PDF - Energy Biosciences Institute

Vol. 2.2
Lessons
from the
DROUGHT
Wanted: Energy Plants for
Tough Conditions
Algae Bloom – or Bust?
Solar Fuel’s Promise
RFS: The Great Divide
Plus:
Grassoline at the Pump?
Europe’s Biofuel Conundrum
A Fine, Aged Biomass
From Bio ...
to Fuel
Switchgrass
Coming to a prairie near you
What is it?
A native of the American prairie for hundreds of years, switchgrass is
sometimes called tall prairiegrass, tall panic grass, wild redtop, blackbent,
or thatchgrass. Its wealth of seeds and thick cover attract song birds, quail,
pheasant, and other wildlife, while its deep roots – almost as deep as the
plant is tall – help prevent soil erosion. To bioenergy scientists, it is an
unusually promising source of biomass.
Why is it of interest?
Versatile and long-lived, switchgrass has evolved to withstand extremes of
temperature, wind, and drought. It generally can grow between 4 feet and 10
feet high, but can reach heights of 13 feet, which adds up to a lot of biomass.
Even on an acre of marginal land, lowland switchgrass has been known to
produce six to eight tons of biomass in one year.
Where does it grow?
In Mexico and North America, especially tall-grass prairies in the Midwest.
Why does it matter?
Besides being very productive, switchgrass grows well with relatively little
water, lime or fertilizer. Once planted, it can often produce biomass for up to
15 to 20 years without replanting.
What’s next?
Scientists are working on a crude bio-oil from switchgrass that can be
transported directly to a refinery.
Who is working on it?
This list includes the Department of Energy and its Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, the Louisiana State University AgCenter, the University of
California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and
researchers in Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and China.
By Chris Woolston
1
VOL. 2.2
Winter 2013 // vol. 2.2
STAFF
In the face of uncertainty
Executive Editor
Heather Youngs
Editor
Diana Hembree
Publisher
Chris Somerville
Art Director
Mirhee Lee
Associate Editors
Susan Jenkins / Ron Kolb
Photographers
Kathryn Coulter / Peg Skorpinski
Production Director
Nick Vasi
Business Manager
Mark Shaw
Editorial
Advisory Board
Jamie Cate, Ph.D.; Jody Endres, M.A.,
J.D.; Evan H. Delucia, Ph.D., Jonathan
Foley, Ph.D., Jose Goldemberg, Ph.D.; Jay
Keasling, Ph.D.; Madhu Khanna, Ph.D.;
Steve Long, Ph.D.; Ruth Scotti, M.B.A.,
M.S.; Chris Somerville, Ph.D.; Caroline
Taylor, Ph.D., Luuk A.M. van der Wielen,
Ph.D.; David Zilberman, Ph.D.
Bioenergy Connection is published by the Energy
Biosciences Institute, a partnership of the University
of California at Berkeley; the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, and BP. To help the world transition from
fossil fuels to responsible, renewable energy sources,
more than 300 EBI researchers are applying advanced
knowledge of biological processes to the energy sector.
To learn more about EBI, visit the EBI website at www.
energybiosciencesinstitute.org. To subscribe to Bioenergy
Connection or change your address, please contact:
[email protected]
Bioenergy Connection is printed on recycled paper with
soy ink. Cover photo by Ahmet Orhan/Dreamstime.com.
This issue of Bioenergy Connection, our fourth, marks a changing of the guard. After serving
as a contributing editor since the magazine’s inception, I am excited and honored to step
into the role of executive editor. We bid a fond farewell to veteran editor Marie Felde, who
is off on new adventures, including a book project. We are also fortunate to welcome our
new editor, Diana Hembree, a journalist with training in biology who has specialized in
health and science editing at Time Inc., the Center for Investigative Reporting, Hippocrates,
HealthDay, and other news outlets. Chris Somerville, the magazine’s founder, continues his
involvement as publisher.
We are publishing in interesting times. As work began on the current issue, northeastern Brazil was in its 19th month of drought, most of the United States was experiencing
the worst drought in 25 years, and 2012 was the hottest year on record. As if that weren’t
enough, Hurricane Sandy flooded the New York and New Jersey coastline. With price tags
of $50 billion to $100 billion dollars each, the extreme events of 2012 recharged interest in
climate change and strategies to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
There is also renewed caution about the path forward, especially in these politically and
economically challenging times. The last half of 2012 saw political attacks on two key policies affecting bioenergy, the Renewable Fuel Standard and the Farm Bill. The refusal of
the EPA to grant a waiver of the Renewable Fuel Standard in late 2012 was highly controversial, reopening the long debate about food, feed, and fuel production and the role of
next-generation biofuels. So far, the economics have vindicated the EPA decision, but the
discussion is far from over.
This issue of Bioenergy Connection takes a look at the crucial role of climate and water in
the production of biofuels. Our series “Lessons from the Drought” explores the waterenergy connection, and the article “Tough Characters” profiles next-generation bioenergy
feedstocks that can grow in semi-arid environments, tolerate drought, or survive floods. In
“Doing More with Less,” we learn how companies are working to maximize water resources
and respond to resource uncertainty. We also examine changing views about biofuels in Europe and profile researchers who are developing novel technologies for advanced biofuels.
Finally, we begin a two-part briefing insert on life-cycle assessment of biofuel production.
We hope you enjoy this issue of Bioenergy Connection. As we strive to improve the magazine, we look forward to your feedback and suggestions about new issues, science and technologies, and remarkable people to profile. Please feel free to write us with suggestions at
[email protected].
Heather Youngs, Ph.D.
Executive Editor, Bioenergy Connection
Senior Analysis Fellow, Energy Biosciences Institute
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
2
34
DEPARTMENTS
00
01
From Bio to Fuel
From the Executive Editor
03
15
Contributors
30
Dr. George Huber: On the
Road to Grassoline
Commentary
FEATURES
04
Cover Story: Lessons from
the Drought
05
Water as a "Wicked Problem"
What you learn about the water-energy
connection may surprise you
By David Zilberman, Ph.D.
08
Tough Characters
Meet some energy plants that thrive
in a drought – or a flood
By Chris Woolston, M.S.
15
Algae’s Water Problem
The government and industry face off on
sustainability issues
By Jim Lane
39
19
The Promise of artificial
photosynthesis
A bionic leaf needs water, but will give it
all back
By Peter Jaret, M.A.
22
water & Biofuels: Doing
more with less
Producing food, feed, and biofuel get a
lot harder when water is scarce
By Drs. Heather Youngs
and Steve Pietsch
26
Renewable Fuel Standard
under Fire
The RFS drew criticism during the
blistering drought of 2012, but even
supporters say it needs work
By Greg Breining
Special Insert
The Briefing
30
34
A Guide to Life-Cycle Assessment, Part 1
What is the LCA, and why does it matter?
How a mission to Guatemala in his teens
shaped one of bioenergy’s rising stars
By Elaine Herscher
Q and A: Europe Charts a New
Path for Bioenergy
What a leaked report from the European
Commission is telling us
By Laurie Udesky
The UK's Biomass to Energy
Report
By Leonore Reiser, Ph.D.
39
A Fine, Aged Biomass
Connecting the dots between
biofuels and bubbly
By Michelle Locke
3
VOL. 2.2
CONTRIBUTORS
Greg Breining (“Renewable Fuel Standard Under
Elaine Herscher (“On the Road to Grassoline,”
Fire,” p. 26) is a Minnesotabased journalist and author
who writes about science, travel, and nature for national and
regional magazines, including
Audubon and National Geographic Traveler.
p. 30) is an award-winning
health and science writer and
web editor with more than
two decades of experience in
journalism. She is a former reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle and co-author of
the book Generation Extra Large: Rescuing Our Children from the Epidemic of Obesity (Perseus, 2004).
Saul Bromberger and Sandra Hoover (portraits of Drs. George Huber,
Heinz Frei, and Tanja Cuk,
pp. 30 and 19) are an awardwinning photography team in
the SF Bay Area whose clients
have included Time Life, Getty Images, universities, hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies. Saul also
worked for years as a newspaper photographer. In
their spare time, Saul and Sandra enjoy outings with
their two sons.
James M. Lane (“Algae’s Water Problem,” p. 15), a
journalist, author, and failed
(his description) television
comedy writer, is the editor of
Biofuels Digest. Before founding the influential digest, he
worked as a magazine publisher at Petersen and Reed
Elsevier and as a journalist for Harper’s magazine, radio,
television, and print. He has also written ten books, including Citizen Cane: Essays for New Days in Bioenergy.
David Dudley, M.A. (artwork for “Tough Characters” and “A Fine, Aged
Biomass,” pp. 8 and 39) is a
Berkeley, Calif.-based illustrator and writer who dabbles in medical animation on
the side. He has written and/or drawn for clients
including Oxford University Press, the California
Academy of Sciences, Time Inc., and WebMD. He
has also been a curriculum developer for Living by
Chemistry (LBC), which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Peter Jaret, M.A. (“The Promise of Artificial Photosynthesis,” p. 19) is a freelance writer in Petaluma, Calif.
His fiction and nonfiction has
appeared in many magazines
and newspapers, including the
New York Times, Hippocrates, National Geographic,
and Newsweek. He co-authored the books Nurse:
A World of Care and Impact: From the Frontlines of
Global Health and has won the American Medical Association award for journalism.
Michelle Locke (“A Fine, Aged Biomass,” p. 39
and “Briefing,” insert,) writes
frequently for the Associated
Press and national publications about food and agriculture, as well as wine and travel.
Her last article for Bioenergy Connection was “Lobbying for African Bioenergy.”
Steve Pietsch. Ph.D. (“Doing More with Less,”
with Dr. Heather Youngs, p.
22) is an expert in fuels and
chemical process technology
and development. Having recently retired from BP after 30
years in the field, he is focusing on alternative processes to convert raw biological materials into biofuels.
Leonore Reiser, Ph.D. (“Energy from Biomass,” p.
37), is a science educator and writer with a doctorate in
plant biology from UC Berkeley. She is program manager at Breakout Labs, part of the Thiel Foundation.
She has also worked as an outreach coordinator for the
Carnegie Institute of Science, a pathway coordinator
for the UC Berkeley Biology Scholars Program, and as
a lecturer in developmental biology.
Laurie Udesky (“Europe Charts a New Path” p. 34)
has reported on health, social
welfare, and public policy for
more than 15 years for such
outlets as the New York Times,
National Public Radio, and Salon.com. She’s won a number of national and regional
honors for her work, including awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Sidney Hillman Foundation, and the Association of Health Care Journalists.
