May 05 2009

The Biofuel Prayer

May 5, 2009

Over the past three years the lifecycle of American biofuels has gone from birth to collapse, with the majority of public and private ethanol and biodiesel companies now in bankruptcy. The reason is simple. There is no there, there. So it doesn’t matter if we have 3rd, 4th, or 100th generation biofuels. Alchemy cannot transform the brief absorptioneaster-island-head-1 of sunlight in plantlife into any meaningful quantity of energy. If in some other physical universe, which we do not currently inhabit, it was possible to transform young organic material into liquids without the expenditure of additional energy, then in that world biofuels might look interesting. Until then, plants are not energy.

But enough about the science of biofuels and today’s thoroughly depressing announcement from the Administration, to form an interagency task force with billions in new (plus bailout) investments in the sector. What’s more intriguing is to wonder why, after having completed a real-world test of the unsustainable biofuel business model–with its razor thin capital (and energy) profit margins–our society is going to bang its head against the same wall all over again. I mean really, why bother?

The answer may lie not in biofuels, but in oil. And, in our difficulty with large numbers. The energy content of young plantlife can be expressed in small numbers. But the energy content of oil is a large number. Modern society is so deeply inculcated and infused with oil that we are likely to project similar energy concentrations onto other energy sources. Oil towers over ethanol feedstocks, the way a skyscraper would shadow a house. A bushel of corn contains about 400,000 BTU. Thus, about 14 bushels are needed to match the 5.8 million BTU in a barrel of oil. But that’s over 800 pounds of corn. Moreover, oil is already in liquid form. Frankly, it makes more sense to burn corn in a furnace for heat, than to marshall an additional set of energy inputs to liquify it. And that’s exactly what many people do.

In this context, any renewed push by society to liquify plants starts to look ritualistic, not scientific. While the world remains quite rich in both gaseous and solid fossil fuels–natural gas and coal–the world is likely now in liquid energy decline. If that’s the case, let’s deal with it head on. Chasing the biofuel dream looks increasingly like a prayer. One wonders how people will think of us 100 years from now as we desperately run in silly circles, building monuments.

-Gregor

Photo: Easter Island

• Comments
Author: Gregor Macdonald   Posted in: Alternative Energy  Policy  Psychology   Tagged:        
  • Herbs
    wait a min....i think it like a scarecrow. but this stone head kept dinosaur away.That my opinion. everyone who is agree with me?
  • llboyd
    Gregor: great posts as usual. your article seems to make sense to me but wanted to pass along to my dad as he is in the alternative energy field and has a lot of expertise here. wanted to share with you his response and get your reaction:

    "Thanks for asking. I disagree. Could the auto industry or the oil industry ever have become strong or stayed afloat without massive government subsidies. No. And the same is true for many other industries. So, investing tax dollars in biofuels that demand more accountability with regard to the life cycle analysis of GHG emissions....meaning that biofuels have to significantly outperform fossil fuels to be eligible for incentives...........makes sense to me. The energy intensive ethanol plants are already on the ropes. The plants that are not drying their wet distillers grains, are sequestering their CO2 and using it for enhanced oil recovery or some other application and are using milo as an alternative feedstock are producing a pretty green/sustainable fuel and that is what we need to move forward. If we just say ixnay to biofuel no big deal for the next few decades likely. Time for the naysayers to die off. But what happens to those that will have to pay $10/gallon when oil supply is so constrained that our fossil fuel economy is in peril. And do you feel good enriching nations that hate America and fund terrorists? Let's spend our money to fuel the economy in the USA.

    So, long story short is I am somewhere in between. Don't abandon oil and it's huge energy advantage over plant based fuel but let''s invest in biofuels and work towards transitioning."
  • gregor.us
    Cheers. I am pro-science, and pro-experimentation. I consider the technology to convert plants to liquids as interesting. Just as I do with coal to liquids technology.

    I've made a bunch of comments upthread today, sort of laying out in more detail that my focus remains the oil depletion problem, and how that can be mitigated. And, I do intend to do a post on the small, tactical, and regional role I see for biofuels.

    G
  • Gregor,

    You've made this point regarding the futility of biofuels repeatedly in your blog, and I concur for corn-based ethanol. However, there are many credible people who have made the opposite point with regard to more advanced biofuels (no links on hand at the moment, but you read all the same stuff we all do).

    I think it would help your readers evaluate your point if you could walk us through unit-level economics (gallons/acre, EROEI, etc.) for advanced biofuels processes to show us why you think they are not good solutions. For example, after reading your posts, I don't understand if your argument is based on an inability to scale, a cost issue, or an EROEI issue -- or on something else entirely. Please consider laying out your argument in more detail to help your readers understand where you're coming from.

