public and private sector to the research and development of cellulosic biomass conversion. Much work has focused on technical issues, and several studies have examined potential biomass feedstock supplies. However, one aspect of biomass conversion to liquid fuels that has received very little attention is its potential as an economic development stimulus for rural areas with high biomass production potential and how that potential compares to the economic impact of corn based ethanol.

. . .

North Dakota and other “biomass belt” states are particularly well placed to capture the economic impact of an emerging biomass industry as plants will undoubtedly be located near the feedstock source. The potential economic development contributions of an emerging biofuels industry are particularly significant because many of the areas where such an industry could concentrate have in the not-distant-past faced adverse economic and demographic trends. The rural, agricultural counties of the western Corn Belt and northern Great Plains have experienced long term trends of farm consolidation, leading to fewer and larger farms. In the absence of major nonfarm employers, many counties have experienced substantial out-migration and population losses.

Farm households have also become more dependent on off-farm employment. In North Dakota, during the period 1993-2007, off-farm wages and salaries of farm households more than doubled, growing from $6,847 in 1993 to over $16,000 in 2007. An emerging biofuels industry could offer new jobs that would help to support rural communities and farm households and provide the kind of economic stimulus many agriculturally dependent areas have been seeking. Further, the sheer scope of the potential development, with capital cost of $34 billion and annual regional operational expenditures of over $10 billion, suggests that a biofuels industry could also substantively change the economic and demographic makeup of some Midwest and Great Plains counties.

Click here for the full story.

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technorati bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, cellulosic, decentralization

Everyone Hates Ethanol?

It is a sad day when even the Wall Street Journal takes a page from the petroleum industry playbook and chop blocks the only national defense that makes a dent in their monopoly on supplying fuel to Americans (accounting for less than 5% of transportation fuels sold here). Offensive foul - intentional roughing.

The cheapest shot is the indiscriminant use of the term "ethanol." Ethanol, while chemically varying very little from batch to batch, comes from many feedstocks using a variety of very distinguishable processes. Those knowledgeable in the field are careful to specify whether they are talking about 1st generation ethanol (sugar and starch fermentation) or 2nd generation (converting cellulose using enzymes or Fischer-Tropsch process); the sugar feedstock (corn vs. sugar) or the cellulosic feedstock (i.e., woodchips, cultivated energy crops, switchgrass, MSW, algae, etc.); the cultivation method (if any); and the process fuel input. Each combination can vary dramatically for energy return on investment, lifecycle impacts, process emissions, feedstock cultivation, land and water use, economic return, and other factors.

The tiresome target for the smear here is where it traditionally aimed - against the American corn ethanol industry that only uses corn kernels, fossil fuel for process heat, and petroleum-fertilized land that has been tilled. However, by being indiscriminant, this editorial (from one of America's few trusted journalistic brands remaining) paints the entire multi-faceted industry with the same "gotcha" brush. Not even biorefineries within a single company can be painted with the same brush, and there over 150 biorefineries in operation.

Shouldn't the WSJ use more judgment than Rolling Stone which did their own hatchet job titled "The Ethanol Scam." It is hard for this reader to see a difference.

Here is a suggested followup opinion piece for the editors to ponder - what alternative to fossil transportation fuels do you support? It should be remembered that even the former "oil" President of U.S. - leader of the "Drill Baby Drill" Republican Party - lamented that "America is addicted to oil." Is there some "methadone" that does warrant support? Or is it your opinion that the country remain hooked?

Below is a response to the article on a point by point basis.

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Everyone Hates Ethanol
March 16, 2009, Wall Street Journal opinion piece

These days, it's routine for businesses to fail, get rescued by the government, and then continue to fail. But ethanol, which survives only because of its iron lung of subsidies and mandates, is a special case. Naturally, the industry is demanding even more government life support.

Wrong. The industry expects a level playing field and the chance to provide a viable alternative product to those foisted on a disenfranchised consumer by a monopolistic industry that has been subsidized and protected for over 100 years. We need cleaner, more sustainable alternatives at the pump.

Corn ethanol producers -- led by Wesley Clark, the retired general turned chairman of a new biofuels lobbying outfit called Growth Energy -- want the Obama Administration to make their guaranteed market even larger. Recall that the 2007 energy bill requires refiners to mix 36 billion gallons into the gasoline supply by 2022. The quotas, which ratchet up each year, are arbitrary, but evidently no one in Congress wondered what might happen if the economy didn't cooperate.

What happened to the world economy is, in great measure, a result of the spike in the price of oil and the national security subsidies we pay to defend this country against predatory speculators, producers, and regimes. It is fitting that a distinguished General (joined by ex-CIA Director Jim Woolsey and others) would step into the breech to defend their country. It is a motivating conviction shared by most in the emerging industry.

Now the recession is hammering demand for gas. The Energy Information Administration notes that U.S. consumption fell nearly 7% in 2008 and expects another 2.2% drop this year. That comes as great news for President Obama, who is achieving his carbon-reduction goals even without a new carbon tax, but the irony is that the ethanol industry is part of the wider collateral damage.

Damage to the broader industry sure to be exacerbated by opinion pieces such as this one.

Americans are unlikely to use enough gas next year to absorb the 13 billion gallons of ethanol that Congress mandated, because current regulations limit the ethanol content in each gallon of gas at 10%. The industry is asking that this cap be lifted to 15% or even 20%. That way, more ethanol can be mixed with less gas, and producers won't end up with a glut that the government does not require anyone to buy.

The ethanol boosters aren't troubled that only a fraction of the 240 million cars and trucks on the road today can run with ethanol blends higher than 10%.

To the contrary, many in the industry strongly believe that all cars should be flex-fuel compatible. This is the cheapest way to implement change to a multi-fuel distribution infrastructure. Even a third world power, Brazil, found it to be easily achievable.

It can damage engines and corrode automotive pipes, as well as impair some safety features, especially in older vehicles. It can also overwhelm pollution control systems like catalytic converters. The malfunctions multiply in other products that use gas, such as boats, snowmobiles, lawnmowers, chainsaws, etc.

Actually, it is the "10%" number that is arbitrary. New research is being conducted which supports contentions that much higher blends are viable in conventional internal combustion engines.

That possible policy train wreck is uniting almost every other Washington lobby -- and talk about strange bedfellows. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the Motorcycle Industry Council and the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, among others, are opposed, since raising the blend limit will ruin their products. The left-leaning American Lung Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists are opposed too, since it will increase auto emissions. The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club agree, on top of growing scientific evidence that corn ethanol provides little or no net reduction in CO2 over the gasoline it displaces.

Low level blends are always available to small engine machines - which, incidentally are very polluting no matter what they run on. The Sierra Club, in partnership with Worldwatch Institute, just published a report titled "Smart Choices for Biofuels" in strong support of development of 2nd generation ethanol... an important distinction.

The biggest losers in this scheme are U.S. oil refiners. Liability for any problems arising from ethanol blending rests with them, because Congress refused to grant legal immunity for selling a product that complies with the mandates that it ordered. The refiners are also set to pay stiff fines for not fulfilling Congress's mandates for second-generation cellulosic ethanol. But the cellulosic ethanol makers themselves already concede that they won't be able to churn out enough of the stuff -- 100 million gallons next year, 250 million gallons in 2011 -- to meet the targets that Congress wrote two years ago.