She also harbors a secret obsession with neuroscience.
Chris Woolston, M.S. (“Tough Characters,” p. 8)
is a freelance writer and editor who specializes in science,
health and travel. A reformed
biologist, Woolston says, he
studied algae and nitrogen
dynamics in Antarctic lakes before the Science Writing
Program at UC Santa Cruz propelled him out of the lab.
He is a former staff writer for Time Inc.’s Hippocrates
magazine, author of the late “Healthy Skeptic” column
for The Los Angeles Times, and co-author of Generation
Extra-Large. He lives in Billings, Mo., with his wife –
novelist Blythe Woolston – and their two children.
David Zilberman, Ph.D. (“Water as a ‘Wicked
Problem’,” p. 4, co-written with
Eunice Kim) is an economist
who has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the
USDA, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Environmental Protection
Agency, among other groups. He holds the Robinson
Chair in the Department of Agriculture and Resource
Economics at the University of California at Berkeley,
where he co-directs the Center for Sustainable Resource Development and is a policy expert with the
Energy Biosciences Institute.
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
4
cover STORY
Lessons
from the
DROUGHT
p5Water as a "Wicked Problem"
By DRS. David Zilberman and Eunice Kim
p8Tough Characters
By Chris Woolston, M.S.
P15Algae’s Water Problem
By Jim Lane
P19The Promise of Solar Fuels
By Peter Jaret, M.A.
P22Biofuels and H 20: Doing more with less
By Drs. Heather Youngs and Steve Pietsch
P26Renewable Fuel Standard under Fire
By Greg Breining
P27What About a Low-Carbon Fuel Standard?
An Interview with Dr. Madhu Khanna
5
VOL. 2.2
Water as
a "Wicked
Problem"
By David Zilberman
and Eunice Kim
"Water resource management
should be thought of as a wicked
problem. Wicked problems do not
have a single, optimal, one-off
solution. They have a temporary
solution. And it is a solution that
has to change over time in response
to changing circumstances."
—Brian Davidson
Professor of Water Resource
Management, University of
Melbourne
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
6
Did you happen to take a warm, refreshing
shower today – say, for five minutes? If so,
Lawrence Berkeley national Lab estimates
that you used the equivalent of one 60watt bulb burning for 14 hours.
Many people view water and electricity as separate entities, but they are inextricably linked. U.S. thermoelectric power plants account for 41 percent
of all freshwater withdrawals in the country. Now take a guess: How much
water travels through the United States’ power plants each day?
A. One billion liters of freshwater
B. 250 billion liters of freshwater, or as much water as flows through the
River Nile
C. 500 billion liters of freshwater on average
If you said “C,” you’re right. Besides sustaining life on the planet, water is a
giant, invisible cost in almost all power plants. Water is crucial for cooling
spinning turbines, growing biofuel crops and turning them into fuel, and
getting geothermal energy out of the ground. Without it, all our energy
production would grind to a halt.
Oceans
97%
So the connection between water and energy is something we have to take
more seriously, as the summer drought of 2012 reminded us. Although it
may seem practically limitless, nearly all our water is found in the oceans
or polar ice – only 3 percent is freshwater. By 2030, unless we better manage
this vital resource, the world’s population will have an estimated 40 percent
less sustainable water than it needs to withdraw.
Of course, water stress is not spread equally around the globe. Some areas are awash in the life-giving substance while others are nearly always
dry. Water availability is also tied to seasons and random events, such as
floods from excessive rainfall.
Throughout history, one of the major tests of a government has been
how it deals with water uncertainty. Effective governments designed aqueducts and other systems to deal with it – they also created hardware
(such as dams) and more recently, software (such as insurance systems)
to cope with seasonal variability.
Whether we have an enormous water shortfall by 2030, of course, depends on us. But unless things change, some regions are destined for severe water stress. Let’s take a look at the last two droughts to see how
things might play out in terms of food and bioenergy crops.
A tale of two droughts
Surface water
0.3%
Other
0.9%
Groundwater
30.1%
Source: Encyclopedia of
Climate & Weather, Oxford
University Press, 2nd Ed.,
2011; IEEE Spectrum
Glaciers 68.7%
First, consider the most recent drought of 2011-2012 in the United States.
By the end of August 2012, 60 percent of U.S. farms acres were experiencing severe drought conditions, which resulted in the lowest corn yield
since 1995. (This was true even though improved, transgenic varieties
of corn resulted in higher yields than would have occurred otherwise.)
Freshwater 3%
Rivers
2%
Swamps
11%
Lakes
87%
Fresh liquid surface water
7
This, combined with low inventory, resulted in the highest nominal prices
– $8.25 per bushel of corn, a 25 percent increase over 2011 prices and
almost double the price of corn in 2010.
The drought, in fact, increased farm income for U.S. crop producers
as well as the largest crop insurance claims ever received by farmers,
resulting in record earnings. Retail prices for grain and livestock in
the U.S. rose only slightly, with an expected increase of 3 to 4 percent
by mid-2013.
Innovations such as water
conservation, water trading, and
letting some fields lie fallow helped
California survive another recent
drought at relatively low cost. History
suggests that repetition of drought
conditions will spur innovation in
technology and government policy.
However, the scenario was not so optimistic for other countries, since
a drop in U.S. production will reduce food exports and cause a jump in
food prices for consumers around the world. The high food prices of
2008 were a major cause of political instability overseas, and current food
prices are a source of concern in developing countries.
In addition, while field crop producers actually gained from the drought,
livestock and dairy farmers suffered. During the height of
the drought, there was a call to move corn from biofuel to
food production, but that has since subsided. This quiet
after the storm doesn’t mean there are no consequences.
If we are hit by another drought, the lower inventory of
food and livestock will likely push both feed and food
prices to far higher levels. This, in turn, would result in a
public outcry with strong political ramifications for bioenergy.
But history suggests that repetition of drought conditions will also spur innovation in technology and
government policy. Take the California drought of
1987-1991. The state’s farms relied on irrigation,
whose water comes from rainfall and snowfall from
the Sierras through a canal system. During this
drought season, rainfall was down 40 to 80 percent.
The states’ farmers soldiered on as if nothing had
happened during the first two years of the drought,
VOL. 2.2
but water stocks plunged. In the third year of the drought, water
shipments to farmers were cut by 50 percent, and farmers responded
by letting some lands lie fallow, increasing groundwater pumping,
and conserving water.
All this helped compensate for the lost water supply. In the fourth year
of the drought, water stocks were so low that the government made a
radical policy change – introducing water trading in the form of a “water
bank.” After the taboo on water trading was broken, farmers with lowvalue crops could trade water to those growing crops with a higher value.
This led to a water reform policy that allocated 10 percent of water from
agriculture to go to environmental use.
All these innovations allowed California to survive a severe drought at
relatively low cost – less than that of the hailstorm that undermined the
citrus crop in 1992. In addition, the water crisis of 1991-92 triggered
drastic policy reform that forever changed the way water is managed
in California.
The story of the two droughts suggests that we can avert some of the
harmful impact of water crises. In the case of California, irrigating fields
more efficiently, conserving water, and cutting back on residue pollution
allowed agriculture to thrive under harsh conditions.
The drought next time
Similarly, new strategies could expand the resource base available to agriculture and take pressure off food production, especially during periods
of stress. Financial mechanisms such as “options” could assure food secu-
Approximately 88% of corn
grown in the U.S. is within an
area experiencing drought.
Reflects July 17, 2012 U.S.
Drought Monitor data.
U.S. CORN AREAS EXPERIENCING DROUGHT
Source: USDA Agricultural Weather Assessments
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
8
rity for vulnerable groups, as could suspending
biofuel mandates for food-based energy crops
during a food crisis. Other ideas, which are
explored in this special series on the drought,
include:
• Giving incentives to farmers and industry to
research technologies that help food crops
better withstand adverse conditions
• Developing or investing in drought- and salttolerant energy crops
• Growing biofuels on marginal lands
• Using marginal water, including wastewater,
for biofuel feedstock
• Reducing water use in all phases of biofuel
production
• Investing in artificial photosynthesis, even if
it is years away from common use
Finally, water and energy should be placed
squarely on the same policy “grid.” We will not be
able to slake our thirst for energy – or water – until we do. n
References
“Great Plains Farmland Surges as Crop Rally Tops
Drought Loss,” Businessweek. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-15/great-plains-farmlandsurges-as-crop-rally-tops-drought-loss, Nov. 15, 2012.
David Zilberman, Ariel Dinar, Neal MacDougall,
Madhu Khanna, Cheril Brown, and Frederico Castillo.
“Individual and institutional responses to the drought:
the case of California agriculture.” Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 121, no. 1: 3,
2011.
Ligia Vado and Barry K. Goodwin. “Analyzing the Effects of Weather and Biotechnology Adoption on Corn
Yields and Crop Insurance Performance in the US
Corn Belt.” In Agricultural & Applied Economics Associations 2010 AAEA, CAES & WAEA Joint Annual
Meeting, pp. 25-27, 2010.
“Watt about Water?” Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratories, http://homeenergysaver.lbl.gov/consumer/happen-water, Accessed Jan. 29, 2013.
“The Energy-Water Nexus,” Sandia National Laboratories. http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/nexus_
overview.htm, 2012.
“Water vs. Energy,” IEEE Spectrum, June 2010.
Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, Oxford University Press, Vol.2, 2011.
“Charting Our Water Future,” 2030 Water Resources
Group, 2009.
“Thermoelectric Power Water Use,” USGS Water Science School, U.S. Geological Survey, 2012.
TOUGH
CHARACTERS
Looking for biofuel
plants that can
survive drought &
other harsh conditions
9
VOL. 2.2
By Chris Woolston
Illustration by David Dudley
With its crown of pink blossoms, the humble Seashore Mallow may look
unassuming, even delicate. But when it comes to brutal environments, this
seaside shrub is no pushover.
Seashore mallow can survive one drought after another. It’s a perennial. And
it feels right at home in soil so salty it would kill most food crops. Perhaps
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
10
aiming for harvests of sweet corn, cattle feed or
corn intended for ethanol, some farmers ended
up with little more than dead plants and hefty
insurance claims.
Nonetheless, Midwest researchers are working on drought-resistant corn, and along with
California and the Southeast, the region is Grassoline Central for many scientists and farmers working on cellulosic biofuels – renewable
“green” fuels made not from food like corn but
from the stalks and leaves of woody plants. If
you drove around certain parts of the Midwest
this summer, you might have seen patches of
energy grass or tall, green sorghum flourishing
amid the ruined corn and soybeans.
