GAO Report Concludes Industry and Government Face Significant Challenges in Meeting RFS Target While Minimizing Unintended Adverse Effects; Suggests Federal Research Give Priority to Non-Ethanol Biofuels
05 October 2009
A report recently published by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) concludes that the US biofuels industry and federal agencies will face significant challenges in meeting the more demanding requirements for volumes of advanced biofuels in RFS2 while minimizing any unintended adverse effects.
As part of the report, which was requested by Senators Barbara Boxer (as Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works) and Susan Collins, the GAO makes several recommendations to Congress and for executive (i.e. Department or Agency-level) action. Among those is the recommendation that “to minimize future blend wall issues and associated ethanol distribution infrastructure costs...the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy give priority to R&D on process technologies that produce biofuels that can be used by the existing petroleum-based distribution storage infrastructure and the current fleet of US vehicles”—i.e., non-ethanol biofuels.
RFS2 requires that US transportation fuel contain 36 billion gallons of biofuels in 2022; at least 16 billion of the 36 billion gallons of biofuels required in 2022 are to be made from such cellulosic feedstocks as perennial grasses, crop residue, and wood waste. To date, the US biofuels industry has achieved about 30% of the target level largely through the production of conventional corn starch ethanol.
The GAO report examined, among other things, (1) the effects of increased biofuels production on US agriculture, environment, and greenhouse gas emissions; (2) federal support for domestic biofuels production; and (3) key challenges in meeting the RFS. GAO reviewed scientific studies, interviewed experts and agency officials, and visited five DOE and USDA laboratories.
Among the principal findings of the study were:
Biofuels production has had mixed effects on US agriculture, but the effects of expanded production are less certain. Biofuels production has had mixed effects on US agriculture with respect to land use, crop selection, livestock production, rural economies, and food prices, the report found.
For example, while increasing demand for corn for ethanol contributed to higher corn prices, thereby providing economic incentive for some corn producers, they also increased feed costs for livestock producers.
The potential future effects of expanded biofuels production, including production of new energy crops for advanced biofuels, are uncertain but could be significant, particularly to the extent these new crops affect the production of other crops and livestock.
Increased biofuels production could have a variety of environmental effects, but the magnitude is largely unknown. Increased cultivation of corn for ethanol, its conversion into biofuels, and the storage and use of these fuels could affect water supply, water quality, air quality, soil quality, and biodiversity, the report found. However, future movement toward cellulosic feedstocks could reduce some of these effects.
The report also noted that the storage and use of certain ethanol blends may pose other environmental problems, such as leaks in underground storage tanks and increased emissions of certain air pollutants.
Although EPA included a partial assessment of water and effects in the preamble of its May 2009 RFS proposed rulemaking, EISA does not require EPA to determine what fuels are eligible for consideration under the RFS based on their lifecycle environmental effects, apart from greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers disagree on how to account for indirect land-use changes in estimating the lifecycle greenhouse gas effects of biofuels production. Twelve studies reviewed by GAO provided estimates on the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels relative to fossil fuels ranging from a 59% reduction to a 93% increase for conventional corn ethanol; a 113% reduction to 50% increase for cellulosic ethanol; and a 41% to 95% reduction for biodiesel.
The different assumptions about the inputs and allocation of the energy primarily account for the variance, GAO found.
However, most of these studies did not attempt to account for the effect of increased biofuels production on indirect land-use changes—converting nonagricultural lands elsewhere in the world to replace agricultural land used to grow biofuels crops to maintain world production of food, feed and fiber crops—even though it is widely recognized that land-use changes could be the most significant source of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with production.
...Although research for measuring indirect land-use changes as part of the greenhouse gas analysis is only in the early stages of development, EISA directed EPA to promulgate a rule to determine the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels included in the RFS, including significant emissions from land-use change. Several researchers told GAO that the lack of agreement on standardized lifecycle assumptions and assessment methods, combined with key information gaps in such areas as feedstock yields and domestic and international nd-use data, greatly complicate EPA’s ability to promulgate this rule.