Cellulosic ethanol technology is being fast-tracked to satisfy a mandate that developers would be all too happy to satisfy. It takes time to launch new commercial-scale biorefineries. Meanwhile, the demand for ethanol needed to replace toxic MTBE oxygenates needs to be filled by existing production facilities. Unless you want to import it, that would be the corn ethanol industry.

So successful but politically unpopular businesses will be punished for not buying a product that does not exist -- from companies that haven't yet found a way to succeed despite generous political and taxpayer advantages. The next step is to use cap and trade to make green alternatives look artificially good by comparison. Even then they'll probably still be bottomless money pits.

Fossil industries are not guilty for selling fossil products - rather for engaging in fossil thinking. Who knows better than they that U.S. production of oil has been on the decline for thirty years. If they had admitted to themselves the longterm folly of only offering one source of fuel over which they have dwindling authority, they could have lead the development and commercialization of alternative fuels technology. Instead they have yet to build a new refinery of any kind in thirty years while the ethanol industry has built over a hundred.

To recap: Congress and the ethanol lobby argue that if some outcome would be politically nice, it should be mandated (details to follow). Then a new round of market interventions is necessary to fix the economic harm resulting from the previous requirements, while creating more damage in the process. Ethanol is one of the most shameless energy rackets going, in a field with no shortage of competitors.

A final chop block. Let's cripple the only longterm alternatives to fossil fuels, be indiscriminate in the smear piece, and paint everyone even tangentially associated as a racketeer. Is there to be no alternative fuel available at the pump?

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technorati bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, cellulosic, legislation, security

"FUEL" - an interview with Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell

In January 2008, Josh Tickell screened his new documentary “Fields of Fuel” at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews (see trailer here). It won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. After a full year of more development, it has recently been released to a few theaters in the L.A.

I was invited to attend a pre-premiere green carpet party at one of only two gas stations in Los Angeles that sell both E85 and biodiesel fuels. It was cold (for L.A. in the high 40’s) and threatened rain but it still drew a number of celebrities – Peter Fonda, James Cromwell, Mariel Hemmingway, Stephen Collins, and others – who wanted to support the movie’s successful release.

I caught up with Josh and his fiancée, Rebecca Harrell, on the green carpet and conducted this interview.

Scott: I know that leading up to this, you have had trailers at various conferences. Two years ago I saw it at a Farm to Fuels conference in St. Petersburg Florida. What’s happened since?

Josh: It was quite a journey from Sundance a year ago to here. We cut the movie and added a whole new section about sustainability and the solutions that people were asking for. So the movie grew up a little bit in the year – and we got it ready to come out to the movie theaters as well.

Hello Rebecca, what is your role?

Rebecca: I am Rebecca Harrell and I am a producer of the film as well as Josh’s fiancée… and the Marketing Director during this evolving process for this “labor of love.” We have had to address all the controversy that has been erupting around biofuels. So we couldn’t release the movie without proving that. I think watching the movie will spark your interest and make you more aware of how you can help move biofuels forward.

Why did you make the film?

Josh: We started shooting the film in 1997 when I started driving the “Veggie Van” around the country. We didn’t originally go out with the objective of making a movie so much as the objective to see if these solutions are viable. For two years we just drove it around, making my own fuel, looking for solutions.

What started out as a two month journey turned into an eleven year journey to not just find solutions but to bring them to the public in a way that is accessible so people can understand. What better way than in the form of a movie!

Can you give us some highlights of the film?

Josh: One of the best parts of the film is what we call “the sustainable barrel.” It’s an animated barrel of solutions that replace an oil barrel. People love that part and all the things that people can do themselves that are shown in the movie. It is not often that you can see a movie and then you can do the things in the movie as soon as you’re done.

Rebecca: It is certainly an environmental documentary but it doesn’t make you want to jump off a bridge at the end. It leaves you inspired and uplifted and full of things you can do right now and that’s not usually the way green activists look at this.

Josh: This isn’t a movie that your vegetarian girlfriend is going to drag you to and you end up feeling depressed. She might drag you to it but it’s actually fun.

I think you’d agree that stakeholder engagement is going to be key to the environmental community to accept the deployment of any new technologies. Sustainability being a huge issue, are you prepared to go and help educate America that there can be alternatives?

Josh: Absolutely, the film is about outreach, it is about communities, its about individuals banding together to understand the solutions and act on them. We’ve got a “Big Green Energy Bus”, we’ve got this big inflatable screen – this is really about a community coming together and getting out on the road and activating America. Not around problems but around solutions, especially those that can help us get out of this economic crisis. That’s what green energy and green collar jobs really is.

Do you see an advantage to decentralization of our energy paradigm that seems locked into going further and further to tap fewer and more remote reserves that are dirtier and dirtier to distill?

Josh: Yes, I think the core message of the sustainability movement is that it has got to be local, it’s got to be recyclable. The core of sustainability is non-centralized energy sources – energy you and I can help make – whether it is in my apartment, my house, or my ranch.

Rebecca: It’s also about using our waste streams as fuels.

You are to be congratulated on the work you have done so far. It will be interesting to see where you take it after the flurry of interest in the film itself.

Rebecca: It isn’t just a movie. We are going to take the educational portion of the film and turn it into a 45 minute entertaining, rock and roll, educational film that we distribute for free to every school in America. We will go along with our Big Green Energy Bus and educate people how to be green and sustainable.

You have a wonderful website at ( www.thefuelfilm.com > that’s beautiful, number one, but also very functional.

Josh: Yeah, that’s Rebecca’s creation.

Is that going to be a keystone as part of this movement?

Rebecca: What you see there is just the tip of the iceberg for our website. We are going to use it as a way for people to broadcast their own green message. We developed it so that people will be the eventual owners of that site and we will be facilitating it.

Josh: Everything – the movie, the bus, the website – is for the people and generated by the people as well. Every ticket that is sold for this movie is a vote for green energy, it’s a vote for change. People around the world see those ticket numbers. People ask, “What can we do?” – well right away people can get to the theater and get others to the theater. We will be building a whole network for people to act on as the movie rolls out across the country.

Well we vote with our dollars in this country. And the problem is that, at our gas stations, you can get whatever fuel you want - as long as its petroleum based. We are desperate for fuel alternatives. This fuel station, called Conserv Fuel, is one of the only one’s selling alternatives in all of Los Angeles.

Rebecca: You’re right and they almost stopped selling biodiesel a few weeks ago. When we got that email we were pretty shocked and depressed and then we realized it doesn’t have to be this way. So we started writing and we got others to write also. Within literally five days we got a notice from the gas station that they changed their minds and were going to sell biodiesel. We wanted to celebrate with them and that’s one of the reasons we are here today – I don’t think anyone has ever had a film opening at a gas station before.

Well I hope you can roll this out to other bloggers and the bioenergy conferences that are going on around the country on this very subject. There is a Waste to Fuels conference in San Diego in mid-May – maybe we can show your movie there as well, with your blessing.

Rebecca: Great! We’ll definitely be in contact to set that up.