Midwest corn field during drought of 2012
(Photo: Michael Smith/Dreamstime.com)
most importantly, it has oil-rich seeds that
could someday become an important source of
Giant Miscanthus (Miscanthus x
giganteus)
Any variety of grass that can grow more than 12
feet tall is bound to get some attention. When
that plant can reach such heights on farmland
with no fertilizer, it’s a potential game-changer.
Of all of the grasses that have been suggested
as a lignocellulosic source of biofuel – that
is, biofuel made from the woody cell walls of
plants – miscanthus seems to hold particular
promise, says Dr. Evan DeLucia, head of the
Department of Plant Biology at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
At the same time, biofuel researchers are investigating energy crops that can thrive in soils
that have been flooded or inundated by seawater – something particularly important as sea
levels rise. Candidates include shrubs accustomed to sea spray, such as the Seashore Mallow, along with salt-tolerant grasses and even
trees. (See the sidebar on page 13 for more on
research on Seashore Mallow and other saltresistant plants.)
As DeLucia explains, miscanthus has many appealing features beyond its prodigious height.
As a sterile hybrid, it doesn’t produce viable
seeds, which means it’s not likely to invade
neighboring fields. The plants in Illinois seem to
be largely resistant to local insects and disease.
Importantly, it doesn’t seem to require nitrogenbased fertilizers, a major source of groundwater
pollution, and nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. “There are plots in England that have
been growing for 15 years without any added
nitrogen,” DeLucia says.
Climate change, in short, points to an urgent
The reason: Many perennial grasses, like
If you drove around the Midwest this summer, you might have seen
green patches of energy grass or sorghum flourishing amid the
ruined corn and soybeans.
biodiesel. No one yet knows if Seashore Mallow will actually produce a reliable, affordable
fuel. But many researchers believe that the future of biofuel will rest largely on such plants,
which – like agave, sorghum, miscanthus, and
prairie cordgrass – are rugged enough to withstand an increasingly harsh climate.
premise: Biofuel plants of the future should be
hardy, easy to grow, and full of energy potential,
but they also need to be grown more efficiently
and with fewer resources. This means looking
at the earth’s abandoned, degraded, or marginal
land – land which, in many cases, is too arid or
saline to grow traditional food crops.
From the hurricane-battered East Coast to
the drought-stricken Midwest, 2012 was a reminder that bioenergy crops of the future may
need to withstand unusual floods and droughts.
Just look at what happened to corn, the country’s source of bio-ethanol: From Kansas and
Nebraska to Illinois and Indiana, cornstalks
withered in blistering heat under blue skies that
rarely even hinted at rain. Whether they were
Some of these advanced biofuel crops have
never really been systematically cultivated before, raising questions about optimum breeding,
planting, and harvesting. But researchers see opportunity in that uncertainty. Here’s a look at a
few especially tough plants that show promise
as advanced biofuel sources:
miscanthus, funnel their minerals and carbohydrates during the winter months to underground stems called rhizomes. “At harvest
time, the leaves are essentially paper,” he says.
Harvesting biomass during the winter months
allows the plants to hold on to large amounts of
minerals, reducing or eliminating the need for
fertilizer, he explains. (As the rhizomes get bigger, they sequester increased amounts of carbon
over time.)
Perhaps most important of all, miscanthus is
hardy enough to withstand periodic drought –
including the drought of 2012. “We had an accidental experiment that summer,” DeLucia says.
While the hot, dry summer stunted the growth
11
VOL. 2.2
of native prairie grasses and nearly wiped out
the corn on experimental plots, the stands of
miscanthus actually put on more biomass in
2012 than in previous years. “Miscanthus was
the clear winner,” he says.
In theory, miscanthus’s combination of size
and toughness could prove quite valuable in
the energy markets of the future. In a study
published in a 2011 issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, DeLucia and colleagues used computer models to estimate
the potential benefits of growing miscanthus
instead of corn for ethanol. According to the
models, replacing just 30 percent of the least
productive ethanol corn crops with miscanthus could increase ethanol production by 82
percent while reducing greenhouse gasses and
dramatically improving groundwater by cutting back on nitrogen pollution.
But miscanthus has some drawbacks, too. It
grows from rhizomes that have to planted one
by one, at least in the first year; this is unusually time consuming and expensive. The biggest problem: Although there are some plans
in the works, there is currently no facility in the
United States ready to turn stalks of miscanthus – or any other lignocellulosic material –
into ethanol on an industrial scale. “When that
market becomes available, miscanthus should
really take off,” DeLucia says.
Prairie cordgrass ( Spartina
pectinata ) and switchgrass
( Panicum virgatum )
Miscanthus isn’t the only energy grass causing
a buzz in the biofuel world. Prairie cordgrass,
a hardy grass that grows up to nine feet tall in
the marshlands and tidal flats of North America, Europe and Asia, is certainly worth a look,
too, says D.K. Lee, Ph.D., an assistant professor
of crop sciences at the University of Illinois. It
combines some of the drought resistance of
miscanthus with some of the salt tolerance of
Seashore Mallow. It can also withstand relatively cold temperatures, so much so that it could
possibly take hold in Canada. For now, Lee says
that it shows the most promise for lands that
are prone to frequent flooding. Although it can
Switchgrass in field on Energy Farm in Urbana, Illinois (Photo: University of Illinois)
withstand a good dry spell, he says, it’s unusually
well-equipped to grow in water-saturated soils.
Another energy grass – switchgrass – has been
growing on America’s plains and prairies for
thousands of years. By necessity, it has evolved
to withstand extremes of temperature, wind,
and most of all, periods of drought. “It’s highly
adapted to the prairie, where moisture is scarce,”
says Fred Allen, Ph.D., professor of plant sciences at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
As Allen explains, switchgrass has an extensive
root system that can draw water from the soil.
Like cordgrass and miscanthus, it also uses C4
carbon fixation, trapping four carbon atoms instead of three – a metabolic strategy that helps
it save water.
Like miscanthus, this native grass reaches impressive heights. The lowland variety that grows
in Tennessee and other areas of the south averages about nine feet, but Allen has seen some individual plants that reached over 13 feet – all of
which can add up to some serious biomass. Allen
says an acre of lowland switchgrass can produce
six to eight tons of biomass in one harvest, and
that’s on relatively marginal land. Fertile land
could yield up to 14 tons. “I think switchgrass
could compete with miscanthus in terms of tonnage in our type of climate,” Allen says.
Like many other parts of the country, Tennessee
became a laboratory of extreme weather during
the summer of 2012. “We had days that were
over 100 degrees in June, and there was very
little rain,” Allen says. While fescue grass quickly
turned brown as a biscuit in the Tennessee heat,
he says, switchgrass stayed green. “The drought
definitely reduced the yield,” he says, “but not
nearly as much as it did for corn.”
Agave
The deserts of the American Southwest may
not seem like a promising place to raise biofuel
feedstocks – or much else for that matter. But
some plants feel right at home here. Members of
the agave family naturally thrive in landscapes
that are too hot and too dry for most forms
of agriculture. This is partly because the agave
plant has a metabolism that cuts down on water loss. Know as CAM (Crassulacean Acid Metabolism) photosynthesis, the process lets agave
absorb carbon dioxide during the cool night-
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
12
in Mexico, Africa and other parts of the world
where agave was raised for natural fibers. That
industry has collapsed after the introduction of
certain synthetic fibers, perhaps opening the
door for a new industry. “That land could be
reclaimed and repurposed for biofuel,” Davis
says.
Meanwhile, Daniel Tan, Ph.D., a researcher and
plant physiologist with the University of Sydney, is growing test plots of agave in the deserts of Australia. His recent study, published in
Energy and Environmental Science, have found
that agave can produce five times as much energy (in the form of ethanol) as it takes to grow
it. He has also pointed out that his agave doesn’t
need to be irrigated, “and in the rainy season it
grows very fast.”
Agave plant in New Mexico (Photo: Scosens/Dreamstime.com)
time and store it to use in photosynthesis in the
daytime. During the heat of the day, agave keep
their stomata, or the openings in their leaves,
tightly closed, thus saving an enormous amount
of water.
Agave is perhaps best known as the plant that
gives us tequila, a liquor made from the sugar
ethanol from 5.5 kilograms of the sugary stems,
which are called piñas. Theoretically, a tequilaprocessing plant processing 400 metric tons of
piñas every day could produce 61 million liters of 100 percent ethanol in a year. And that
doesn’t include the millions of liters of secondgeneration fuel that could be produced from
leftover leaves.
Agave thrives in landscapes that are too hot and
too dry for most forms of agriculture, in part
because its metabolism cuts down on water loss.
that collects in the base of the stems; it is also
grown for fiber. But in the future, the plant
could be used not only to make tequila but to
produce the same alcohol in a different way
– the kind that fuels cars, not college parties.
The process of distilling fuel-grade ethanol
from agave is essentially the same as the process
for distilling tequila, says Sarah Davis, Ph.D.,
assistant professor of environmental studies in
the Voinovich School for Leadership and Public
Affairs at Ohio University. As Davis and colleagues reported in a 2011 issue of GCB Bioenergy, it’s possible to obtain a liter of 40 percent
Agave plants have an amazing ability to build up
biomass in less-than-ideal conditions. Previous
studies have found that the species A. tequilana
can produce impressive yields of 26 metric tons
of biomass per hectare per year in semiarid regions of west central Mexico, and that’s without
any extra irrigation.
Davis is currently growing experimental plots
of three agave species southwest of Phoenix and
is investigating the possibility of growing the
plants in less obvious places, including northern California. But as Davis points out, there are
already roughly a half-million hectares of land
Sorghum
The dry, hot midwestern summer of 2012
proved one thing: Sorghum is one tough plant,
especially compared to corn and other common crops. “Driving around Nebraska, everything was about half dead,” says Dr. Ismail
Dweikat, associate professor of agronomy and
horticulture at the University of Nebraska –
Lincoln. “If you saw anything green, it was sorghum.”
Sorghum comes in many different varieties.
Sweet sorghum, a crop commonly grown on
marginal land in the tropics, produces both
grain and syrup, the latter of which often ends
up in either sorghum “molasses” or alcoholic
beverages. Grain sorghum is grown in semiarid regions of Africa and elsewhere, including
patches of the American Midwest. Sorghum
grown in the Midwest is often used to feed
cattle.
Both sweet sorghum and grain sorghum are already increasingly important sources of biofuel.