Federal tax credits, the RFS, and the ethanol tariff have primarily supported conventional corn starch ethanol. The Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), a 45-cent per gallon federal tax credit, was established to support the domestic ethanol industry. Unless crude oil prices rise significantly, GAO found, the VEETC is not expected to stimulate ethanol consumption beyond the level the RFS specifies this year.
The VEETC also may no longer be needed to stimulate conventional corn ethanol production because the domestic industry has matured, its processing is well understood, and its capacity is already near the effective RFS limit of 15 billion gallons per year for conventional ethanol. A separate $1.01 tax credit is available for producing advanced cellulosic biofuels.
Federal R&D mainly supports the development of advanced cellulosic biofuels. DOE and USDA, the principal federal sponsors of biofuels R&D, obligated about $500 million to develop advanced cellulosic biofuels in fiscal year 2008. In February 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 appropriated $800 million to DOE for biomass-related projects, and March 2009 the Omnibus Appropriation Act, 2009, appropriated $217 million for DOE’s biomass and biorefinery systems R&D program.
Significant challenges must be overcome to meet the RFS targets. The domestic biofuels industry faces multiple challenges to meet the increasing volume requirement of biofuels, particularly cellulosic and other advanced biofuels. These include cost-effective methods and technologies for feedstock collection transportation and storage; the cellulosic conversion technology itself; and infrastructure limitations for distributing, storing and using increasing volumes of ethanol (e.g., use of mid-range blends).
Advances in thermochemical processing technology could yield non-ethanol products that the existing petroleum refining and distribution infrastructure can use—and therefore reduce blend wall issues.
GAO provided two matters for congressional consideration and three recommendations for executive action to help address these challenges. For congressional consideration, GAO recommended that:
Congress consider amending EISA to require the EPA to develop a strategy to assess the effects of increased biofuels production on environment at all stages of the lifecycle—cultivation, harvest, transport, conversion, storage, and use—and to use this assessment in determine which biofuels are eligible for consideration under the RFS. This would ensure that all relevant environmental effects are considered concurrently with lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.
Congress consider revisions to the VEETC. Options could include maintaining the VEETC, reducing the amount of the tax credit or phasing it out, or modifying the tax credit to counteract fluctuations in crude oil prices.
For executive action, the GAO proposed:
The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy develop a coordinated approach for identifying and researching unknown variables and major uncertainties in the lifecycle greenhouse gas analysis of increased biofuels production.
This approach should include a coordinated effort to develop parameters for using models and a standard set of assumptions and methods in assessing greenhouse gas emissions for the full biofuel lifecycle, such as secondary effects that would include indirect land-use changes associated with increased biofuels production.
To minimize future blend wall issues and associated ethanol distribution infrastructure costs, GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy give priority to R&D on process technologies that produce biofuels that can be used by the existing petroleum-based distribution storage infrastructure and the current fleet of US vehicles.
To address inconsistencies in existing statutory language, GAO recommends that the Administrator of the EPA, in consultation with the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy, review and propose to the appropriate congressional committees any legislative changes the Administrator determines may be needed to clarify what biomass material—based on type of feedstock or type of land—can be counted toward RFS.
Resources
The production of corn-grain based ethanol should be restricted to the level required not to effect edible food availability and price. Is that less or more than current level?
Priority must be given to feeding ourself and the world growing population over our liquid fuel guzzlers.
All the waste we produce should be used (first) to produce essential alternate fuels instead of edible grains. If we do, the size of the garbage dumps could be reduced.
Posted by: HarveyD | 05 October 2009 at 09:06 AM
Corn grain ethanol has run its course. E5 might have been an acceptable level for that, but as we go to E10/E85 it is not. I encourage an all out effort to deploy cellulose ethanol ASAP. This is the one viable way to reduce oil imports.
Posted by: SJC | 05 October 2009 at 09:27 AM
EPA Exposed for Falsely Regulating Biofuels - GAO on its Coat-tails:
New regulations in the proposed Renewable Fuel Standard, RFS-2, are based on a comparison between biofuel emissions vs petroleum fuel emissions. That is supposed to include how they’re produced, delivered, and consumed. But the EPA is way off on this comparison.
Using outdated information, omissions, underestimating and overestimating, inconsistent standards, and a controversial land use theory that can’t be scientifically proven – the EPA has committed fraud against the biofuel industry.