    Thanks,
    Alex
  • gregor.us
    Hi Alex. Thanks for writing.

    The standard I use for biofuels is to measure how well they could scale up to replace liquid fuels, mostly in North America. This strikes me as appropriate, for me at least, as 1. This is an energy blog with a primary focus on Oil. 2. Biofuels are discussed as a matter of national energy policy as a replacement for oil. 3. Biofuel makers are only to happy to sell the idea that their product is an oil replacement, and, they could just as easily be offering to convert biomass to heat for electricity but clearly want to make liquids.

    So the main problem I have with biofuels is that they don't scale. I regard them as a science experiment.

    Now, while it's true that there is a small amount of net energy to harvest from plants--and I don't see why changing the plant or the method is going to change that by much--the prospect for biofuels as a sustainable investment are even worse. This is because that energy profit margin, while positive, is too thin. With the energy profit margin thin, they are fated to bankrupt investors.

    As an aside, I would note that even resource extraction businesses in oil and coal--two very high energy content sources--remain difficult, low margin businesses. I have watched coal companies have great difficulty making money this decade, for example. They always make enough to stay in business, but often not much more than that.

    All the unit-level economics have been done. I would much rather point to meta-studies like the one done years ago at Berkeley, or current papers done out of places like Cambridge in the UK, and elsewhere. I have seen what happens when the arguments descend, as they have over the years, into the minutia of the math. Soon one is arguing over ancillary formulae, and missing the bigger picture. The role I have carved out for myself here at Gregor.us to reach a more informed-generalist audience. So my process is to consume all of the details and then present it as something digestible.

    I would note that many commenters in this thread are unnecessarily confused about my position on biofuels. My position stated is quite clear, I think. It's clear I am talking within the oil and transport context, and that the efficacy of biofuels HAS to be measured against a replacement prospect for oil. Of course, oil is so unique it really cannot be replaced.

    See Robert Rapier's blog, and also David MacKay's work at Cambridge UK as two good examples on biofuel analysis.

    I have a question for you: do you believe there is a meaningful quantity of energy to be captured from plants? This seems to be the devastatingly simple question few are asking.

    We are so immersed in the oil age paradigm, we have totally lost sight of oil's almost unearthly energy-density. And, we have built everything we see with that density. I think that's part of the mental hurdle here.

    Best,

    G
  • AtomHammer
    "Alchemy cannot transform the brief absorption of sunlight in plantlife into any meaningful quantity of energy. If in some other physical universe, which we do not currently inhabit, it was possible to transform young organic material into liquids without the expenditure of additional energy, then in that world biofuels might look interesting."

    This is gross hyperbole. Crude oil is exactly the product of such 'alchemy.' Transforming sunlight into meaningful amounts of energy is what plants do. I realize that I am not telling you anything that you don't already know, but you went too far in making an otherwise reasonable argument against the current manifestation of biofuels. Biofuels will not require "some other physical universe." Our current physical laws will allow it.
  • gregor.us
    This is gross hyperbole. Crude oil is exactly the product of such 'alchemy.

    But this makes my point. Millions of years vs a very short period of time. The former is not replicable

    Why would someone believe the million year process is replicable in a lab? Not saying you believe this. Just wondering why someone would believe that.

    G
  • AtomHammer
    My initial post was a reaction to the presentation of biofuels as physically impossible, an assertion of yours that made it onto the NYTimes web site (the Opinionator) and caught my eye as a falsehood. So I read your post, and I don't disagree with you, except for the exaggeration of the difficulty.

    I am sorry to include an appeal to authority, but useful here, I feel. It is not my belief that my opinions should be given special consideration, but I do know some relevant information. I am Biophysical Sciences faculty at The University of Chicago. We have seminars weekly where alchemists come and talk to our alchemists about the advances in the broad area of alternate energy. As an example, I refer you to the several series hosted by the JFI http://jfi.uchicago.edu/events/talks.shtml No one (that I know of ... yet) is trying to replicate the process by which crude oil was created. But the existence of crude oil demonstrates that plant material can be converted into an energy-dense liquid. And, millions of years is not a scary number to these scientists. Many chemical processes have been sped up by 6 orders of magnitude. If thermodynamics favor the reaction then kinetics can be overcome.

    Nevertheless, your concerns are dead on! Plants take water and (usually) arable land, resources that are already scarce. The soil changes with each crop harvested. New industrial methods take skilled labor, which is expensive. All true.

    The scientists that I have been fortunate to meet are not advocates of biofuels. Certainly not corn (despite being in illinois. UofC is not a state school, btw.). And also not in the long term. The goal is more along the lines of engineering biological or biomimetic processes that can be performed at higher density than agriculture. Biofuels would be a waypoint not a destination.