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technorati bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, biodiesel, decentralization

"Fuel" is a Galvanizing Vehicle

"Fuel" is a film for our time - and also winner of the 2008 Sundance Audience Award for Best Documentary (see trailer here). It may help America wake up to the inexorable consequences of its fossil fuel addiction the way that "An Inconvenient Truth" did to global warming.

"Fuel" is the end product of an eleven year odyssey by Director Josh Tickell in his sunflower festooned, diesel Winnebago called Veggie Van. The traveling show that accompanies the movie release promises to capture attention and stimulate grassroots demand to replace fossil thinking, process, and fuels with renewable energy. "Fuel" could become the communications vehicle that educates the public at large of the liabilities associated with fossil fuels and the benefits of home grown alternatives.

The current film is 111 minutes long and full of geology, biology, physics, politics, and history - most of it personal. It is first and foremost the perspective of a 34 year who grew up not knowing any better. He didn't know that he couldn't use the balance of his college student loans to buy a diesel vehicle. He didn't know whether there would be a low-budget, sustainable way to convert restaurant grease and vegetables into fuel to power his transport. He couldn't have imagined that he would spend the next eleven years RVing America. To what end? To what purpose? Quite frankly, when you're 22, who cares.

All he knew was that he wanted to find out if there was a clean alternative to the paradigm that has resulted in the environmental and health disaster of the bayous of his family's native Louisiana. This region, once home to Cajun culture and bayou ecology, is now dominated by the brown fields of the petro-industry with air, land, and water quality contamination that more than likely will never return to normal. In a stark section of the film about hurricane Katrina, Josh shows an on-land oil spill the size of the Exxon Valdez that was left in the hurricane's wake - yet never reported in the mainstream media. Why not? Clearly, the petro industry is a "sacred cow" in the state.

I doubt if Forest Gump traveled as far as Josh did crisscrossing America, but both engendered the same kind of popular fascination. It's a great story that captures the imagination of all generations. Talk about "the audacity of hope" - Josh's trek is it. A personal journey that is an affront to Luddite thinking and entrenched interests.

While the duplicity of the oil industry is on display, this isn't a rant against their lack of integrity and responsibility. It is a call to action for people to seek alternatives and support them with their purchases. To hold their leaders to a higher standard. To demand research, development, and deployment of an infrastructure that will support a paradigm shift to renewable fuels and power.

It is also a great example of the power of the individual to become a "one man army." By using event and modern media, the tools are at hand for creative, insightful individuals to leverage profound effect with relatively little means.

It is no surprise that such an individual collected such a following among celebrity activists who are recorded in the film - Woody Harrelson, Julia Roberts, Sheryl Crow, Larry "JR" Hagman, Vinod Khosla, Willie Nelson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Larry David, Sir Richard Branson, and others. Are they experts? Most aren't, but they want to use their celebrity to advance causes they believe receive too little attention. And our energy options are perhaps the most important discussion in the country.

In one of the more educational parts of the movie, an animated treatment spells out the many ways we can substitute sustainable fuel alternatives for oil. Josh is clearly a biodiesel advocate, but he doesn't stop there. An oil barrel is carved into sections that are replaced by other alternatives - biomass, solar, wind, tidal, energy efficiency, and others.

Speaking of education, the "Veggie Van" that educated America as it toured the highways and byways now has a big brother - the BIG GREEN ENERGY BUS. According the the www.thefuelfilm.com website:

The Big Green Energy Bus is a mobile education laboratory featuring the latest interactive technology in sustainable energy including solar, conservation, energy efficiency, water recycling, thermal heat and green appliances.

FUEL’s Big Green Bus Project gives students hands on experience with green energy - providing them with fundamental understanding of how they can use green energy in their homes, in schools and in vehicles.

Upon entering the bus, students are greeted with a member of our certified “Green Team.” The Green Team takes students through each “Learning Station” explaining the function of the systems in the bus. Students have the opportunity to switch on and off components of the solar display and see how much energy is saved by using energy efficient lightbulbs, how to turn sewage into fuel, how solar panels work, how to use the internet to access green energy information, how to make and use biodiesel, how to compost, how to build a simple grey water recycling system, and how to turn America’s unhealthy school buses into clean green buses like this one!

Plans are in the works to pare the original movie to 45 minutes and distribute it for free through schools whose students can view the shorter film during class time or assemblies.

I recommend that readers watch for this film as it is slowly introduced at theaters around the country. You will witness a consequential film with character, credibility, and relevance too rarely seen in American cinema.

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technorati BIOconversion, bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, legislation, decentralization, security

Perspectives on Sustainability Standards for Biofuel Production

This article is a response to a call for comments on Version Zero of the draft Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Biofuels written by the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels after extensive, multi-stakeholder, international collaboration. A running public dialog on these standards is available online at the Bioenergy Wiki.

We need change to a renewable fuels paradigm and we need it to be sustainable.

How do we engage in a massive overhaul of our energy paradigm that impacts on the quality of life of future generations without disturbing the natural order of things?

According to the preponderance of current research on "global warming" we have already disrupted the natural order of things. We need to quickly learn to responsibly manage Earth's resources to correct an imbalance that will not correct itself.

One only has to look at 2008's headlines and editorials to see how important the concept of "sustainability" has become to a wide swath of stakeholders as we move into the renewable energy era. Unfortunately, good news is rarely considered news-worthy to major outlets of opinion journalism. Instead, useful debate about certain sustainability issues has been, in far too many cases, distorted far out of proportion to their real significance. Controversy over "energy return on investment", "food vs. fuel", and "indirect land use change" stole much of the momentum that was being generated in support of advanced biofuel production. Some promising and sustainable projects were lost in the process.

Still, the artificiality of the controversy perpetuated by some of the media is no excuse to disengage from a discussion of the issues. To an extent, controversies draw valuable public interest to the topics under debate. In a sincere attempt to contribute a constructive opinion on these issues, I submit the following comments:

Recognize the threat posed by the status quo.

Renewable biofuels are carbon neutral (or negative) and are getting more plentiful and cleaner (fewer noxious byproducts and a reduction in greenhouse gases). Contrast that with fossil fuels that are carbon positive and getting dirtier (more greenhouse gases emitted from harder to extract and refine resources like tar sands and oil shale).

Before biofuels sustainability criteria are promulgated, it is important to ascertain the level of the challenge and the cost of doing nothing. Even prolonged delay has consequences. Lifecycle analyses of fossil fuel production should be used as a standard for comparison. Distance from well to wheel is a very important variable because it take energy to transport (and transmit) energy.

Credit the achievers.

Creating biofuel alternatives require innovation, creativity, and a significant amount of investment risk-taking.

In the fog of adversarial journalism, it is easy for the general public to lose focus on the clear benefits and achievements of the corn ethanol industry during the past few years. Few recognize the credit the ethanol industry deserves for replacing ALL groundwater contaminating MBTEs with clean, biodegradable corn ethanol as an oxygenate blended into gasoline. This simultaneously extended the volume of non-imported fuel used in American cars (roughly 3% nationwide) and resulted in cleaner running, less polluting vehicles.

Without the ethanol industry's rapid growth, there would be far fewer alternative fuel vehicles on the road, less developed infrastructure for supply and delivery, increased dependence on foreign sources of energy, more expensive gasoline during the recent price spike, and many lost opportunities to bolster a revitalized generation of Midwestern rural communities. This is an industry that has not only doubled production within the last few years, but is also moving forward with retooling agricultural practices, reducing fossil energy usage, and expanding the variety of feedstock that can be converted. With deployments come improvements.