Here’s the EPA’s biggest omission: When you burn petroleum based fuel and when you burn biofuel, you don't get the same carbon result. Burning petroleum causes “Newly-mined CO2” to accumulate in the atmosphere. In contrast, biofuel simply recycles CO2 that was already there. The EPA totally omits this from their end-use comparative analysis.
Petroleum fuels should take a carbon penalty for adding “Newly Mined CO2” to the air, and biofuels should receive a carbon credit for displacing accumulating CO2 with “Recycled CO2”.
The EPA twisted data in numerous different ways. They used outdated information for their baseline petroleum footprint. EPA went back to 2005 for their proposed 2010 rules. That was deceptive, because the older petroleum baseline did not include up to date proportions of energy intensive deep offshore drilling, oil shales, and especially Canadian Tar Sands.
Another omission is the carbon debt of 35 million acres that Tar Sands have deforested – totally ignored by the EPA. Yet they blame corn ethanol for deforestation in foreign countries that never happened. This year’s corn crop is the same number of acres it was 60 years ago. It has Not been displacing any other crops. We are simply getting much higher yields per acre.
The majority of deforested land in the Amazon is not used for years after the big timber is stripped. And when it is, it’s being used mostly for cattle grazing and subsistence farming, not biofuels. In “Deforestation Debunked”, Jackie Helling says an Amazon study conducted earlier this year, by the Soybean Work Group (GTS), “showed that of 630 samples of deforested areas since July 2006, only 12 had gone to soybeans and 200 to cattle. The remaining 418, or 70 percent, were unused - indicating that the main reason for cutting down trees was for timber and land grabbing.”
Hypothetically, if indirect land use change was actually happening, expansion of a sugar crop in India could have caused it. Expanding rice or cassava in China could have caused it. A new palm oil plantation in Indonesia could have caused it. A new jatropha grove in Africa may have caused it. A new cattle ranch in Argentina may have caused it. An apple orchard in New Zealand could have caused it, and so on.
Deforestation is Not automatic proof that biofuels are the cause. Yet a lawyer, a lobbyist, an environmental activist, a biofuels critic, the mastermind of indirect land use change theory, has been allowed to steer EPA computer modeling to blame biofuels. That’s junk science.
The EPA underestimates food byproducts that come out of biofuel crops. For example, when an acre of corn is processed to make ethanol, you also get over 20 gallons of corn oil and over 50 bushels of high protein livestock feed, used to produce food. Two thirds of that acre of corn, and the energy inputs to grow it and harvest it, goes to ethanol. The other third goes to food production. For biodiesel fuel, extracted from soybeans, 20% of the acre goes to the oil, and 80% goes to livestock feed that produces food. Only 1/5 of a soy acre is used for fuel. Because the EPA gets these relationships wrong, it falsely prorates the energy inputs between fuel and food and thereby overestimates the emissions of the fuel component.
The EPA fails to accurately measure the carbon footprint of foreign oil shipped thousands of miles to the U.S. - burning dirty bunker fuel and conventional diesel. And, in addition to that, 12 to 15% of the U.S. military budget is spent to protect our foreign oil supply (Rand Report). That entails keeping a military presence in the Middle East and burning huge quantities of jet fuel, dirty diesel, and more dirty bunker fuel to protect oil fields and pipelines and to escort oil tankers as needed. Long distance shipping needs to be factored into the carbon footprint of petroleum fuels made from foreign oil, and so does the fuel and the pollution involved in protecting it. Yet the EPA fails to do this.
Embracing indirect land use change theory, before it was scientifically proven, is another display of corruption by the EPA. Fancy computer modeling and high tech satellite imagery are worthless, when the EPA uses false assumptions and inaccurate input data. The EPA also used an attorney-lobbyist, the author of the bogus land use theory, and his assistants, to peer review his own work. Other outspoken biofuels critics and political activists were also used. The EPA Did Not recommend the best candidates for peer review - Department of Agriculture experts, who had years of experience in land use change, were not asked to participate.