    We have debated how likely it is that biofuels will be eclipsed before being of any use. That is possible, but not guaranteed. The number of different ways that the photon-to-chemical energy and photon-to-charge separation challenges are being approached is (perhaps literally) mind boggling. It is not possible to predict what will work, what will work best, and what will be economically viable. It is not physically impossible.
  • gregor.us
    Hi, thanks for writing back. I should do in addition a post that frames how I see a role for biofuels as a regional fuel not transported by pipelines (that would have to be built) and also as a strategic fuel that simply is available should events disrupt fossil fuel liquid supply.

    Yes, just about everyone who read the blurb of my post in the NY Times incorrectly thought that I took the position that biofuel production is either not technically possible, or that it does not capture energy.

    The focus of this blog is mostly oil and the oil depletion problem. Therefore, my focus on biofuels generally points towards the societal hope that they could scale up enough to replace oil consumption. Which of course they cannot. Not in North America. There has been a fair amount of continuity on this blog, in which I've essentially said that yes biofuels capture the small amount of energy available from young plants. This hardly seems controversial.

    If one has no liquids, and a pile of solids that could be turned into liquids, then my compliments to the scientific community for turning the latter into the former. As I am sure you would agree, "not much" energy has been captured in the process. But if one's only problem was getting liquids from a pile of solids, then one is doing very well indeed.

    As I have also said, society seems to be unaware that everything currently built in modernity runs on the energy density of oil. Since plants are not energy dense, trying to run the present world on them would likely mean we live a very different life. Which is fine by me.

    My hope is that current research will have myriad ancillary benefits, possibly to food production and better use of water and land. That would seem to be the likely outcome here. And as we have nowbuilt some of the infrastructure, it would seem prudent to keep it and use it to create liquids for use in farming/agriculture. Again, it would be silly to be "against" a small net energy extraction process especially if it's not diluted by long-distance transport, and used locally.

    Finally, I don't see why any next generation processes to transform biomass into fuel would be very interesting or exciting. Except on the level of alchemy. I realize that for those working on the process, they are excited by the process itself. I would just remind we have an army of Venture Capitalists who want to sell that process into very broad-based, cultural hopes and dreams.

    G
  • AtomHammer
    Well said.
  • Twigins
    AtomHammer, no disrespect intended on the following comments, but your point of view is precisely why we have markets, why there is constant tug-of-war for capital.

    You focus on the "goal" world, which we need for change, growth, evolution. You need support (capital) to maintain yourself, your computers, labs, schools, peers, etc. in order to research the "goal". This is without question and is understood.

    Gregor is drawing attention to the "now" world. He is asking questions, reviewing different methodogies of how we survive to progress into future (goal).

    In a time of constrained capital, what is cheaper ultimately win, even if it is a short term fix. It will most certainly be a coctail of all technologies based on geography, climate, natural resources availabe and capital.

    One thing I know that debating "goal" world now seems like advertising for political and financial capital. Maybe now is not a good time for that. Also, your "goal" may not be the best immediate, effective use of limited capital when compared a nuclear physicist as an example.

    Would actually ask if you could spare a body or two to determine the better connect the dots between "now" and "goal". That's where we need to invest in immediate, limited capital. That's where you could get immediate support.
  • David Mebane
    If you want to make the case against biofuels, you have to talk about something other than corn. We know the problems that corn ethanol has -- but what about ethanol derived from other sources? You claim that there simply not enough energy in young organic material, but sugar cane ethanol is already a major part of the fuel supply in Brazil (without, I think, having driven sugar prices to unsustainable levels). Brazil produces a lot of sugar cane, but can you elaborate on what makes you think that cellulosic ethanol, for example, is a ridicule-worthy non-starter?
  • gregor.us
    Why would a different alchemical process performed on a different organic material yield a result that would produce liquid fuels on a wide scale? Why does the process itself matter? Does the cellulosic process propose to extract a small quanity of energy without the expenditure of a significant additional quantity of energy?

    G
  • Kevin Nute
    Rather disingenuous to conflate the general with the specific; corn is an inefficient source of bio-energy and efforts to subsidize it are, at best, misguided. That does not mean that this is the case with all bio-matter. This is a simple logical fallacy called hasty generalization.; I haven't read enough of your work to know if this is standard practice on your part.
  • gregor.us
    Thankyou.

    Let me help: I consistently conflate the prospect of ALL biofuel development to the realm of wasted time, effort, and capital to the extent that the effort proposes to be a functional and scaleable replacement for oil. My attitude is quite the opposite: I don't see myself as clever or disingenuous at all. My position is sincere.

    There isn't any meaningful quantity of energy to unlock from young organic material. By any process. There is no "there", there.