Dweikat notes that a bushel of grain sorghum
can produce just as much ethanol as a bushel of
corn – about 10.2 liters. But grain sorghum requires only about one-half to two-thirds as much
water. “As long as you get 15 inches of rain a year,
it doesn’t need any additional irrigation,” he says.
continued on page 14
13
VOL. 2.2
Salt-Resistant Plants:
Biofuels for Cropland Tainted by Saltwater?
Ocean flooding, rising sea levels, and even long-term irrigation have left some
cropland too salty to farm. But salt-tolerant plants like Seashore Mallow may
offer new hope for reclaiming them.
Growing to about 6 feet tall and almost as wide, Seashore Mallow
(Kosteletzkya pentacarpos) grows wild along sea cliffs and the marshy
coastline from New England to the Gulf of Mexico. The pink, hibiscuslike blooms make it attractive for landscaping, but biofuel experts are far
more interested in another part of the plant. The seeds, which are up to
20 percent oil, are a potential source of biodiesel. “It has roughly the same
oil content as soybeans, maybe a little bit more,” says Jack
Gallagher, Ph.D., professor of marine biosciences and codirector of the Halophyte Biotechnology Center at the University of Delaware.
If sea levels keep rising – or if hurricanes becomes stronger and more
frequent – Seashore Mallow could prove to be an important safety net. “I
see Seashore Mallow as a way for these lands to retain their agricultural
value,” Gallagher says.
At one time, there was also hope that Seashore Mallow’s fibrous stems –
or the lignocellulosic material, as it’s called in biofuel
circles – could be refined into ethanol, but Gallagher
says that it might actually be better used for another
purpose: kitty litter. The material is incredibly absorbent—up to nine times more absorbent than clay litter.
“It could turn out that kitty litter ends up subsidizing
the [Sea Mallow] biodiesel,” Gallagher says. “Maybe it
won’t need as many subsidies as other forms of biofuel.”
Seashore Mallow has few known pests or diseases. Its real
promise, however, lies in its amazing ability to tolerate salt.
In one dramatic example, plants growing in Gallagher’s test
plots in Delaware were essentially unfazed by flooding and
surges of seawater from Superstorm Sandy. As Gallagher
And it’s not just farmers close to seashores who could
explains, the plant has cellular pumps that excrete sodium
benefit from salt-resistant energy crops. One to 2
before it has a chance to interfere with the enzymes inside
percent of irrigated lands are also lost to salinization
the cell. The plant can typically grow in water with a sodium
each year, according to Drs. Heather Youngs and Chris
content of up to ten parts per thousand, or about 1/3 the
Seashore Mallow flower
Somerville of the Energy Biosciences Institute. They
salinity of seawater. He and his team have found that some
report that research on salt-tolerant species such as
specimens from North Carolina and Texas could withstand
water containing twice as much sodium – 2/3 the salinity level of seawater. prairie cordgrass “could be useful in bringing these lands back into production, as well as improving salt tolerance in other crops.” They also notGallagher argues that Seashore Mallow could help reclaim cropland now ed that a recent estimate predicted planting salt-tolerant trees on nearly
useless after being tainted by ocean flooding in Delaware, Maryland, the a billion hectares of saline land could produce 5 to 11 percent of global
Carolinas and elsewhere. He also believes that the plant could also po- primary energy consumption annually.
tentially be grown on land in California river valleys that have become
By Chris Woolston
slightly saline after decades of irrigation.
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
14
million hectares of land that farmers in the US
are paid to keep out of production to support
commodity prices – combined with crop residues – could provide enough fuel to meet 65 percent of the demand for gasoline in the U.S.”
Sorghum field on Energy Farm in Urbana, Illinois (Photo: University of Illinois)
In December 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that ethanol made from
grain sorghum at certain green facilities (such
as those that use biogas digestors along with
combined heat and power technology) qualifies as an advanced biofuel under the Renewable Fuel Standard because it would cut overall greenhouse emissions by at least 50 percent
compared with gasoline - a decision greeted
for food during a four-to-five month life cycle.
And there’s enough sugar in the stems to produce 5,600 liters of ethanol, which is about 15
percent less than a comparable hectare of sugarcane that takes 16 months to grow.
While sorghum is popular in Africa and is “the
hottest thing in Brazil,” according to Dweikat, it
definitely has a long way to go. From Nebraska
In the tropics, sweet sorghum is the
only crop versatile enough to produce both
food and biofuel at the same time.
with elation by sorghum producers. This means
that ethanol from grain sorghum could be sold
at a premium. Sorghum is already being turned
into ethanol at plants that also process corn, and
Dweikat predicts that production will increase
in the near future.
Meanwhile, sweet sorghum growing in the tropics fills a unique role. “It’s the only crop that can
produce both food and biofuel at once,” says
Serge Braconnier, an ecophysiologist with CIRAD, an agricultural research center based in
Paris, France. By his estimates, a single hectare
of sweet sorghum can produce six tons of grains
to Asia, many farmers are reluctant to put it in
their fields. “Sorghum is seen a poor man’s crop,”
Dweikat says. “But it was put on earth for a reason. We need a crop that’s suitable for the current environment. And corn isn’t one of them.”
That’s where tough plants come in. About 18 percent of the earth’s surface is semi-arid, including
600 million hectares of former farmland, and in
the United States, farmers are paid to let millions
more lie fallow. As plant chemistry and microbial
biology experts Drs. Heather Youngs and Chris
Somerville of the Energy Biosciences Institute
point out, “Growing perennial grasses on the 13
Of course, figuring out where – and how – to
plant such crops can make a big difference. As
Sarah Davis has pointed out, cutting down forest
to plant miscanthus would contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, for example, but planting
it on former pasture land could result in a net
“sink” of greenhouse gases. Other factors such
as tillage, drainage, and residue removal also
make a difference, she explains. Miscanthus,
for example, needs a relatively large amount of
fresh water in arid zones, so cordgrass might be
a better choice both for arid zones and those
prone to flooding. In regions with more rainfall,
miscanthus is a contender.
If scientists can find ways to turn drought- and
saline-resistant plants into energy on a wide
scale, it just might be possible to fuel the world
without putting too much strain on watersheds
– or competing for farmland or forests. “In a
world were arable land and water are increasingly scarce,” says Tan, “it’s important to find
biofuels that won’t compete with food production for land and water.” n
References
Heather Youngs and Chris Somerville, “Growing Better
Biofuel Crops,” The Scientist, July 1, 2012.
B. Moser, D.M. Seliskar, J. L. Gallagher. “Seashore Mallow (Kosteletzkya pentacarpos) as a salt-tolerant feedstock for production of biodiesel and ethanol,” Renewable Energy. 50: 833-39, 2013.
Sarah Davis, William Parton, Stephen Del Grosso,
Cindy Keough, Ernest Marx, Paul Adler, Evan DeLucia. “Impact of second-generation biofuel agriculture on
greenhouse gas emissions in corn-growing regions of the
U.S.,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, July 1,
2011.
S.C. Davis, R. M. Boddey, B.J. R. Alves, A.L. Cowie, B.H.
George, S.M. Ogle, P. Smith, M. van Noordwijk, M.T.
van Wijk. “Management swing potential for bioenergy
crops,” Global Change Biology-Bioenergy, Jan. 11, 2013.
S. Braconnier, G. Trouche, M. Dingkuhn, “Sweet sorghum: A multiple-purpose crop for water-limited and
low-input systems: a report from the Avia research unit,”
BIOS department, CIRAD, Paris, accessed Jan. 1, 2013.
15
Algae's
Water
Problem
The Lowdown on Algae Biofuels and
Sustainability
Commentary By Jim Lane
VOL. 2.2
Last october, the
National Research
Council over at the
National Academy of
Sciences released a
report on whether
U.S. development of
algae-based biofuel is
sustainable.
The report was commissioned by the Department of Energy to dispassionately wade
through the thickets of rhetoric, hype, flimflam, pettifoggery and general humbug offered
up in the promotion and criticism of algae.
The pans and raves over the years have certainly been memorable. A number of scowling negative reviews would have done American Idol’s
Simon Cowell proud. Conversely, some promotional claims appear to have come directly
out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe where,
one gathers, the Laws of Thermodynamics have
been conveniently suspended.
Enter the NRC.
So, what is algae’s grade - pass, fail, or incomplete? Overall, algae earned an “incomplete.” As
one would expect, in its key finding, the NRC
concluded that it was not possible to sustainably produce 10 billion gallons of algae biofuels
today.
“Algal biofuels are not quite ready for primetime,” said NRC co-author Joel Cuello of the
University of Arizona in a prepared statement.
“To produce 10 billion gallons of biofuel, you’d
need about 33 billion gallons of water. That is a
huge concern.”
Photo Credit: Mark Bosker
©Copyright Los Angeles Times,
2009. Reprinted with permission.
Algae being turned into biofuel in production facility in San Diego, Calif.
The report does sound a hopeful note, however.
According to the NRC, “The committee does
not consider any one of these sustainability
concerns a definitive barrier to sustainable development of algal biofuels because mitigation
strategies for each of those concerns have been
proposed and are being developed.”
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
16
The strategies under development today include the use of saltwater (or brackish) algae biofuels and heterotrophic algae (algae that can grow on sugar in the dark). These are precisely the
paths taken by all six industry giants — Solazyme, DSM-Martek,
Algenol, Aurora Algae, Live Fuels, and Sapphire Energy. In fact,
all six companies came to many of the same conclusions as the
NRC report, years ago.
So did Dr. Nigel Quinn and colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory and the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC
Berkeley. Their 2010 analysis, sponsored by EBI and cited in the
NRC report, concluded that it was not cost-effective to produce
microalgae biofuels without major advances in technology.
According to a UC San Diego press release, the NRC report
also suggested that algae biofuels might be limited by fresh water because no published research study had demonstrated the
feasibility of using engineered marine species of algae. But last
November, scientists genetically engineered marine algae and
demonstrated that saltwater algae – like freshwater algae – can
produce enzymes key to biofuel production.
“Once you use ocean water to
grow algae for biofuels, you
are no longer limited by the
constraints associated with
fresh water.”
– Dr. Stephen Mayfield, UC San Diego
“What this means is that you can use ocean water to grow the algae that will be used to produce biofuels,” Dr. Stephen Mayfield,
a professor of biology at UC San Diego, told reporters. “And once
you can use ocean water, you are no longer limited by the constraints associated with fresh water. Ocean water is simply not a
limited resource on this planet.”
A hard look at sustainability issues
No matter what position you take on algal biofuels, there’s definite value in the report’s pages – and, overall, in the consideration of sustainability in algae. There are five areas of “major”
sustainability concern as raised in the NRC report. They are water, nutrients, land use, return on energy investment, and greenhouse gas emissions over the life-cycle of algal biofuels.