Then the EPA issued this false claim: "We are pleased that this independent peer review has affirmed EPA's approach to be fair, credible and grounded in science." This was a fraudulent EPA statement, because their peer review process was Not fair, Not credible, and most of all, Not grounded in science. Numerous peer reviewers were biofuel critics and political activists with bias and conflicts of interest.
Renewable Fuels Association President, Bob Dinneen responded: “EPA has asked the foxes to guard the hen house on this issue. By adding lawyers and advocates to a scientific review panel, EPA bureaucrats have made a mockery of the Administration’s commitment to sound science. These reviews absolutely cannot be viewed as objective or unbiased. Many of these reviewers have repeatedly and openly demonstrated unabashed and politically-motivated biases against biofuels in the past, which immediately casts a long shadow of doubt over the legitimacy of EPA’s peer review process. This is a perversion of what the peer review process is supposed to achieve.”
Professor Wally Tyner of the Agricultural Economics Department, Purdue University said, the “sweeping conclusions” made by believers in indirect land use change theory are premature and unproven.
Dr. Hao Tan and Professor John Mathews of Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia agreed. After exhaustive analysis Mathews stated: "Indirect land use change effects are too diffuse and subject to too many arbitrary assumptions to be useful for rule-making."
111 scientists stated jointly in a recent letter to CARB, that indirect land use change theory is immature and can not be validated. This was signed by (1) Blake A. Simmons, Ph.D., Vice President, Deconstruction Division, Joint BioEnergy Institute, Manager, Biomass Science and Conversion Technology, Sandia National Laboratories; (2) Harvey W. Blanch, Ph.D., Chief Science and Technology Officer, Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Member, National Academy of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; and (3) Bruce E. Dale, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor, Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University.
Replacing petroleum fuels with biofuels is an opportunity to recycle existing CO2, instead of bringing-up more and more new carbon from underground and spewing it into the air. This causes CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere. Substituting biofuels for fossil fuels can be a key factor in mitigating climate change.
That is, if we get rid of the oil interests and the political activists embedded in the EPA, and clean-up their illegitimate rulemaking.
The Obama Administration appears to have a two faced, forked tongue policy toward biofuels. To their face, farmers and biofuel producers are being promised smiley government support. But on their backside, the EPA is giving them the shaft – Hitting them with rules and regulations that are Not grounded in science and Not based on accurate data.
The EPA’s comparative analysis and carbon score for biofuel vs petroleum fuel is grossly inaccurate.
Likewise, the GAO Report relies heavily on false information generated the EPA. The GAO report was also released about a month before Lisa Jackson admitted in a letter to Senator Harkin that there were significant mistakes in the EPA's proposed RFS2 rules:
It is:
"clear that there are significant uncertainties associated with these estimates and in particular, with the estimate of indirect land use change.”
“Therefore, I have asked my staff to quantify the uncertainty associated with specifically the international indirect land use change emissions. They are working closely with USDA as well as incorporating feedback from experts who are commenting on the rule. This analysis will allow us to quantify the impact of the uncertainty on the lifecycle emissions. We will present these estimates in the final rule, and I plan to incorporate those estimates of uncertainty in my regulatory decisions.”
The GAO report is riddled with omissions, false assumptions, outdated information, mis-information, and cherry-picked information. Thus, the conclusions of the Report are distorted.
If we are going to get rid of subsidies. The first to go should be the $40 billion a year in subsidies paid out to the oil industry in the form of the Foreign Oil Investment Tax Credit, which encourages foreign oil investment over domestic production. And then the subsidies paid out to Coal production, and then natural gas subsidies.
The GAO Report makes the false conclusion that the blender's credit is not needed, because the ethanol industry is no longer an emerging industry. That's false. It is still an emerging industry and will be for years to come - epspecially in the realm of ethanol produced from ALGAE, Municiple Solid Waste, and biomass waste, which shouls also be subsidized, until they become well established.
At $6 billion a year, the ethanol blender's credit is a drop in the bucket, and it pays for itself many times over - in local, state and Federal tax revenue, job creation, economic stimulus, cheaper fuel prices and displacement of foreign oil.
Posted by: Aureon Kwolek | 05 October 2009 at 11:00 AM
The less corn syrup that ends up in our food the better. It would bring about a reduction in Type 2 diabetes which is rampant in the USA.