We should continue to build and improve on models that have been successful.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

The deleterious impacts from the status quo energy paradigm is the reason that we seek alternative technologies. It is not likely that new innovations will meet all criteria upon first deployment. And raising the bar and adding new criteria - like water usage, land use change, and greenhouse gas emissions - often arise after high capital expenditure deployment. By penalizing innovation we risk total inertia. Doing nothing is not an option.

All too frequently innovative processes are compared to theoretical concepts and abstract ideals that have remained pure because they have never been deployed so their impacts can be measured. Some may never be viable economically whether they meet sustainability criteria or not.

Biorefineries can cure environmental ills.

Conversion technologies can be used to turn environmental blights into fuels and power. Waste-to-energy power plants have helped municipalities reduce the amount of post-recyclables destined for landfills while creating new electricity. Similarly, biorefineries are being proposed to utilize environmental waste as biomass feedstock - trash and tires; bug infested forest timber; wildfire salvage; chicken litter; food scraps; forest management trimmings; hurricane, flood, and tornado debris; forest knockdown; and industrial wastes. These biowastes emit greenhouse gases as they decay so lack of management contributes to global warming.

Cleanly harnessing the btus contained in biomass waste completes a cradle-to-cradle energy value chain. The commercial value of biofuels and biopower can help fund environmental cleanup. We need as many conversion technology approaches as possible because the range of environmental challenges are vast and the resources available are becoming ever more precious.

Sustainability standards should be inclusive and regional.

To achieve the ends that we all want - more sustainable energy processes to pass on to future generations - we must deploy the most promising technologies now so we can perfect them. Multiple approaches provide options that can be tailored to specific resource, climate, and local stakeholder acceptability.

One of the prime characteristics of the bioenergy paradigm is the shift from centralization to decentralization. Fossil fuels are found at specific locations and, over time, the hunt for new reserves ranges further, wider, deeper - and dirtier. By comparison, biomass is relatively ubiquitous. It can be found everywhere except the most extreme conditions - like the deserts and the arctic regions.

The logistics for bioenergy solutons are based on short radius resources basins of 75 miles or less. Rather than expending vast sums for shipping remotely accessed raw materials from the corners of the world, biorefineries will depend on utilizing resources indigenous to the immediate vicinity. What is sustainable in one resource basin is totally different than another. Soil fertility, water availability, climate, and cultural mores vary greatly as do stakeholder interests. To mandate global sustainability criteria without factoring in indigenous variables would be pure folly.

This has already happened. The definition of "renewable fuel" in the groundbreaking 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act excluded classifications of different feedstock (notably woody biomass from federal forest lands). To many in the industry this seemed very arbitrary. Those that it did not specifically exclude were couched in terms that could lead to litigious action in the future against biorefiners attempting to receive the benefits outlined in the renewable fuel standard. The definition should be inclusive of a broad range of feedstock from private and public sources - not exclusive - because every resource basin is different.

Add concerns over the use of water, depletion of soil, deforestation, wildlife diversity, pesticides, energy return on investment, and fertilizers and the obvious question becomes "is there any biofuels production technology that will deployable?" If so, will it be so hamstrung by over-analysis and red tape that it never achieves its potential as a reasonable alternative to the status quo?

Even if a developer successfully threads the needle of expectation this year, will increasingly restrictive standards make duplication of the feat impossible to permit?

What ends might we sacrifice if we focus solely on the means?

Our dependence on fossil fuels is playing havoc with our economy, national security, environmental quality, and the climate predictability of our atmosphere. Just because fossil fuel industries existed before lifecycle analyses were required does not mean that they should forever be immune to measurement and sanction. The social, economic, health, climate, and military costs of fossil fuels are profoundly high.

We need to incentivize the development of many technologies to leap the hurdles of our paradigm challenge. Let's be careful that we don't handicap entrepreneurship with restrictions that will serve mainly to hamper creativity, slow the pace of change, and stifle investment.

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technorati BIOconversion, bioenergy, biofuels, <legislation, sustainability, decentralization, security

The Impact on Renewable Energy from Obama's Nominations

"Who ARE those guys?"

The bad news is that the economic crisis threatens to suspend deployment of renewable energy facilities. Coupled with the meteoric drop in fossil fuel prices - one of the key drivers for developing alternative fuels - and it would not be surprising to see a new administration lose focus on renewable energy.

The good news is that the incoming Obama administration's choices for Cabinet and key positions are very encouraging to those in the emerging renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. Below is the full "Special Report" analysis on each nominee as reported by 25x'25 dated 12/31/08.

The one disappointment is the loss of Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico who was nominated to be Secretary of Commerce. Just yesterday he opted out of confirmation because of government investigation of some alleged "pay for play" campaign contributions.

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Obama Nominations Expected to Drive Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency Policy

President-elect Barack Obama has moved quickly to fill his Cabinet and most key positions in an administration set to take control of the White House in three weeks, and a significant number of the nominees or appointees bring with them serious renewable energy and energy efficiency credentials. Obama's selection of scientific, energy and environmental experts to his administration underscore his campaign pledge to address the faltering economy and climate change with programs that will use green technology and infrastructure improvements to create jobs and boost markets.

The diversity and bipartisan nature of the new administration team mirror the similarly wide-ranging composition of the National 25x'25 Renewable Energy Alliance, whose member organizations come from the agriculture, forestry, energy, environmental, business, labor, civic and government sectors. Five of the 14 Cabinet nominees have over the past two years formally endorsed the 25x'25 Vision for a renewable energy future. Obama was an original co-sponsor of the 25x'25 resolution adopted by Congress in 2007 as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act signed into law a year ago. Members of the bipartisan team that Obama has picked include what some analysts have deemed to be "superstars" in their fields.

Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004 and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, represents a key appointment for renewable energy interests with his nomination to head the Department of Energy. Chu is a champion of second-generation biofuels and solar technologies, focusing the Berkeley lab's scientific resources on energy security and global climate change, in particular the production of new fuels and electricity from sunlight through non-food plant materials and artificial photosynthesis. The lab director, who has shared his research at a 25x'25 roundtable in California in 2007 and at the National 25x'25 Summit in Omaha in March, has also spearheaded significant work at Berkeley on energy-efficient technologies.

Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa and another champion of land-based renewable energy development, is Obama's nominee for Secretary of Agriculture. One of the early endorser's of the 25x'25 Vision, the two-term governor vigorously campaigned for Obama, promoting their common ideas on renewable energy and rural growth. "As governor of one of our most abundant farm states, he led with vision, fostering an agricultural economy of the future that not only grows the food we eat but the energy we use," Obama said in nominating Vilsack. The former chairman of the Governors' Biofuels Coalition has pushed for further development of cellulosic ethanol, in which products such as woodchips and switchgrass are used as feedstocks, and promoted wind energy as an alternative source of electricity.