Let’s compare how the NRC looks at identified concerns with
how the algae industry views them (courtesy of the Algae Biomass Organization):
Top, marine algae on the seashore (Stephanie Kuwasaki/iStockphoto); middle, algae used to
produce biofuels (Tan Kian Yong/Dreamstime.com); and bottom, a Diamond DA-42 aircraft
powered by algae biofuel (Steve Mann/Dreamstime.com)
The Algae Biomass
Organization’s
view
Worth
noting
Producing 1 liter of algal biofuel is estimated to use up between
3.15 and 3,650 liters of freshwater, depending on the growth
and processing methods used. For comparison, about 1.9 to 6.6
liters of water are used to produce one liter of petroleum-based
gasoline from crude oil or oil sands.
Use of saline, waste water/ nonpotable or recycled water is essential
to commercial algae production.
According to a Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory report, algal
fuels grown in saline water from
existing aquifers and recycling
nutrients would be able to provide
up to twice the goal for advanced
biofuels set under the Renewable
Fuel Standard.
There are four companies using algae-based
technology that are moving closer to commercial scale at the moment: Solazyme, Sapphire
Energy, Aurora Algae and Algenol. Solazyme
uses a closed system and no sunlight, growing
algae in the dark. Sapphire Energy, Aurora
Algae and Algenol use only brackish or saltwater to grow their algae, although freshwater is
required for biofuel production.
Nutrients
Meeting 5 percent of U.S. transportation fuel needs with
algal diesel could use 6 million to 15 million metric tons
of nitrogen, and 1 million to 2 million metric tons of
phosphorus if the nutrients are not recycled. That represents
44 to 107 percent of total nitrogen use for U.S. agriculture,
and 20 to 51 percent of the total phosphorus use. Heavy use
of fertilizers can increase both groundwater pollution and
harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
Nutrient recycling and efficient use of
resources are essential to achieving the
positive techno-economics of energy
production and producing a low
carbon fuel. As the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory points out, algae
companies can reduce their nitrogen
fertilizer consumption by 98 percent
and phosphorus fertilizer by more than
40 percent with recycling.
The NRC scenario is based on harvesting all
the algal biomass -- and ABO rightly points
out that nitrogen and phosphorus recovery is
essential in those scenarios. But there’s another
option. No-Kill Biofuels systems, such as Algenol’s, capture secretions from the organisms.
This keep nutrients in the system.
Land Use
Algal biofuel production facilities can be located on non-arable
land — a significant advantage over biofuels made from land plants,
which may compete with food crops for farm land. However, there
are several important factors to consider when siting potential algal
biofuel facilities, including topography, climate, and proximity to
water and nutrient supplies. Finding large enough areas of suitable land could limit the expansion of algal biofuel production.
The industry group agrees finding land
that’s appropriate for algae cultivation
is an important consideration. The
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
recently reported there are more than
11,588 suitable sites in the United
States for open pond cultivation.
How big is a site? To produce around 100 million gallons (using 7000 gallons per acre per
year -- a figure that Algenol has achieved in
outdoor settings and normal operating conditions today) would require about 22 square
miles per site. That’s just about half the size of
Walt Disney World.
The committee found that energy return on investment
ratios for various algal biofuel production systems described
in the published literature ranged from about 0.13 to 3.33.
An energy return on investment of less than one indicates
that the amount of energy needed to produce the fuel is
greater than the energy contained in the fuel, a situation
that is clearly unsustainable.
Industry leaders are already achieving the
NRC report’s proposed benchmark for
Energy Return on Investment, or EROI. This
consists of 3x (3 units of energy produced
per unit of energy input) in current algae
biofuels production. They’re doing so by
recycling nutrients, producing biomethane
from residual organics, and engineering
designs that minimize energy use.
Energy return calculations always should be
considered in context. For example, if you use
three units of wasted process heat and steam
(vented into the atmosphere by an industrial
plant) to produce one unit of transportation
fuel - that’s a good use of energy even though it
might look like an Epic Fail on EROI.
Algae take up carbon dioxide via photosynthesis, helping
offset a portion of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released during algal biofuel production
and when the fuel is burned. To be a viable fuel alternative, algal biofuel would have to offer net greenhouse gas
emission benefits during production and use relative to
petroleum-based fuels.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s life-cycle analysis found
that algae-based diesel reduces
greenhouse gas emissions by at
least 50 percent and so qualified it
as an Advanced Biofuel under the
Renewable Fuel Standard.
Because algae need carbon dioxide, they
could be used as a biological carbon
capture device. Southern California Gas
Company is working with Scripps Institute
of Oceanography at UC San Diego to use
algae as a way to reduce CO2 emissions
from natural gas power plants.
Water
The National Research
Council's Concern
Energy Return on
Investment (EROI)
VOL. 2.2
Greenhouse gas
emissions life cycle
17
Water lost from evaporation, for example, is a problem for both
freshwater and saline ponds. In addition, salinity tends to build
up in saltwater ponds, which generally require adding large
volumes of freshwater or purging to maintain water quality.
In some cases, companies using photobioreactors also need to
use a lot of water to keep the algae temperature within an optimal
range. “Under some circumstances – say, in a desert environment – photobioreactors heat up swiftly and companies have to
use water to cool the pipes so the algae continue to thrive. In those
cases, they may use as much water as an open pond,” says Dr. Nigel
Quinn of LBNL and EBI.
Solazyme, in fact, launched its first pilot program for biodiesel last November, collaborating
with Propel Fuels to sell its algae-based Soladiesel in California. The fuel, a 20 percent blend of
algae diesel in fossil diesel, was priced the same
as regular diesel and sold at Propel pumps in
Berkeley, Oakland, Redwood City, and San Jose.
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
18
Solazyme and Propel Fuels brought algal
biofuels to retail pumps for a month-long
pilot run in 2012
(Photo: Propel Fuels/Solazyme)
For algae biofuels to be sustainable, the tiny organisms have to produce
fuel before getting gobbled. Many micro-predators love nothing more than
a feast of algae.
The bottom line on algal
biofuels
NRC spokespeople have repeatedly said their conclusions are not a “show stopper” for algal biofuels.
“Faced with today’s technology, to scale up any
more is going to put really big demands on ...
not only energy input, but water, land and the
nutrients you need, like carbon dioxide, nitrate
and phosphate,” Jennie Hunter-Cevera, a microbial physiologist who headed the committee
that wrote the report, told Reuters. “Algal biofuels is still a teenager that needs to be developed
and nurtured.”
And nurturing is exactly what the algae biomass
association is aiming to do.
“With more than 150 companies and more
than 60 labs and research facilities continuing to innovate the industry, and with precommercial facilities coming online in 2013,
there’s no doubt that algal fuels will only be-
come more economically and environmentally
sustainable,” insist the ABO researchers. “And
researchers will have more current and accurate data sets from which to make projections.”
Hopefully, these data sets will include a number
of areas concerning sustainable algae biofuels
that were largely left out of the report.
Heat is one such challenge. Closed systems generate a lot of it, and by most reports the engineers are having a tough time dissipating the
heat before it kills off the algae, thus shortening the growth cycle. This poses a greater overall threat to No-Kill systems such as Algenol’s,
which derive their superior economics from
keeping algae alive for longer periods, but it remains a concern overall.
The other? Defense against predators. To make
algae biofuels sustainable, the tiny plant-like
organisms have to produce fuel before getting
gobbled. You’d be surprised how many micro-
critters love nothing more than a feast of algae.
Defending algae against predators like rotifers,
bacteria, and ciliates is an unfinished task across
all open systems where microbial pests, viruses,
predators and competitors can emerge. Which
makes the interesting point that one of the keys
to exploiting algae as a feedstock for energy is
the important task of protecting it. OriginOil
has filed a patent application for Algae Screen, a
process that uses electromagnetic energy to target invaders. Such protection is a highly sustainable farmer’s way to look at the world – defend
thy crop with all you have, and you may have a
resource to sustain you.
Depending on how industry deals with sustainability issues, biofuels from algae could be
an important part of our future renewable fuel
system. The next decade will be the real test as to
whether the technology falls victim to the naysayers or emerges as a real contender. n
References
D. Ryan Georgianna, Michael J. Hannon, Marina Marcuschi, Shuiqin Wu, Kyle Botsch, Alex J. Lewis, James
Hyun , Michael Mendez, Stephen P. Mayfield, “Production of recombinant enzymes in the marine alga Dunaliella tertiolecta,” Algal Research, Nov. 20, 2012.
Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels in the United States, National Research Council, part of the National Academies of Science, 2012.
Tryg J. Lundquist, Ian C. Woertz, Nigel W.T. Quinn,
John R. Benemann, “A Realistic Technology and Engineering Assessment of Algae Biofuel Production” Energy
Biosciences Institute Report, October 2010; cited in the
2012 NRC report “Sustainable Development of Algal
Biofuels in the United States”; also, Digital Commons,
Cal Poly, Oct. 1, 2010.
Mark S. Wigmosta, Andre M. Coleman, Richard J.
Skaggs, Michael H. Huesemann, Leonard J. Lane. “National Microalgae Biofuel Production Potential and Resource Demand.” Water Resources Research. Published
online April 13, 2011.
19
VOL. 2.2
The promise of
arti ficial
photosynthesis
Solar fuel with no net
consumption of water
By Peter Jaret
Trees do it.
Weeds do it.
Even algae in the seas do it.
And now scientists are
trying to do it – to turn
sunlight into fuel through
artificial photosynthesis.
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
20
Record droughts in the U.S. have sparked new interest in using this
potentially renewable resource to power the nation’s transportation.
But creating what is, in effect, a bionic leaf poses formidable challenges.
After all, when it comes to photosynthesis, plants have had eons to perfect their technique. They’ve evolved to gather energy from the sun and
used it to reshuffle the molecules in water and carbon dioxide to create
fuel in the form of a sugar molecule, or carbohydrate. The holy grail of
artificial photosynthesis is to turn the same three ingredients that plants
use – sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide – directly into a cost-effective
transportation fuel.
But though natural photosynthesis serves as the original inspiration, researchers working on an artificial version can’t simply mimic plants to
create a prototype.
“It’s the difference between birds and airplanes,” says Tanja Cuk, Ph.D., an
assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, who is conducting basic research into artificial photosynthesis. “They
both fly. But airplanes don’t work simply by mimicking the movements
of birds.”
For all its challenges, the benefits of artificial photosynthesis, if realized,
would be enormous.