Posted by: Mannstein | 05 October 2009 at 11:13 AM
Mannstein:
Type II diabetes and obesity go hand in hand in most cases.
The same can be said of many cancers an many other deseases.
We have to learn to keep lean and stop over-eating junk food. Our excess 50 to 150++ lbs each (from very young age) is raising health care cost by 30% to 40% across Canada and even more so in USA. Our free market food enterprises will not help but make it even worse.
Posted by: HarveyD | 05 October 2009 at 12:38 PM
Senators Barbara Boxer and Susan Collins are most likely being steered by OIL INTERESTS. They recommend unproven and undeveloped experimental fuels, as a priority over proven and developed biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. That’s foolish economics. The experimental fuels they advocate are not now cost effective and not yet commercially feasible. There is an advantage: they do drop into the Petroleum infrastructure better than ethanol, that is, at this point in time. That can change by making all new vehicles ethanol compatible.
Advocating unproven fuels that drop into the petroleum infrastructure benefits the international OIL INDUSTRY and their control over liquid fuels. Whereas ethanol is primarily controlled by domestic farmers and biofuel producers. Ethanol is a threat to the oil industry. This is especially true, because it’s being more and more localized – produced and consumed locally, dispensed through locally supplied blender pumps, which are out of the control of the centralized petroleum industry. This is another flaw in the GAO report, which falsely claims that an extravagant ethanol infrastructure must be built, when in reality, ethanol will become localized nationwide and made from Algae, Municipal Solid Waste, local Biomass Residues, and local biomass crops. Ethanol refineries are being planned in every state. They will be widespread, not just in the Corn Belt.
Contrary to the defective GAO Report. No additional corn acreage will be needed, because the yield keeps going up year after year. In the past two years, corn yield went up from 150 bushels per acre to 162 bushels per acre this year. In the U.S., there is no shortage of corn and no shortage of land. We only use 1/3 of our arable land, and we export over 20% of the corn crop, most of which is used to feed foreign livestock. Less than 1% of exported corn goes to countries with inadequate nutrition for human consumption. The corn is available for about 7 cents a pound. We have a surplus. The question is: Can you afford to ship it?
Ethanol can be mixed in solution with water. That’s the big thing that the petroleum industry is worried about. 50-50 Ethanol-Water fuel. This can be run through a self-powered reformer to efficiently extract hydrogen onboard the vehicle. Reformers also extract half the hydrogen from the water component. This is the domestic fuel of the future that can power our range extender engines and fuel cells and free us from foreign oil entirely.
The key is making all new vehicles sold in the U.S. ethanol compatible, domestic and foreign. That costs under $150 per car. Problem solved. The next generation engines should be ethanol optimized and-or multi-fueled. We have this technology now. All we need to do is implement it.
The other thing we should do is: Create a New Path for “reformed onboard Ethanol-Water to hydrogen” – Either via internal combustion engines, turbines, Toyota’s lower-cost fuel cell schematic, Cyclone’s Green Revolution Engine, or what have you.
We need to support ALL kinds of alternative fuel development, and then see which ones emerge as the winners – Not pick them ahead of time, before they prove themselves viable. This is another defect in the GAO Report.
Posted by: Aureon Kwolek | 05 October 2009 at 12:58 PM
Aureon:
Prehistoric people learnt to burn things (mostly wood) to keep warm, produce light and cook food etc. In many countries, all the trees were burnt and desert moved in.
Some four million + years latter, we learnt to burn coal, crude oil, NG and now alternative fuels from different sources. Global GHG is becoming a serious problem and we have to change our ways.
Our current need to burn fuels to produce energy and move around is dictated by the absence of more evolved technologies. As we progress on the evolution scale, we will learn to produce all the clean energy we require from other sustainable sources such as the Sun, Wind, Waves, Geothermal, nuclear etc.
Of course many will miss the good old wood, coal nd fossil fuels burning days but that will be history for our grand-children. They will be going to museums to see ICE vehicles and horse buggies that there great-grandparents used.
