Landfill gas contains lots of stuff that you do not want burned. It has to be cleaned up way too much to make it cost effective for pipelines. They use it to generate electricity at the site.

Renewable methane can be used and turned into other fuels. If you want to make it into methanol at the fueling station and put it in cars, that would work. The delivery of methane in pipes seems to me to be the way to go.

This “Concensus Position on Biofuels” is a step in the right direction, however it is not a complete analysis of all the issues. The biofuel slash and burn witch-hunt mentality is gone, and in its place is a willingness to work to improve the biofuel path that we are already on.

We should talk about individual biofuels, not biofuels in general. Ethanol and biodiesel are way different animals. They are made from different feedstocks using different processes. They have very different fuel characteristics and are used in different engines. They have different emissions and different environmental footprints. They have different economic impacts on the food supply.

Biofuel engine technology has recently taken a giant leap forward, and this will dramatically enhance its environmental impact. “Ethanol optimized” engines are now being developed that get better mileage than gasoline, but have all the power and efficiency as diesel, at a much lower cost and a much higher power to weight ratio. This is made possible because ethanol has 25% higher octane and faster flame speed than gasoline, eventhough it has 30% less btu’s.

Whereas biodiesel is oil based, ethanol can be blended with up to 50% water and still combust. That is significant, because we have technology that can distill a gallon of ethanol with 3 kilowatts, blend it half and half with water, and then combust it in a genset that produces 23 kilowatts per gallon (MicroFueler “grid-buster”). These new ethanol technologies are viable for charging batteries onboard the coming plug-in hybrids, and what you get is a vehicle design that eliminates imported oil entirely.

Onsite ethanol-water (waste water) could also replace natural gas used for production power at ethanol refineries. That would significantly impact their environmental footprint, by replacing newly mined CO2 in the natural gas - with recycled CO2 embodied in the ethanol.

There are also plans to grow Algae on the corn ethanol refinery waste stream. Again, this would greatly improve the environmental footprint, while mitigating waste heat, nutrient-rich waste water effluent called “centrate”, and recycle CO2 through the algae, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. This will likely be very concentrated heterotrophic algae grown in dark, insulated tanks, on a very small footprint of adjacent land. The sugars and nutrients in the waste water centrate will feed the algae, enhanced by CO2 feeding, and what we’ll get is algae biomass doubling every 6 hours under optimal conditions. Strains of heterotrophic chlorella have been documented to double every five hours. That is if you grow it for maximum speed and biomass, rather than stress it for much slower oil production. This obsession with oil is what’s slowing down algae development. Instead, grow algae for maximum speed and biomass. You get a smaller overall percentage of oil, but from a much bigger volume of biomass. You come out way ahead, because you get massive quantities of starch and proteins. Five different companies are reporting algal biomass yields of 65-300-220-270-330 TONS per acre per year.

Algae grown on the corn ethanol waste stream will provide additional onsite co-products: The carbohydrates will drop-in to the fermentation process, providing additional onsite ethanol feedstock. The oils can go to The proteins are complete amino acids that will enhance animal feeds and complement corn ethanol distillers grains. Algae as a high-quality complete protein feed supplement, is also a green chlorophyll hemoglobin oxygen carrier that will improve the health and productivity of dairy cows, hogs, poultry, meat cattle, and farm-raised fish and “seafood”. Chorella, which can be grown at corn ethanol refineries, is currently selling in bulk on the internet for about $18 per pound. And medicinal and nutriceutical Omega Oils derived from algae are now selling for up to $500 per pound. Nutritional supplements for humans are another revenue stream.

Another cutting edge plan is the “Farmer’s Ethanol” integration system, that will also dramatically improve the environmental footprint of corn ethanol, while mitigating methane released from manure and instead using it as an onsite resource. We will also be integrating algae and/or duckweed production into the “Farmer’s Ethanol” flow chart. This may give us a new generation of corn ethanol with a 5 to 10 fold return and an environmental footprint that is totally acceptable.