As a renewable energy, artificial photosynthesis could offer several key
advantages over other technologies. Unlike biofuels, artificial photosynthesis doesn’t require arable land, so it wouldn’t compete with food crops – a crucial consideration as
the world’s population grows and the pressure
on water resources intensifies.
Even an artificial photosynthesis system with relatively modest solar
conversion efficiency could provide energy for all the nation’s
transportation needs using
an area of non-arable land
roughly equal to that currently used by the country’s
interstate highway system,
according to Heinz Frei,
Ph.D., a senior scientist at
Lawrence Berkeley National
Labs. Although the process
requires water, it gives off equal
amounts of water, so it is entirely renewable.
“While water is an essential reactant,
it is not needed at high concentrations,”
says Frei, who has been involved in solar
photochemistry and artificial photosynthesis
research for several decades.“It could be in the form
of water vapor no higher in concentration than in typical
air. Also, water is regenerated when the fuel is consumed, so there is no net
consumption of water.”
Solar fuel vs electric cars
Photovoltaic cells can already convert sunlight into electricity, but using
electricity to run vehicles requires a new infrastructure of vehicles and
charging stations. Also, batteries as a source of stored electricity are not
suitable for powering airplanes, ships, or heavy trucks. Artificial photosynthesis, in contrast, can produce a storable and stable fuel that could
theoretically be used for transportation using the existing infrastructure
of airplanes, cars, trucks, and filling stations.
The problem is producing it in a way that is scalable, with components
that can be manufactured using affordable and widely available materials.
In addition, the devices have to be capable of generating fuel on the scale
needed for transportation.
Experts in the field acknowledge that we are still years, even decades away
from filling our gas tanks with solar fuel. The LBNL’s Frei also directs the
Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis’s (JCAP) science-based scale-up
efforts. The goal of JCAP is to have a scalable working prototype within
five to 10 years, but developing systems to produce the most
desirable solar fuel for pipe distribution will require
more time, he says. According to some skeptics,
cost-effective solar fuels may not be ready
for several decades.
To be economically viable, artificial
photosynthesis must be far more
efficient at using sunlight to create fuel than plants. (This may
not be that hard a step, since
some artificial photosynthesis projects can already produce fuel from sunlight up
to ten times more efficiently
than plants.) But the technology, composed of nonbiological
materials,
must also be durable
enough to work
Drs.Tanja Cuk
for years under
and Heinz Frei
the glaring sun
with minimal
Photo Credit:
m a i nt e n a n c e .
Saul Bromberger
And it must be
and
Sandra Hoover
cost-effective to
manufacture on a
large scale.
21
Nanotechnology front and center
Scientists have been pursuing the dream of artificial photosynthesis since
the 1960s. The first proof of concept came in the late 1990s, when researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory demonstrated the world’s first integrated device that converted sunlight into fuel.
That breakthrough demonstrated that artificial photosynthesis
was possible – but not yet practical. The first prototype used
rare earth materials and methods for manufacturing on the
computer chip scale, far from the scale needed to produce
transportation fuel on a national or even global scale. What’s
more, its components disintegrated within hours.
VOL. 2.2
gets are basic fuels such as methane or methanol, which can be
used to replace fossil fuels.
Achieving all that is currently possible – using layered photovoltaics and expensive, rare materials such as iridium
or platinum as catalysts. “Now the challenge is to create little photovoltaics connected to little catalysts on
a nanoscale, and to use materials that are abundant
and scalable,” says Cuk.
In the laboratory where Cuk works at the University of California, behind drapes of heavy black curtains used to protect
scientists’ eyes, lasers shoot high-energy beams of light through
Advances on several fronts – a better understanding of nature’s design
principles and the explosive growth of nanotechnologies – have moved the
dream of artificial photosynthesis closer to reality.
Since then, advances on several fronts have moved the dream of artificial
photosynthesis closer to reality, says LBNL’s Frei.
“First, we’ve seen tremendous progress in understanding natural photosynthesis. Not to mimic Nature, but to take advantage of its design principles. At the same time, the explosive growth of nanotechnologies starting
in the mid-1990s has provided essential new tools. The natural process of
photosynthesis is controlled on a nanometer scale,” explains Frei. “For the
first time, nanotechnology allows us to engineer, control and manipulate
the process of artificial photosynthesis at this critical length scale.”
Recognizing that the time is ripe for progress in the field, the U.S. Department of Energy established the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis in
2010. The Center, an energy innovation hub, brings together scientists from
California Institute of Technology and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Its mission: to develop working prototypes that use widely available
materials that can be scaled up to generate large amounts of fuel from sunlight efficiently and cost-effectively. In October 2012, LBNL broke ground
for a new bricks-and-mortar home for Joint Center’s work, the Solar Energy
Research Center building, which is scheduled to be completed in late 2014.
High hopes, enormous challenges
In one of eight scientific and engineering projects now underway, JCAP
researchers are currently testing a prototype device, about the size of a
laptop computer, which represents a crucial leap over the first proof of
concept. “If you look under the hood, the control is entirely on the molecular and nanoscale,” says Frei. But while the device efficiently converts
sunlight and water into the components necessary for making fuel, it’s still
far from economically viable.
The components of an artificial photosynthesis system are fairly basic.
The process requires a photovoltaic material that absorbs light energy
from the sun. This energy must then be directed to two separate catalysts – one that splits water into protons and oxygen and another that
converts carbon dioxide and protons into hydrocarbons. Because the
two catalytic processes compete for electrical charges, the system requires a membrane to separate the two chemical reactions. Initial tar-
intricate mazes of instruments. These detect how fast excitations of the photovoltaic material get directed to the surfaces of catalysts where chemical
bonds are rearranged. The more difficult task will be to map out, using some
of the same techniques, how these excitations rearrange chemical bonds in
water on the surfaces of different catalysts. Insights from this kind of basic
research, Cuk believes, will be crucial to solving these last remaining challenges.
“I like to use the analogy of the transistor,” she explains. “The scientific
community was able to go from the original vacuum tubes to millions of
tiny transistors in a single integrated circuit due to a good understanding of the principles at work in creating an on/off switch from solid-state
materials. We may not need as new a principle as the p-n junction was
to the vacuum tube. But the insights we can get from basic research into
how highly active catalysts work will help lead us to better nanostructured
solutions for photosynthesis.”
At the Caltech site of the hub, for example, scientists have come up with
a process to develop millions of different variations of possible catalysts
almost simultaneously – each sample of which is as tiny as a pixel on a
screen. Rather than a few discoveries of new catalysts a year, researchers
can now have new candidates every few milliseconds.
Cuk, who received her Ph.D. in physics, shifted her focus to artificial
photosynthesis because of its enormous promise as a renewable energy
source. “I wanted to be involved in research that could make a real difference in the world,” she says. As a Miller Research Fellow at Berkeley, she
worked closely with Frei, who she regards as a mentor.
Today, young scientists like Cuk inspire Frei to hope that, after decades of
slow but steady progress, the development of artificial photosynthesis is
poised to shift into high gear. “That’s what makes this field so exciting,” he
says. “The Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis comes at a moment
when we can start putting things together to see how poorly they work.
That’s the way you improve and get to a viable technology – by seeing
what you need to solve. Fortunately, we have young scientists who are
looking for those solutions, exploring fresh ideas that will hopefully lead
to new designs that we haven’t even thought about.” n
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
22
water
&
biofuels:
Doing more with less
By Steve Pietsch and
Heather Youngs
The drought of 2012 drove home an important lesson: Large-scale agricultural
production for food, feed, and biofuel gets a lot harder when water is scarce.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 60 percent of the continental United
States had experienced moderate to severe drought by the end of the harvest
season in October. While the central plains were hit hardest, other parts of the
country were parched, too. In the South, 2012 marked the third consecutive year
of dry conditions.
The timing and duration of water shortage has profound effects on
food production because the formation of grains (such as corn and
wheat) and other seeds and fruits are particularly affected by water
stress. Water-stressed plants not only grow less, they are also more susceptible to damage from pests and pathogens. Even hardy sources of
next-generation biofuels such as wood and grasses suffer in a drought
of this magnitude.
The drought was especially tough on corn. The 2012 U.S. corn crop
reached almost 10.8 billion bushels, which is down 13 percent compared to 2011 and 27 percent below the early season projections. So
far, at least ten ethanol plants have shut down, at least temporarily, as a
result of the drought. According to Bloomberg, corn ethanol producers
were losing 29 cents per gallon based on contracts for corn in mid-November. Ethanol production fell to 824,000 barrels per day, compared
to 910,000 barrels per day in 2011.
Still, this is far less of a drop than expected. Two possible factors may contribute to continued ethanol production. So far, the demand for ethanol
to blend with gasoline has been steady (90 percent of gasoline in the U.S.
contains ethanol to boost octane). Secondly, prices for distiller’s grains, an
animal feed supplement made during corn ethanol production, have been
high, possibly offsetting some of the losses.
In the face of climate change, drought-tolerant crops have become a
high priority for the major seed producers. Several genetically modified
drought-tolerant varieties of corn first hit the fields in 2011. Decades in the
making, Monsanto’s “DroughtGard” has received the most press, but seed
producers are also in the game. Pioneer, a subsidiary of Dupont, has developed a line called “AQUAmax,” and Syngenta has a brand called “Agrisure
Artesian.” Preliminary results of trials with AQUAmax look promising.
Although Monsanto has not released its data on DroughtGard, the Union
of Concerned Scientists has already come out swinging, contending
that the GM lines are no better than drought-tolerant plants developed
through conventional breeding. It will be interesting to see if resistance to
genetically modified plants will subside if climate change worsens.
23
VOL. 2.2
60% OF U.S.
moderate to severe drought
in 2012
Crop insurance for next generation biofuels?
The next generation of biofuels will largely depend on plants that are very
different from the food crops that withered in the 2012 drought. They will
be grown on different lands and in different regions, and they will have
very different sensitivity to drought and other stresses. Some also have
higher establishment costs and take longer to reach full productivity than
typical annual crops. (See “Tough Characters” on page 8 for more on these
cellulosic energy crops – those made from grasses, wood, or non-edible
parts of plants). Nonetheless, environmental extremes pose a risk to all
types of crops, not to mention farmers and biorefineries.
What might this future look like?
Let’s consider the big picture: In order to produce enough cellulosic ethanol to meet the Renewable Fuel Standard, more than 200 biorefineries
– each consuming 2000 tons per day of biomass feedstocks to produce
70 million gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol – will need to be built by
2022. While this may seem unlikely to many, there are industry insiders
who expect this scale to be reached by 2030, if the current economic and
policy drivers remain in place.