Sen. Ken Salazar, an original co-sponsor of the 25x'25 resolution adopted by Congress, is the nominee to head the Interior Department. As a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the second-term senator from Colorado says he "will do all I can to help reduce America's dangerous dependence on foreign oil" and work with Obama "as we take the moon shot on energy independence. That energy imperative will create jobs here in America, protect our national security, and confront the dangers of global warming." Salazar also said he wants to help "build our clean energy economy, modernize our interstate electrical grid, and ensure that we are making wise use of our conventional natural resources, including coal, oil, and natural gas."

Rep. Ray LaHood, a supporter of mass transit, is set to lead the Transportation Department in the new administration. As a co-sponsor in the House of the 25x'25 resolution ultimately enacted into the 2007 Energy Act, the Illinois lawmaker voted for legislation that would have eliminated tax breaks for oil and gas companies and diverted them to the development of renewable fuels. LaHood also voted for an amendment to the National Science Foundation funding bill that created a K-12 curriculum on global warming, climate change, and the actions people can take to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The six-term congressman Ray LaHood was recently honored for his work in promoting Illinois' 25x25 Renewable Energy Alliance during a special ceremony in Peoria last month. Former U.S. and Illinois House Representative Tom Ewing, a member of the National 25x'25 Steering committee and coordinator of Illinois' 25x25 efforts, joined other Illinois 25x'25 alliance members in presenting an award of appreciation to LaHood. "Ray LaHood has been a real champion of the 25x25 movement since we started it in 2004," said Ewing, speaking at the Illinois Commodity Classic conference in Bloomington. "He was a supporter of our independent resolution in Congress recognizing our goal of producing 25 percent of the nation's energy from renewable sources - including agricultural sources - by the year 2525."

Senator from New York and former Obama political adversary Hillary Clinton was nominated by the president-elect as Secretary of State. Sen. Clinton is a member of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works and a co-sponsor of the 25x'25 resolution. She was a strong supporter of renewable energy provisions in the 2007 Energy Act. Her advocacy of measures that would stem climate change is expected to be carried into the international arena. Also expected to play a part in Clinton's approach to her role as Secretary of State is her support as a senator of policies to diversify energy supplies by investing in renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar, and her promotion of the environmentally responsible recovery of oil and gas resources. She also championed energy-efficiency in cars, homes, and offices.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, one of the first national political leaders to embrace the 25x'25 Vision when the campaign was launched in 2006, was nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. The secretary-designate has long promoted the clean air benefits of renewable energy and is expected to tout the health advantages inherent to improved air quality as the Obama administration develops energy policies that reduce polluting emissions. With more than 25 years of service in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and 10 years as Senate Democratic Leader, Daschle has played an instrumental role in the development of U.S. legislative and regulatory policy. He brings to the incoming administration extensive Washington experience and high odds for quick Senate confirmation. The former South Dakota senator, who lost his bid for re-election in 2004, has been serving as a member of the Energy Future Coalition national Steering Committee and a ''special public policy adviser'' with the Washington law and lobbying firm of Alston & Bird. His portfolio there includes health care and renewable energy.

Rep. Hilda L. Solis, a green jobs advocate and author of clean energy job training legislation included in the 2007 energy bill, has been nominated to head the Labor Department. Her legislation authorizes up to $125 million in funding to establish national and state job training programs, administered by the Department of Labor, to help address job shortages that are impairing growth in green industries, such as energy efficient buildings and construction, renewable electric power, energy efficient vehicles, and biofuels development. H.R. 2847 was included in the Energy Independence and Security Act adopted by Congress and signed into law in December, 2007.

Other key members of the incoming administration announced by Obama that are expected to have significant impact on renewable energy and energy efficiency policies include:

• Lisa Jackson, who is set to head the EPA. The agency regulates the nation's renewable fuel standard, which determines how much ethanol, biodiesel and eventually other biofuels get used each year. Rules currently under formulation would determine the extent to which land use and the effect of biofuel production on climate change are to be considered in setting the RFS. Jackson was the director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection before being tapped to head Obama's energy and environment transition team. She had previously served as DEP Deputy Commissioner. Her past experience includes management responsibilities at the EPA's regional office in New York; for enforcement programs at both EPA and DEP; and for New Jersey's Land Use Management Program. Jackson helped create the Northeastern states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and also served as vice president of the RGGI's executive board. She is a professional engineer.

• Carol M. Browner, who has been named to the new position of Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Her position has been coined as "climate czar" and Obama says she will coordinate environmental, energy, climate and related matters for the federal government. The former chief at EPA during the Clinton administration, Browner is a founding member of the Albright Group, a "global strategy group" headed by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. As a principal in the firm, Browner assists businesses and other organizations with the challenges of operating internationally, including the challenges of complying with environmental regulations and climate change.

• Nancy Sutley, who will chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She has instituted a number of energy saving programs in Los Angeles where she currently serves as the Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment. She has previously served as a gubernatorial energy advisor and the Deputy Secretary for Policy and Intergovernmental Relations within the California Environmental Protection Agency. During the Clinton administration, Sutley was a Senior Policy Advisor to the Regional Administrator for EPA, Region 9 in San Francisco and a Special Assistant to the Administrator at the Federal EPA in Washington, DC. Sutley has also served as the Policy Director for the National Independent Energy Producers and as an Industry Economist for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

• John P. Holdren, who was named Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. A Harvard professor of environmental policy, Holdren led major studies for the Clinton administration's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology on U.S. energy research and development strategy. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Since 2002, he has been Co-Chair of the independent, bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy, and from 2004 to the present he has served as a coordinating lead author of the Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, reporting to the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Commission on Sustainable Development.

National 25x'25 Alliance leaders say stronger support for renewable energy within the incoming administration will help mobilize the 25x'25 base in 2009 and expand grassroots support for the policies needed to create a clean and green U.S. energy future. An alliance plan of action for next year notes that over the past four years, the 25x'25 Alliance has evolved into a strong coalition that now serves as providers of solid, credible information on the role renewable energy can and will play in a revived economy. "We believe that in 2009, the new administration, in concert with the incoming 111th Congress, will support our efforts to sustain the nation's resource base and protect the environment through renewable energy development and energy efficiency," says Project Coordinator Ernie Shea. "The Steering Committee believes our new national leadership understands the role agriculture and forestry can play in improving energy security, boosting our economy and reducing emissions that contribute to global warming."

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technorati BIOconversion, bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, legislation, decentralization, security

Galvanizing Congress to move renewable energy forward

On December 5th, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) hosted its annual Phase II meeting in Washington D.C. in the U.S. House of Representatives Cannon Caucus Room. Its theme this year was "The Next Presidency and Congress." Distinguished speakers addressed the state of renewable energy policy today, presented a range of policy options, and made recommendations for the new administration’s policy framework.

There was a deep sense of purpose and commitment in the room as luminary after luminary spoke of the challenges and opportunities before us. There was also a palpable sense of urgency due to the country's economic crises - as auto industry bailout talks were taking place in another room of the building.

Archived videos of the six hours of speeches are available online. Michael Eckhart (ACORE President) marked the growth in significance of this 7th annual convening of an ACORE Phase II meeting - which formed in 2001 one week before 9/11. John Geesman (former California Energy Commissioner) introduced Dan Reicher who is the Director or Climate Change and Environmental Initiatives for Google.org. Their venture makes investments and advocates policy in the areas of climate change and energy, global development, and global health. General Wesley Clark made an impromptu appearance and speech on national security and ACORE's role in effecting positive change in America's energy independence.