There is also a plan to purify corn ethanol byproduct distillers grains for human consumption, so you may soon see it mixed-in with other foods as a protein booster. Distillers grains may also become a global food staple that will help alleviate hunger. We are currently only taking the starch to make ethanol from 1 out of 4 bushels of corn. Every acre of corn used for ethanol also produces about 50 bushels of animal feed, which goes to producing food. The fuel vs food debate has been debunked, and so has indirect land use change.

Look at biofuels in the context of how they compare with conventional petroleum based fuels. Biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, are derived from “recycled CO2” which is already in the air. That’s what sets them apart from petroleum based fuels. Biofuels also release far less particulate soot.

In contrast, dirty fuels such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, heating oil, kerosene, and bunker fuel are all extracted from crude oil, which is constantly bringing-up new CO2 from deep underground. Thus, fossil fuels are causing additional CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere. Biofuels are not. Credit the footprint of biofuels for replacing “newly mined CO2” with “recycled CO2”. These two types of CO2 belong in two different categories.

Conventional fossil fuels also produce massive amounts of Black Carbon Soot, which heats the air and then settles out on water, snow and ice, where it causes additional solar thermal absorption. This could be a much bigger climate change factor than CO2.

You also need to accurately measure the impact of conventional fuels, before you go comparing them to biofuels. The EPA disguises the true environmental impact of Petroleum based fuels by using old or slanted information. For the footprint of petroleum, the EPA used pre tar sands data. This does not reflect more recent crude oil extracted from Canadian tar sands – which consumes twice the amount of energy as conventional ground wells. And we import more crude oil from Canada than any other country. Tar sands oil extraction is also a major source of deforestation. Shale oil and deep water offshore drilling is also more energy intensive. Yet the EPA low-balls the environmental footprint of petroleum based fuels, and gives them preferential treatment over cleaner burning biofuels.

Imported Oil is also transported thousands of miles - from the Middle East and numerous foreign countries - by ocean going ships burning Bunker Fuel, a major cause of global pollution and Black Carbon Soot. Compare this with domestic biofuels that can be produced and consumed locally. The EPA has no accounting method for that comparison. See “Commercial Shipping Emits Almost Half as Much Particulate Pollution as Total Released by World’s Cars”. Ocean going ships burning bunker fuel are showering the water’s surface with black soot, which absorbs heat, rather than reflecting it.

According to a recent Rand Report, we are spending 12-15% of our entire defense budget every year to protect our supply of foreign oil. We burn through a huge amount of money, resources, bunker fuel and diesel fuel, over a long-distance supply line, in order to protect foreign oil. This problem can be solved by implementing alternative energy, including domestic biofuels. What is the yearly bill for protecting biofuels? Zero.

To sum it up in one sentence: Put environmental sustainability and science over self-interest and politic. This consensus idea is a very worthy goal.

Aureon,

Very nice summary. All too often, critics take a very narrow-sighted approach with biofuels. When you factor in the entire supply chain and use the proper benchmarks, it is very clear that biofuels can have a very important role in our future.

Aureon, thanks for the detailed overview. I tend to think that most of the resistance to biofuels of all type (including ethanol) comes from the energy establishment. The counter to this is not environmental but economics. Every dollar NOT sent to buy foreign oil is a dollar that can revitalize domestic economies. And save the 10-15% of defense budget to protect foreign resources.

It would be interesting to see how the processing cost of increased algal yields compares to higher lipid content processing. If handling larger volume does not offset lower oil content - it seems like the way to go.

"Every dollar NOT sent to buy foreign oil is a dollar that can revitalize domestic economies."

Good idea but is it possible with our global economy set up the way it is? We live in a WalMart world where everybody is looking for the lowest price and the Saudis can supply you with oil at the cheapest price. Please note I said 'price' and not 'cost' because COST is something else. Price is what you pay at the pumps, cost includes things like hidden taxes, lost jobs spilled blood, etc.

"or you can do it the better way and eliminate future problems."

Yeah, and we have a long history of doing that don't we? Not!