Such ambitious goals will require considerable effort, planning, and foresight. Land owners will need to make multiyear commitments (5-10 years)
to biomass production and will likely demand multiyear contracts from
biofuel producers. This is the current model for biomass electricity production. Long-term contracts mitigate market and capital risks to some
extent, guaranteeing that the biorefinery owner will commit the capital
and buy the crops that the landowner has promised to produce.
-13%
2012
Corn crop
compared
to 2011
So how will this symbiotic relationship respond to a drought-driven crop
failure or any other crop failure? Mitigating risk in the face of environmental disaster is always tricky. In 2012, crop insurance in the U.S. was estimated at $116 billion. AIR Worldwide, a disaster modeling company, has
estimated total crop insurance losses from the 2012 drought at $13 billion
to $20 billion. In February 2011, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced
efforts to develop crop insurance for next-generation feedstocks, but crop
insurance was heavily attacked in Senate hearings on the Farm Bill over
the summer. In light of the current political tensions, insurance programs
for biomass feedstocks will likely have to wait.
Hedging bets
Even if insurance that doesn't require government assistance becomes
available, some unknown degree of risk would still be passed along to
A shortfall of feedstock carries
a severe economic penalty for any
biorefinery owner.
biorefinery operators. While contracts could include such provisions to
protect operators, they may want to hedge their bets by pursuing other
sources of feedstocks. A shortfall of feedstock carries a severe economic
penalty for the biorefinery owner. If less than 50 percent of the expected
feedstock is available, the owner is penalized in two ways. First, the fixed
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
24
Watershed Down
Number of months during the year in which the blue water footprint exceeds blue water availability for the world's
major river basins, based on the period of 1996-2005. (Blue water availability refers to natural flows though rivers and
groundwater, minus the presumed environmental flow requirement.)
Hoekstra AY, Mekonnen MM, Chapagain AK, Mathews RE, et al. (2012) Global Monthly Water Scarcity: Blue Water
Footprints versus Blue Water Availability. PLoS ONE 7(2): e32688. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032688
costs (wages and benefits, taxes, insurance, maintenance, and so on) and
the costs of the capital to build the biorefinery must still be paid. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates these costs to be about $42
million per year for a cellulosic ethanol refinery. This alone adds 60 cents
a gallon to the refining cost.
In addition, refineries operate most efficiently at full design rates. At 50
percent operation, many parts of the plant become much less efficient, if
they can be operated at all. This inefficiency alone can increase costs as
much as 20 percent, potentially adding another 30 to 50 cents a gallon to
the refining cost or raising the total production cost from an expected $2
to $3 dollars a gallon or more.
It is impossible to predict what the profit margins will be in this industry,
but we can speculate. If we assume a reasonable margin of 50 cents a gallon over manufacturing cost, we can estimate a cash profit of $35 million
annually on a production volume 70 million gallons. In a drought year,
production could drop to 35 million gallons, and profit would likewise
be cut in half. Faced with such a scenario, many operators will choose to
simply idle the plant.
If they want to keep their plant running during a shortage, biorefinery
operators may have to rely on alternate feedstock sources. Several alternatives can be imagined:
• Bringing in feedstock from a wider radius with an increase in logistics costs
• Collecting other opportunistic lignocellulosic materials, such as agricultural byproducts (e.g. corn stover or wheat straw)
• Using other types of lignocellulosic wastes (e.g. wood chips or forestry residues)
Each of these possibilities, of course, has a down side. Opportunistic
gathering of forestry or agricultural wastes may involve temporary collection systems, which will be inherently more expensive than the dedicated systems for established crops. Biorefineries designed to process
grassy feedstocks may need significant and expensive retooling to handle forestry residues or wood chips. In addition, over-collection of these
residues can also have negative ecological impacts, including depletion
of soil organic carbon.
Bringing in feedstock from a wider radius will only be possible if appropriate feedstocks are being grown elsewhere. Those distant feedstocks may
supply other local uses. So, in addition to the higher logistics cost for the
greater transportation distance, prices would likely be driven higher by
competitive demand from the grower’s local customer.
Technologies that pack biomass more densely for more economical
transportation and storage or which contribute to flexible processing
could help mitigate these supply chain risks but may also increase costs.
To be on the safe side, owners might want to design agreements to ensure alternate supplies of feedstock. While it is impossible to predict now
how all these options will play out, one thing is clear: This is a highstakes, high-risk game.
Reducing Water Use
in Bioenergy
Water not only affects biomass feedstocks, it is also required to convert
biomass to fuels. It takes 1.5 to 10 gallons of water to process a gallon
of biofuel, similar to the water use for petroleum recovery and refining.
In general, biochemical (fermentation-based) conversion requires more
water than thermochemical methods such as pyrolysis or gasification. At
25
VOL. 2.2
GALLONS OF WATER
150
125
100
75
Conserving Water
Ethanol production "borrows" approximately 3 gallons of water
for every gallon of ethanol. Most of this water is released back
into the atmosphere in the form of steam. A typical 40 million
gallon per year ethanol plant uses on a daily basis about the
same amount of water as an 18-hole golf course.
50
25
1 GALLON
ETHANOL
1 LB
HAMBURGER
1 CAN
FRUIT
1
CHICKEN
1 LB
PLASTIC
1 GALLON
OIL
1 LB
PAPER
1 SUNDAY
NEWSPAPER
For ethanol, a little bit of water goes a long way
Iowa State University Extension/EPS/USGS/Renewable Fuel Association
the biorefinery, water is needed to remove dirt and debris from biomass
before pulping, to deconstruct the biomass to sugars, and in the fermentation process. Product recovery also requires water for distillation towers
and for electricity generation. The biggest use of water is from evaporation in cooling of fermentation vats, distillation columns, and electricity
generators.
There has been a great effort to reduce water use in biofuel production.
For example, corn ethanol plants have evolved to use less than a quarter of
the water they needed two decades ago. More efficient water recovery and
recycling, better water treatment, improved energy efficiency and better
engineering of heating and cooling in refineries all contribute to reduced
water use. New technologies such as air-cooled systems and membrane
separations could reduce water use even further.
Next-generation biofuel feedstocks that are water-efficient, such as agave,
may pave the way for use on semi-arid lands. This can provide farmers in
dry areas with alternative crops that hold soil and do not require irrigation
– something that has both environmental and social benefits. However,
the demand for processing water also needs to be considered – both in
next-generation and traditional biofuel production.
To that end, Diamond Ethanol LLC in Levelland, Texas, and Tharaldson
Ethanol LLC in Casselton, North Dakota are turning to wastewater from
local municipalities. Treating wastewater to the quality needed in the fuel
conversion process is expensive, but it may be well worth it in water-scarce
regions. Almost 15 percent of the water used at the Tharaldson plant is
piped back to Fargo as gray water, where it is re-treated to drinking water
standards. Treating wastewater can provide additional benefits. For ex-
ample, anaerobic digestion of wastewater can produce biogas (biomethane), which can be used for heat and power. It can also provide water suitable for irrigation and an opportunity to recycle mineral nutrients back
to fields.
Water is a unique and essential resource. We must treat it with respect
and be mindful that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for crafting a
sustainable future. Using biomass that is appropriate to regional resource
constraints has to be part of a renewable energy system. By developing
water-efficient biomass feedstocks and efficient process technologies – essentially doing more with less – we have the opportunity to maximize
water availability for food production while achieving the economic and
environmental benefits of biofuels. n
References
Humbird D, Davis R, Tao L, Kinchin C, Hsu D, Aden A et al. “Process Design and
Economics for Biochemical Conversion of Lignocellulosic Biomass to Ethanol.” Golden
(CO): National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Report No.: NREL/TP-5100-47764,
May 2011.
Hamelinck C, van Hooijdonk G, Faaij A, “Ethanol from lignocellulosic biomess: techno-economic performance in short-, middle-, and long-term.” Biomass & Energy 28
384-410, 2005.
Anex R, Aden A, Kazi F, Fortman J et al. “Techno-economic comparison of biomassto-transportation fuels via pyrolysis, gasification, and biochemical pathways.” Fuel, 89
Supp1 S29-35, 2010.
M. Wu, M. Mintz, M. Wang, S. Arora, and Y. Chiu. “Consumptive water use in the production of ethanol and gasoline.” Argonne National Lab Report, 2009 (updated 2011).
For More on Drought-Resistant Energy Crops.....
Please see the following
videos on YouTube:
Agave as a bioenergy crop http://bit.ly/14w7MUq
Sweet sorghum as a biofuel crop http://bit.ly/YEPNL7
Improving the Drought-Resistance of Biofuel Grasses http://bit.ly/VseMNv
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
26
$
usu
RFS
Est. 2005
R e n ewab le
Fuel standard
under fi re
By Greg Breining
27
VOL. 2.2
During last summer’s blistering
drought, meat industry representatives and governors from nearly a
dozen states petitioned the federal
government to ease up on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which mandates the use of renewable fuels,
including ethanol.
But by November, the corn yields looked better than expected and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency dismissed the claims: Any economic harm caused by the Renewable Fuel Standard mandate wasn’t serious enough to warrant a waiver, the agency ruled. On January 25, 2013,
however, a federal appeals court – responding to a challenge from the
American Petroleum Institute – ruled that the EPA had overestimated the
amount of biofuel that could be made from grasses and other non-food
parts of plants. The court vacated the 2012 cellulosic biofuel standard but
affirmed the 2012 advanced biofuel standard.
In a joint statement responding to the ruling, the Renewable Fuels Association and other leading biofuel organizations were cautious. “Although
we disagree with the court’s decision vacating the 2012 cellulosic volumes,
today’s decision once again rejects broad-brushed attempts to effectively
roll back the federal Renewable Fuel Standard.” The debate, however, is
far from over.
Policy supports, especially mandates, for biofuels have always been contentious.
On the one hand, the RFS has helped to create and guarantee a huge demand for renewable fuels, ushering in a thriving U.S. grain ethanol industry that supports farmers and rural communities. Proponents say it
should be sustained or even expanded, perhaps augmented with other
standards to expand the domestic industry for low-carbon second-generation fuels. They argue that mandating renewable fuels is good for both
energy independence and the environment.
On the other hand, opponents say the RFS should be killed or scaled back.
They contend that the RFS has distorted the agricultural commodities
market and threatens to drive up the cost of food, at the peril of the poorest Third World consumers. Opponents also argue the RFS misses the
target on environmental grounds because it makes allowances for firstgeneration biofuels, such as corn ethanol, that do far less than advanced
biofuels to remedy global warming.