Posted by: HarveyD | 05 October 2009 at 01:15 PM
Making biomethane from miscanthus using wet oxidation pretreatment has a energy return of more than 10:1
http://www.crpa.it/media/documents/crpa_www/Progetti/Seq-Cure/Documentazione/Area-Riservata/Uellendahl_VADSWEC.pdf
Biomethane can substitute ~70% of diesel use in diesel engines.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/09/consortium-launches-britains-first-dual-fuel-biomethane-bus-emissions-cut-in-half.html
Posted by: 3PeaceSweet | 05 October 2009 at 02:48 PM
If you can make renewable methane you can make DME for 18 wheeler tractors. DME is a liquid above 100 psi, so the energy density is there. Large 18 wheeler tractors use almost half the fuel used on the roads. If we can get them on DME we reduce oil imports almost immediately.
Posted by: SJC | 05 October 2009 at 03:05 PM
I'd guess that going from methane -> DME (via methanol) would mean you would end up with less net energy at the end and would therefore give you less fuel savings than using the bio-methane directly.
Posted by: 3PeaceSweet | 05 October 2009 at 03:24 PM
Yes, but it is easier to carry. Even at 3600 psi, natural gas would take up a lot of room in high pressure tanks. DME is liquid at only 100 psi and has better energy density. Fewer large tanks at lower pressure seems like a good way to go for long haul diesel big rig tractors.
Posted by: SJC | 05 October 2009 at 08:12 PM
Bio-ethanol, even from cellulose, is a food. It should not be used for fuel.
Much fossil fuel is used to produce bio-ethanol. There are still inconclusive arguments about the question if there is any net gain which may depend upon the area where it is produced.
For the moment, I present the National Geographic figures that for every 100 units of fossil energy input 130 units of ethanol energy is produced. This means that ethanol is not a neutral source of carbon because when it is burned; 230 units of carbon energy were put into the air by making and using, but only 130 units were removed. This means that the maximum credit ethanol can take is %57 neutral.
It can be stated more negatively towards ethanol that it costs 100 units of fossil fuel and much land to eliminate 30 units of CO2 going into the air. More careful driving alone can reduce automobile fuel use by these 23 units.
The land can be devoted to growing long lived trees that won't release much CO2 for hundreds of years and will certainly pick up more than 30 units. In fact the land can be counted upon to pick up at least 130 units and probably double that.
Wild growing plants can be selected that will take care of themselves and capture at least 130 units and keep them for decades.
Selected farm areas can be turned into peat bogs in order to capture and contain CO2 for thousands if not millions of years. The bogs can be tested every year to see how much carbon is captured so that the farmer can be paid. There is no harvesting cost, no transport costs and no waste of funds on crop failures.
Trucks and their trailers have a lot of room for high pressure methane tanks. Methane is being produced from coal in North Dakota. They have, as yet, avoided producing much methanol. About half of the CO2 from the project is sent to Canadian oil fields to double production of oil and it is left in the ground. Methanol can also be used in diesels about the same as methane. Some vehicles use propane instead of methane. Ethanol.
Only %5 of our Redwood forests are left.
The yearly growth of all plants in the US could not supply all of our energy needs for a year. It is un-economic to attempt it.
Peak oil is a myth. We could even put deep mines into oil fields to get a large part of the %70 hydrocarbons remaining. Very little of the oil profits of recent years went into getting more oil. Far more of it went into pur profits and perhaps speculation to keep prices high. There is no free market in oil; very rich people and governments including the US have captured it with various ploys including nationalization.
Shut off all power flow from the Columbia and Colorado rivers to California. Use the electricity to form methanol from water and CO2. This is a new way of thinking about fuel cells. Cells that have fuel dripping out of them. This system is easier to build than fusion reactors. It would be more economic to close down some coal fired power plants instead and use the hydro electricity to replace the energy and then use the coal to make hydrogen and then methanol.
..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 05 October 2009 at 09:01 PM
SJC, adsorbed natural gas allows storage of natural gas at much lower pressures.