The keynote address was delivered by Iowa Governor Chet Culver who avered that thirty years ago Iowa was ranked 49th in energy production by state. Since that time Iowa has become a net exporter of energy thanks to the diligence and innovation of Iowa state government, academia, and farmers to build a renewable fuels industry. "If you can't get pumped about this opportunity, then you are not 'pumpable,'" he said. He gave way to Jeff Broin, President of Poet Industries - now the nation's largest ethanol producer, who talked about the technology innovations taking place at their corn plants to reduce their carbon footprint, higher per acre crop yields as a panacea for global economic malaise, and Poet's construction of the Liberty, Iowa Plant that will create cellulosic ethanol using corn cobs as feedstock.

Senator Tom Daschle gave a detailed analysis of biomass conversion technologies - the allied food, fiber, fertilizer, and fuel impacts and the nine policies that should be pursued by Capitol Hill and the administration to advance them. He was followed by former Director of the CIA Jim Woolsey who talked about coupling biofuels production with the development of flex-fuel, plug-in hybrids like the experimental car he drives. In tandem, these two technology sectors can deflate the strategic value of oil - which is effecting the largest transfer of wealth in human history while making the U.S. and freedom-loving people more and more vulnerable.

N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman then made a memorable address that was a walkthrough of his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" urging Congress to help launch and enable a Energy Technology revolution. His conclusion was that it wasn't the government's job to bailout a sick and ailing economy. It was their job to set the price points - whether through carbon taxes or cap and trade or other mechanisms - that make clean, renewable technologies economically viable.

The afternoon sessions focused on policies that were needed to help private industry finance Electric Power and the scale-up of renewable energy and summations by ACORE leaders advising the "Next President and Congress."

Below is an announcement from ACORE about the immediate impact of the meeting on negotiations concerning the economic stimulus bill.


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Impact of Speeches at ACORE’s Phase II National Policy Conference
December 5, 2008

Congressional sentiment about how to deal with renewable energy tax incentives as part of a national economic stimulus bill may have changed in the past 48 hours as a result of speeches that were given by financial leaders at a renewable energy policy conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday and by the continuing effort of other renewable energy leaders.

The American Council On Renewable Energy held its 7th annual national policy conference, entitled “Phase II of Renewable Energy in America: The Next Presidency and Congress” yesterday in the Cannon Caucus Room in Washington, DC. The event held a packed room of 350 policy experts and was webcast to over 4,200 others around the world.

Keynote speeches by Iowa Governor Chet Culver, former Senator and Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Retired General Wesley Clark, former Director of Intelligence Jim Woolsey, and award-winning journalist Tom Friedman ignited the conference with a sense of determination to push the policy agenda forward on renewable energy in the new Congress and Administration.

However, the highest-impact speeches seemed to come from four top-tier financiers who came to Washington to speak about the urgent and near-crisis need to amend and refine the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind power and other renewable energy generators, and for the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar power.

Prior to the conference, the word from Congressional staff was that there will be no tax provisions in the upcoming economic stimulus bill, to avoid slowdowns in tax committees. This would put the renewable electricity markets in a decline just as the nation is looking for economic growth and jobs.

But, after hearing the finance speeches, Congress may have turned around on the question, as there is reportedly talk now of getting the refinements into the stimulus package.

“It is absolutely urgent that this be done,” said John Cavalier, Managing Partner of Hudson Clean Energy Capital. He outlined a set of refinements including making the tax credits refundable, able to be carried back ten years, allowed in lease finance structures, and applicable to manufacturing equipment to support new factories for wind turbine components and solar cells.

These changes are necessitated by the financial crisis which has reduced the availability of credit, caused the number of tax equity investors to be reduced, and increased the cost of capital across the board, according to Tracy Wolstencroft, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs.

“We are not asking for any new money,” said Kevin Walsh, Managing Director at GE Energy Financial Services. ”We are asking for technical refinements of tax credit rules that will allow funds to flow that Congress has already approved. This will open up the availability of equity capital for renewable energy projects, back to what was contemplated with the tax credits were passed originally. It is vitally important that this get done immediately to protect jobs in 2009.”

The fourth finance speaker at the conference was Michael Ware, Managing Director of Good Energies, and one of the few in finance today who served in the original Federal Energy Office in the 1970s.

“Our nation needs to back up its commitment to clean energy by extending the incentives for a longer time, and by continuing to refine the incentive rules to match market conditions. Congress could not have foreseen the extent of the credit crisis when they passed the PTC and ITC in September. No one is to blame. We are using our collective expertise to suggest how the Congress can relatively easily amend the rules to keep capital flowing into the U.S. market, keep our companies producing, and keep Americans employed. And again, this requires no additional money, just refinements to how the tax credits can be used – credits that Congress has already passed.”

Reports are coming in to ACORE from the Hill this morning that, as a result of the presentations at the Phase II conference and the work of other renewable energy leaders, there is a new good-faith intention to get the renewable energy provisions into the stimulus package to protect jobs in the sector. One lobbyist reported to ACORE that: ‘The message was heard by the staff, many of whom were in the conference or watching on the webcast.”

“We are very pleased by the quality of the Phase II conference, the motivation that came form the keynote speakers, and the immediate impact that our financial speakers seem to have had on public policy thinking in Washington. ACORE’s role is educating public officials about the issues, and it seems to have been accomplished in this case," said ACORE President, Michael Eckhart.

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technorati BIOconversion, biofuels, ethanol, cellulosic, legislation, decentralization, security

Canada's biofuels promise

An article giving an overview of Canada's bioenergy potential has been published on the Renewable Energy World.com website.

The author, Douglas Bradley, is president of the Canadian Bioenergy Association (CANBIO) a national, industry-driven, non-profit organization supporting promotion and use of bioenergy.

If possessing sustainable quantities of biomass alone is the measure of bioenergy potential of a country then Canada should be a world leader in bioenergy. Not only are its forests and thick farming belts teeming with biomass, its vast size and small population means that there is more than enough to satisfy the national hunger for bioenergy with plenty of sustainable supplies to export.

It has implications for global warming as well.

We need to see this as a great opportunity to reduce emissions by turning the massive amounts of forest residue, much of which is sitting at roadsides, into bioenergy. Using this fibre for energy enables us to use less fossil fuel, resulting in an immediate net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. This forest fibre doesn’t compete with food production, making it an attractive and sustainable renewable resource. Some innovative companies and municipalities have already integrated bioenergy into their processes, either as an energy resource, or as bioenergy producers – and they are thriving.

In his article, Putting Canada on Track
The keys to a bioenergy-rich future Bradley depicts the major drivers that make development desirable, the status of some biomass feedstocks and their locations, and then he spotlights the major players that are leading development. Included are Iogen, http://www.enerkem.com/index.php?module=CMS, Lignol Energy Corp, Dynamotive Energy, Woodland Biofuels, and Advanced Biorefinery with a brief description of how they fit in the fabric of Canadian bioenergy technologies.

He concludes by suggesting how Canada can "catapult bioenergy development...