    Clear enough?

    G
  • Rodrigo
    What is really strange to someone looking from overseas to the American energy policy is this holy grail of energy independence. There is no such thing in the world. What to say about the biggest energy consumer in the planet. But look to energy sources as an investor look to the portfolio theory for investments and biofuel will make some sense. And remember, not a single energy source used by human kind since the beginning of the times was abandoned. (wood, water, wind, sun, coal, oil, nukes, geothermal etc.) We've just changed the carrier and diversified the sources.
  • gregor.us
    As you may know we have a magical realism tradition here in the States, with a strong cultural record of boundless hope and a belief that limits can be broken. We inherited massive natural resources from the start, of course, and those conditions supported the first phase of this belief system. The second phase was supported by the great European immigration which dumped a ton of extraordinary human capital into the country. This gave rise to Techno utopianism. So you put the two together and you can see how we can find ourselves grasping for the biofuel prayer.

    As an American who has lived in Europe (er, the UK) , however, I will admit that I find the more restrained tradition there rather dismal, actually. Cynical determinism rubs me the wrong way. No doubt, I am a product of American culture, and I too want to believe in not just solutions--but big, splashy, spectacular solutions.

    Anyway, I am now of the view that the entire biofuels movement is a cultural, not a scientific, phenomenon.

    G
  • Prayer? I think you're getting warmer. The impulse of much of the alternative energy crowd is really religious/philosophic at core. They're in denial regarding the physical universe as it exists (Western worldview) and in which they're forced to live. They hope to defy the 'law of nature' and 'nature's God' through their own version of 'faith and hope'. Whether their frame of mind is drug-induced or attributable to other causes, doesn't matter. They simply are disposed to deny existing reality...no matter what the data says.
  • gregor.us
    Indeed. Kinda like building huge stone heads as a way to ignore the decline of food supply and food resources.

    If only a central bank could print energy in addition to paper money, we'd be good to go, eh?

    G
  • Jeff Burke
    Why biofuels?
    1) B/c the mouth-breathing, TV watching, high school-dropping out US public wants it. They have the govt they deserve.
    2) Illinois grows corn.
  • NDoubles
    Gregor,
    What about the algae(?) biofuel(biodiesel) prospect? I don't remember where I found the charts/PDF's; however they seemed to be a viable prospect. They produced large numbers per acre in comparison to corn/ethanol & substantial BTU's if I remember correctly. Some of the companies have made progress in decreasing costs & even working with plants to harvest the CO2 for production. It has been a while since I have looked at any of this; it could be bad info/outdated.

    This is not to say that I don't agree with the "ritualistic" idea of liquifying plant life for energy; might get better (overall) numbers with a gasifier hooked up to the exhaust pipe; than all the extra time/energy spent converting yellow corn to a clear liquid.

    Twitter.com/NDoubles
  • gregor.us
    Cheers,

    On a current cost basis I have seen algae fuel analysis that is in the area of 20-30 dollars a gallon. However, that is not, in itself, a metric that should be used to either dismiss or turn one's back on algae. Many alternative energy technologies start out at high costs levels, and then improve.

    Instead, I stay close to the core premise on young organic material which is that there is simply no quantity of energy to unlock that is meaningful. All this organic material has more than enough energy to serve its original purpose--feeding other life forms.

    I've moved on now to the view that alot of this bio-experimentation will wind up having other applications. For example, if we could make more materials with young organic material, then we could potentially reduce the call on the petrochem and plastics industry. And you know that would be a good thing and a fine achievement. I say go ahead: break all the DNA chains in this stuff and mess around with it. Just don't sell it as liquid replacement for oil.

    G
  • Twigins
    Hi Gregor, I truly enjoy your articles. The are on target IMO.

    As an agronomist, I know that corn requires 1.5-2x nitrogen fertilizer to bring equal bushels to yield compared to barley (malt).

    How are they fixing nitrogen to that inert clay particle - natural gas? Need to fire more to fix more to produce less fuel compared to oil? Oh, maybe more cost effective to burn NG now than coal ... hmmm, not sure, need to check with Agrium.

    Definitely a head fake, time to invest in MOO.

    Also, need to call Ducks Unlimited, as they will be sucking up all ponds for the algae (which utilize fert. run off from fields).

    What a mess!
  • gregor.us
    Thankyou.

    Later this week it would be good if a number of people were to submit opinion, questioning biofuels on both a scientific and on a claims/as advertised basis.

    See: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy request for comments on scientific integrity in policy-making: http://bit.ly/15dr0e

    Best,

    G
  • "-|-"
    Good post and I enjoy your blog, but what makes you think many of us will still be around 100 years from now.
  • gregor.us
    Ha! Good one.

    G
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