HG, I look enjoy reading your posts but have to take issue with "peak oil is a myth" historic production from Texas, North Sea and Mexico says it is a very real problem. If it occurs in a single region it follows that it would apply globally. The EIA said in its 2008 world oil outlook that we need to bring online "3 saudi arabia's" worth of production by 2030 to counter ongoing declines. They had previously assumed we would have no trouble producing 130Mb/day by this time. I think we will be producing around 50Mb/day at this time.
Posted by: 3PeaceSweet | 06 October 2009 at 12:11 AM
Ok FIRST lets replace as much oil as we can with anything even remotely better then it.. THEN lets get all prissy about replacing the worst of what we then have with better options.. Ok?
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 06 October 2009 at 03:41 AM
Remember, under new FTC rules, starting 1 Dec 2009 anyone who is compensated for posting or blogging must disclose that fact, or risk a fine.
Posted by: richard schumacher | 06 October 2009 at 05:43 AM
ANG is the same storage at lower pressures. Trying to get 400 miles out of ANG would still take up a lot of space, it would just be at lower pressure and you need to get impurities out before storing. DME is stored as a liquid and used as a gas. It has been used in large diesel engines without problems.
I think that if are to make any real progress in reducing oil imports, we need to have practical and proven techniques that are easily deployed. Since natural gas comes through pipelines, I would turn it into methanol and DME at the fueling station.
Posted by: SJC | 06 October 2009 at 07:32 AM
Biomethane, DME, E5-E100, Methane, BioDiesel, H2, Ethanol, Methanol, shmetanol .... they are all great fuels. The reason that they are not implementable is because all alternative fuels are locked out of the economic cycle, owned by Big Oil interests. These are maintained by the auto industry by building engines that can run on only one fuel. Name the fuel, and they will build an engine around that fuel. The flex fuel engines work very well in Brazil where the economics and politics converge to make it happen. But an engine that can run any fuel or any blend will quickly empower the alternative fuel markets. They won't have to fight each other, its a collaboration.
And please don't think that it can't be done. There is smart engine technology that is not being funded, for whatever reasons. We have not fully exploited the digital valves technology. The auto industry is still stuck on cam valves, 100+ year old technology. Our engines are driven by centuries old technology. This limits our engine designs and forces the industry to think and design in the box. ergo, our engines are all designed to run only one very specific fuel without damage. Mostly that is gasoline or diesel. No alternative fuels can get in on their own, too small a market for the auto industry, too unpredictable for the consumer to invest in - economic deadlock prevents alternative fuel suppliers from entering and thus they fight themselves for funding and investment.
The answer lies in the design of an engine that runs any fuel, not just one. After all, they all basically do the same thing, only at different temperatures and pressures. Smart engines are programmable engines. There are designs not being funded, I've personally tried going through DOE and know of others that hit a brick wall there. It's not only possible, it's necessary.
Posted by: wxfman | 07 October 2009 at 08:43 AM
I would have all new vehicle sold be FFVs. Think of gasoline stations, many are oil company owned or the franchise is very restrictive. If an owner wants to put in an E85 pump, they need permission from the oil company. Since oil companies do not make ethanol, you can predict their likely response.
Posted by: SJC | 07 October 2009 at 09:38 AM
As I remember it the car companies did push FFVs, but only as a way to cheat CAFE. They knew full well they could sell FFVs to markets that didn't have E85 supplies and still get points for it.
Posted by: ai_vin | 07 October 2009 at 11:42 AM
They produce large FFV SUVs and trucks to get credit, even though most of those vehicles do not run E85. There are now 5 million FFVs on the road. If we mandate all FFVs, there will be more than 50 million on the road in the next 5 years.
Of course, we will have to make E85 from cellulose more widely available across the U.S. if this is to do any good in reducing oil imports, which brings me back to the oil company strangle hold. Once we tackle all these issues and more, we might actually make some progress.
Posted by: SJC | 08 October 2009 at 09:18 AM
It seems like they are advocating gasification and synthesis of fuels other than ethanol. This makes sense to me. It does not have to be cellulose nor synthetic ethanol, it could be butanol or synthetic gasoline or diesel. Carter proposed a synthetic fuels program back in the 70s and was ridiculed and ignored. Maybe now people will listen 30 years later. Better late than never.
Posted by: SJC | 17 October 2009 at 08:11 AM