This year has been the most exciting yet in terms of bioenergy development in Canada. But for Canadian bioenergy to catch up with its EU counterparts, a number of key barriers need to be addressed. One of the most visible problems facing small and medium-scale biomass heat and power projects is the requirement that any steam installation have a steam engineer on-site 24-hours per day. The high staffing cost simply destroys the economics of most projects under 17 MW in Canada. In Europe, different guidelines exist for smaller power plants and this has helped small and medium-scale biomass heating to thrive. Other barriers that exist for small and medium-scale projects are high capital equipment costs, where a government subsidy of around 25% is sorely needed to make a strong business case for potential investors. And such an incentive would certainly help the government achieve GHG emission targets. CANBIO is creating an alternative proposal to the 24-hour a day requirement, and is working with government to propose better solutions. The Ontario and Quebec government’s announcement of an emission cap-and-trade system is a step in the right direction, but only a strong, nationwide carbon-trading system can have a real impact on bioenergy development. Nonetheless, while there is much work to be done to develop favourable market conditions in Canada, bioenergy can provide one of the sustainable solutions to combat climate change and there are plenty of opportunities for international investors, technologies and buyers.

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technorati bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, cellulosic, legislation

Comments on Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded"

Thomas Friedman has a terrific platform from which to interview energy experts globally, write opinion pieces that are distributed through the New York Times, and participate in the production of cable television documentaries. Occasionally he pumps out a book that coalesces all of his research and synthesizes his prescriptions for solving the energy, environment, and global warming challenges that face us.

His The World is Flat book documented the changes in demographics and economic parity that will define the global rise of the middle class. Wonderful on the face of it, the consequences of this metamorphosis could challenge America's position and security as the leading consumer nation in the world - leading to competition for resources with developed and currently under-developed countries worldwide.

Since the release of that book (in 2005) the stakes have risen with an acceleration of demand for fossil energy, heightened concern about the global warming impacts of human behavior, and the sharp spike in gas prices - not to mention the crisis on Wall Street.

This book Hot, Flat, and Crowded takes on a broader perspective and a sharper call to action. The broader perspective intends to address the dual-headed energy and environment challenge with the clean tech alternatives he particularly espouses - solar, wind, and energy efficiency. His call to action compares the energy lethargy of the fractious U.S. policymaking machine with the frantic and command structured action of the Peoples Republic of China.

My primary reservation about the book is that it has a typically urban perspective on the problems without giving rural world economies (particularly in developed countries) their due. Friedman believes that ethanol subsidies are bad policy - in spite of the fact that the ethanol producers of America reflect the most immediate example of entrepreneurism contributing and innovating new solutions. He also doesn't distinguish between corn ethanol and cellulosic regarding the value of subsidies.

And then he decries policymakers for not committing to long-term guarantees like the production tax credit for solar and wind. What's bad for the goose is bad for the gander. Pulling the ethanol subsidies out from under any kind of ethanol developments would set a bad precedent impacting investor confidence.

Chapter 18

That being said, Friedman's website allows readers to contribute to the next edition of the book! A project he calls "Chapter 18" seeks reader input:

Hot, Flat, and Crowded has seventeen chapters. What's Chapter 18? Chapter 18 will be a completely new chapter that I’ll add to the next edition of the book: Version 2.0. In it I hope to include the best ideas and proposals sent in from readers: ideas about clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation; about petropolitics and nation-building in America; about how we can help take the lead in the renewal of our country and the Earth alike by going Code Green. I am eager for your suggestions — please post them here.

So I sent in my two cents worth and I suggest you do the same. Here's what I wrote:

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Loved your new book - I recommend that all of my colleagues read it.

My only disappointment is that you almost completely left out discussion of biomass conversion technologies (CTs) - the single biggest source of renewable power in the U.S. today (more than hydroelectric, solar, wind, and geothermal combined).

Wind and solar are carbon neutral. Plants are carbon negative and their biomass can be converted to directly replace fossil liquids for fuels and fossil solids for baseload power.

Wind and solar will not revive the decentralized rural economies of the world the way that bioenergy will (reference 25x'25 and ACORE's Biomass Coordinating Council).

I have come to the opinion that the key to sustainably sourcing biomass for CTs is finding waste streams and disaster debris that has a social cost attached to it (and very often a tipping fee or government incentive to remove it). This biowaste needs to be cleaned up before it decays into methane, CO2, and other GHGs. I include in these waste streams (1) wildfire salvage wood in CA, (2) hurricane debris and forest knockdown in the Gulf states, (3) mountain pine beetle infested wood in British Columbia and Colorado, and (4) unrecycled MSW at all the major cities. These problem accumulations of biomass are massive and will get much worse with "global weirding."

California's AB32 - the Global Warming Solutions Act - has entrusted its Air Resources Board to devise and execute solutions to reduce GHG emissions in California. CARB has fashioned a Scoping Plan and sought comments from Californians at large. I have written an article with links to the three comments I made based on my research and travels and invite you to check them out.

One comment advocates reducing significant amounts of GHG by thinning forests to preempt unprecedented "megafires", salvage carbon laden tree remains for conversion, and replant forests to sequester CO2 anew. You should interview Sen. Feinstein about the pitifully low amount of forest management work that has been accomplished since the passage of her Healthy Forest Initiative Act of 2003. Only 77,000 acres have been treated out of 20 million acres funded. This institutional lethargy is largely because there is no forest products industry left in those forests to buy the wood which would fund the programs. (BIOstock Blog)

Another comment focuses on diverting unrecyclable wastes (40 million tons/year in CA alone) from landfills by instead using CTs to produce biopower and biofuels at the Municipal Sorting Facilities (as L.A. is planning to do with its RENEW L.A. plan). (BIOwaste Blog)

My third comment is titled Challenge the Status Quo which aligns with your BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere, Not Anytime) lament. Too much current policymaking and regulations handicap initiative for action. For instance, thermochemical CTs are hogtied with the same EIA and LCA impediments as landfills (which means that it takes 5 to 10 years to permit them). As a consequence, the status quo wins.

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technorati bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, legislation, decentralization, security

Pulp & Paper Industry: The "bird's nest" of bioenergy?

One prominent feature of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) is its renewable fuel standard that sets the trajectory for satisfying America's newfound thirst for alternative fuels. 36 billion gallons per year production by the year 2022. Considering that the U.S.' current annual production of biofuels is about 8 billion gallons that is a considerable amount of growth being virtually mandated by the U.S. Congress under the watchful eye of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Where is this fuel likely to come from? Can we "piggyback" any comparable industry and its existing infrastructure to help ease the transition between fossil fuels and biofuels?

The paper and pulp industry is starting to see a way to recover from its decades long fighting retreat. They are the biorefineries of the present. Their byproducts (paper and pulp) are more plentiful and valuable than the biopower and biofuels than they produce. But even so, the current combined output of heat, steam, and electricity made from combusting woody biomass and "black liquor" process residues make these mills the number one source of renewable energy in the country - more than all other alternative energy sources combined (including hydroelectric).

According to many within TAPPI (the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) the time is ripe for retooling the more than 200 chemical paper mills operated within the country.

TAPPI held its annual 2007 TAPPI Conference in Atlanta last May. This year's event is August 27-29 in Portland. It will be interesting to see how the organizers address the latest attempts to engage the industry in what may be a renaissance of its mission and accomplishments.

Below is an excellent story by the Senior Editor of TAPPI's monthly magazine. He highlights some of the key features of this established industry that may very well piggyback the future of bioenergy.

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Pulp and Paper Industry Poised to Take Center Stage in Global Bioenergy Arena
International bioenergy conference explores new and emerging pathways, technologies, financial, legal, and operation issues.

by Ken Patrick

The pulp and paper industry is uniquely positioned to immediately produce significant amounts of biofuels, bioenergy and bioproducts. With a mature, operating infrastructure capable of delivering double-digit billions of gallons of biofuels annually, generally without adding any new fiber processing capacity, many pulp and paper mills around the world are only a one-step investment away from becoming major renewable energy producers. Especially important, paper industry capacity that can be re-aligned and re-purposed toward bioenergy co-production would be 100% cellulosic feedstock based, with no agricultural attachments at all.

Considering that there are 200 or more similar chemical pulp mills in the U.S., and at least an additional 100 in Canada, basic arithmetic shows this barrelage capacity for Fischer-Tropsch synthetic crude oil could total somewhere upwards of 420 million barrels per year, or between 15 and 20 billion gallons per year for the entire North American pulp and paper industry.

Pulp Mills as Biorefineries

Pulp mills are ideal sites for integrated biorefinery operations for four basic reasons. First, they are already set up to receive and process massive amounts of delivered roundwood and woods chips, served in this capacity by rail, truck and some also by barge operations. In the U.S. alone, pulp mills use more than 120 million dry tons of wood per year, and they have access to at least an equal amount of forest residuals and even a greater amount of agricultural wastes and energy crops if needed.

Second, these mills have basically the same existing infrastructures for warehousing and shipping out finished products around the country. Third, they have a well-established in-place administrative infrastructure and related human resources that can be extended to serve a biorefinery business without incurring significant new costs. Fourth, pulp mills have operating utility support systems for process water, electricity, steam and waste/environmental treatment that can easily be umbrella'd to support biorefinery operations without major new investments.

And possibly as a strong fifth reason, chemical pulp mills already operate as biorefineries of sorts, producing fiber used to make paper and paperboard as well as some specialized dissolving pulps used to make viscose types of "bio-plastics" and rayon materials. Bio-byproducts made from sulfate (or kraft) spent cooking liquors (black liquor) include ingredients used in making coatings, adhesives, detergents, paint, varnish, ink, lubricants, waxes, polishes, gasoline additives, agricultural products, etc. Turpentine is obtained by condensing exhaust vapors during the pulping of softwoods with the kraft process. There also is a spectrum of lignin-based byproducts produced from refinement of black liquors.

This same black liquor that, in fact, after it is thickened through evaporation and the byproduct streams removed, is currently used as a "fuel" to fire what are known as chemical recovery boilers, so named because their initial, primary purpose was to burn the hemicellulose/wood sugar content of the thickened, spent cooking liquor, resulting in a char bed deposit that can be regenerated backing into fresh cooking liquor chemicals. Heat from the combustion process is used to co-generate steam used in the process and electricity via turbo-generators. Today's mills produce on the average 60% of their power from wood residuals and spent pulping liquors.

Cellulosic Pathways to Bioenergy

Rather than burning these high volumes of spent cooking liquors directly in recovery boilers, integrated biorefineries can process them into an array of value-added cellulosic biofuels, including ethanol, various synthetic gases (syngas), synthetic crude oil and biodiesel. These fuels could be used to offset petroleum-based fuels being burned in the mill and/or to sell as transportation/motor fuels.

There are as many as 12 clearly defined pathways into integrated biofuel/bioproduct production at pulp and paper mills. These include the thermochemical approaches that generally involve gasification of either biomass and/or spent cooking liquor streams alone or in combination with advanced gas-to-liquid technologies such as Fischer-Tropsch-based systems, and various pyrolysis techniques involving fluidized bed boilers.

Other pathways involve established sugar platforms and value-prior-to-pulping (VPP) approaches, where hemicellulose content is extracted before cooking of wood chips in digesters in various ways, such as cooking in pure water to produce a "prehydrolyzate" that can be fermented to mixed alcohols or gasified to produce a syngas.

The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) recently conducted a detailed study of the most feasible routes to integrated biofuel production at pulp and paper mills, versus stand-alone cellulosic biorefineries, as part of its Agenda 2020 program. This study is detailed in a two-part series of reports just completed in the July issue of Paper360° magazine, the official publication of TAPPI (the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) and PIMA (the Paper Industry Management Association).

A committee of Agenda 2020 CTO's, representing 90%-plus percent of chemical pulp producers in the U.S., evaluated four general pathways that appear to be most likely for chemical pulp and paper mills based on existing infrastructures and operations. This study focuses basically on thermochemical approaches as being the most feasible, and looks generally at four related pathways.

The business case discussed in the AF&PA report is based on a post-2010 gasification biorefinery operation at a kraft pulp and paper mill as described in a recent report by Princeton University. The reference mill is in the Southeastern U.S. and produces 1,580 dry tpd of kraft pulp using a 65/35 mix of hardwood and softwood.

Compelling Payoff Potential

The main economic benefits of biorefining in the cases outlined by AF&PA for this reference mill include additional revenues from sale of synthetic fuels (511 tpd of dimethyl ether to be used as an LPG (propane) blend stock, or 2,362 barrels per day of petroleum equivalent or 4,757 barrels per day petroleum equivalent of Fischer-Tropsch synthetic crude oil for refining to diesel and gasoline blendstocks at petroleum refineries), as well as a savings of 226 tons per day of pulpwood due to increased pulp yield, and slightly overall lower steam use.

Considering that there are 200 or more similar chemical pulp mills in the U.S., and at least an additional 100 in Canada, basic arithmetic shows this barrelage capacity for Fischer-Tropsch synthetic crude oil could total somewhere upwards of 420 million barrels per year, or between 15 and 20 billion gallons per year for the entire North American pulp and paper industry, based on existing infrastructure and operations only, without adding any new capacity.

This is a very significant potential considering that the President's 2007 renewable fuel standard (RFS) is 36 billion gal/yr by 2022, and that at least 21 billion gallons of this are to be obtained from cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels. This clearly indicates that the forest products industry, and pulp and paper mills in particular, are in a very unique position to help meet this critical national challenge.

TAPPI Bioenergy Conference

These issues, and specifically the AF&PA position paper study, will be explored in considerable detail at the TAPPI International Bioenergy and Bioproducts Conference (IBBC) to be held in late August in Portland, Oregon.

The 2008 Technical Conference Program features 14 sessions that will take attendees through an in-depth analysis of where the industry currently is on the biorefinery front to where it will be in the next five years and beyond. A key issue underlying all sessions is the immediate need to attract investment community involvement on an on-going basis. The intensive program explores not only the latest biorefinery technologies, but also developing markets and the legal-legislative-investment sides of the bioenergy/bioproducts equation

The IBBC program includes several sessions that examine biorefinery approaches already in commercial operation, with from-the-field updates by those "already doing it." Systems technologies being reported in these sessions cover pyrolysis, gasification/gas-to-liquid, acid hydrolysis, enzymatic, and other fermentation-based approaches.

Ken Patrick is Senior Editor for TAPPI and PIMA's Paper360° magazine.

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technorati BIOconversion, bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, cellulosic