In November, the American Petroleum Institute, which represents energy
giants such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, told Congress that the
RFS should be scrapped because it’s not working well and will force higher concentrations of ethanol into gasoline, which they assert can harm
vehicles. Although this appears unlikely, the impacts of the RFS on consumers, the economy, and the biofuel industry itself are still unfolding.
From RFS to RFS2
The federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 created the RFS, which required
that 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel be used in motor vehicles by
2012. Even though it has been interpreted by many to be an ethanol mandate, the RFS was very general. Renewable fuel was defined as
“[M]otor vehicle fuel that is produced from grain, starch, oilseeds, vegetable, animal, or fish materials including fats, greases, and oils, sugarcane,
sugar beets, sugar components, tobacco, potatoes, or other biomass; or is
natural gas produced from a biogas source, including a landfill, sewage
Designing a Low-Carbon Fuel
Standard: An Interview with
Dr. Madhu Khanna
By Greg Breining
What could save Americans $441 billion by 2035, compared to the national energy policy we have now? According to Dr. Madhu Khanna, an environmental economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
and a lead researcher at the Energy Biosciences Institute, it’s a national Low-Carbon Fuel Standard.
Small wonder that Khanna recently joined a team of
scientists from six research institutions to design a new
national Low-Carbon Fuel Standard, which would encourage the development of second generation biofuels
made from grasses, trees, and non-edible parts of plants.
Khanna talks with Bioenergy Connection about how this
standard would use market forces to encourage innovation in “green” fuels.
The Renewable Fuel Standard requires
that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel be blended into the nation’s
transportation fuels by 2022. What’s
the problem with it?
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a technology
standard – it mandates specific quantities of specific
biofuels that should be blended with fossil fuels. As
long as the minimum threshold is met, it leaves it to
the blenders to decide which type of biofuels and how
much of different biofuels to blend.
The RFS sets this minimum threshold, but it does not
create the incentive to produce really low-carbon biofuels. But a Low-Carbon Fuel Standard would actually
reward production of fuels of much lower greenhouse
gas intensity, including energy crops that are sinks of
continued on page 29
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
waste treatment plant, feedlot, or other place where decaying organic material is found; and is used to replace or reduce the quantity of fossil fuel
present in the fuel mixture used to operate a motor vehicle.”
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 both expanded
and further defined the standard. The RFS2 calls for 36 billion gallons
of renewable fuel by 2022. The law also set new categories of fuels, with
separate volume requirements for each, based on life-cycle performance
thresholds. To meet the minimum standard, a renewable fuel will have to
generate at least 20 percent fewer greenhouse gasses than the fossil fuel it
would replace. To qualify as an advanced biofuel, the life-cycle emissions
have to be less than 50 percent of fossil fuel. Cellulosic biofuel was held
to the highest standard, with a 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gasses
required.
Attacks on the RFS2 are nothing new. In October 2011, the Renewable
Fuel Flexibility Act was proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives
by Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Jim Costa (D-CA). The bill, which would
limit the volume mandate based on corn stocks-to-use ratios, was picked
up in the Senate in July 2012. Perhaps the most wide-reaching change was
proposed by Representative Pete Olson (R-TX) in January 2012. His Domestic Alternative Fuels Act would extend the RFS to include alternative
fuels from domestic coal and natural gas. That change plays on the political drivers of energy independence and security but walks away from the
"renewable" limitation completely.
The impact of renewable fuel standards
What have the RFS and RFS2 accomplished? For starters, they have
helped to create a bioethanol industry, which has, in turn, grown the nation’s corn crop. Ethanol consumes a third of the nation’s corn crop. (Actually about 40 percent by acreage, but some byproduct known as distillers
grains comes back as livestock feed.)
While this seems like a big number, it is sometimes difficult to tell what
the effects have been since a lot has happened to corn since the start of
ethanol in the mid-1970s. The yield per acre has risen by 1.6 bushels per
acre per year. The number of corn acres also increased from roughly 75
million in 2001 (a low point in the trend) to 88 million acres in 2010 (a
return to the acreage used for corn production in 1948). Although more
corn is going into ethanol, it has not affected its other uses. Feed corn and
residual use has been steady, fluctuating between 5 and 6 billion bushels
per year from 1992 to 2009. And, with the exception of this drought year,
exports have remained steady, at around 2 billion bushels per year.
Once the corn ethanol industry was created, the effect of the RFS on grain
prices was “modest,” says Bruce Babcock, Ph.D., professor of economics
and Cargill chair of energy economics at Iowa State University. “A lot of
ethanol would have been used by oil companies even without the RFS in
place,” he says. “You can’t have expensive gasoline and cheap corn. Those
two don’t mix.” Some also argue that phasing out of additives like lead and
MTBE have cemented a place for ethanol in the gasoline mixture regardless of any mandate.
But others say the effects have been been more pernicious. In July, even
before the full impact of the Midwestern drought was apparent, Drs. Colin
A. Carter, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California–Davis, and Hoover Institution fellow Henry I. Miller,
argued in an op-ed for The New York Times that the EPA should waive the
mandate. Doing so, they said, would “divert vast amounts of corn from inefficient ethanol production back into the food chain, where market forces
and common sense dictate it should go.”
28
“The combination of the drought and American ethanol policy will lead
in many parts of the world to widespread inflation, more hunger, less food
security, slower economic growth and political instability, especially in
poor countries,” they concluded.
Brian D. Wright, Ph.D., professor and chair of the department of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California–Berkeley, largely agrees. He says grain ethanol, manufactured to meet the RFS2
mandate, has increased the cost of food and animal feed around the
world—not just of corn but of many grains. (Worldwide, grain prices are
tied together because they are grown on the same land or can be substituted for some of the same uses.)
In fact, Wright says, RFS2 not only drives grain prices higher, but causes
grain prices to be more volatile. Under most market situations, as grain
prices rise, buyers such as livestock growers find alternatives and cut back
consumption. But fuel blenders, driven by the RFS2 mandate, take their
full measure of corn-derived ethanol regardless of price, depleting grain
reserves and leaving other consumers to bid up the remainder.
Wright favors non-food sources of biofuel rather than corn or grain ethanol. Measures such as the RFS2, if focused on grain ethanol, “will raise
the price of food for everybody, including lots of people who are way less
wealthy and who spend much more of their income on food. In some
countries, if you raise the price of calories by 30 or 50 percent, that could
be like 15 or 20 percent of your total income. That’s huge," he says.
Several studies seem to contradict opponents’ claim about the effects
of the RFS on corn and animal feed. A study from the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development concluded that over the sample period
from January 2000 to December 2010, the growth in ethanol production
reduced wholesale gasoline prices by 25 cents per gallon on average. An
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development study found
no change in corn prices for 2009-2010, with and without the RFS and the
Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit.
The Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University looked at the economics looked at the economics of cow, calf and
dairy ranches before and after the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) which spurred the RFS2. They found that corn and soy
prices did go up, as did everything else, including fuel, taxes, fertilizer, herbicides and other inputs that affect the cost of production. Overall, feed
costs were only a third of the increase in cost. But that isn't the end of
the story. Ranchers and dairy farmers also sold at higher prices, and incomes increased. For example, the cost of dairy production in California
increased $1.1 million, but cash receipts went up by $1.8 million.
Second-generation fuels gearing up
Unfortunately, RFS2 hasn’t yet unleashed a flood of second-generation
biofuel. Among these are cellulosic ethanol, which by EPA mandates must
cut greenhouse gas emissions 60 percent over its life cycle compared with
the fossil fuel it replaces.
RFS2 set a goal of 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol to be blended
with gasoline by 2022. But that’s 10 years from now. In 2012, the requirement was only 8.65 million gallons. Yet, blenders couldn’t manage even
that small amount, and the EPA provided a temporary waiver credit.
Why? Because on a commercial scale, there is no cellulosic ethanol. The
industry is still trying to scale up. The lack of cellulosic product was highlighted in the Phantom Fuel Reform Act of 2012, proposed in the House
in by Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona in June 2012.
29
VOL. 2.2
continued from page 27
“The goals are way too ambitious in terms of the timeline of bringing on
the billions of gallons of cellulosic fuels,” says Babcock.
For that reason, Babcock is eagerly awaiting the completion of commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants scheduled to come on line soon. Some
will process ag waste; others, wood waste. “I want to see these commercialscale plants—how they’re going to operate, how they’re going to solve the
logistic problems of getting biomass to the plants, what their margins or
cost of production are going to be, how fast the cost of production [will]
come down,” says Babcock. “I think we’re going to learn a lot if these plants
get built in the next 18 months.”
Meanwhile, Wright says direct research support for the cellulosic industry might produce results faster than creating a market—at least until the
industry demonstrates it can produce cellulosic ethanol in commercial
quantities.
A new standard, with teeth?
Madhu Khanna, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois, has
a different view. She supports the RFS2, even as it exists today, as a way to
maintain a market for fuels—even fuels not yet available.
“A requirement for blending biofuels—even if they are expensive—creates a sure demand for biofuels. And that provides some certainty in the
market and for investors. I think that is the biggest advantage,” she says.
“Research and development will go where there’s a likelihood of a market.”
In fact, Khanna would like to see an even stronger RFS2. “By waiving the
RFS, you create uncertainty for cellulosic biofuels. That creates uncertainty about how serious the EPA actually is about having a mandate,” she says.
“It’s not got enough teeth in it, really.”
But, Khanna says, the RFS2 fails to do enough to reward new biofuels that
have a very low carbon footprint throughout their life cycles. That’s why
she would like to see the addition of a Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS),
such as one enacted in California in 2009 (see sidebar).
“From our research it definitely seems to be a way to change the mix of
fuels to meet the RFS. The low-carbon standard can lead to this transition
from first generation to second generation [biofuels]. In addition, it could
reduce the amount of land required for biofuel production and benefit
food consumers as well,” she says.
And, of course, such a standard could reduce biofuels’ carbon footprint.
“People respond to price signals,” Madhu says. “To save the planet, we
need to price the environmental harm caused by human activities.”
One advantage of an LCFS is that it is technology neutral. Where the RFS
defines different categories of fuels and defines volumes, the LCFS in California simply sets a threshold for greenhouse gas emissions. When corn
ethanol from the Midwest did not meet the standard determined by the
California Air Resources Board, the policy came under fire as violating
interstate commerce laws. This left California policy makers, who are trying to meet the requirement of the landmark California Global Warming
Solutions Act of 2006, frustrated.
While a federal LCFS would solve this problem, it seems highly unlikely
we will see changes any time soon, given the current political situation
in Washington. Scientists and economists at the National LCFS project,
funded by the Energy Foundation, have been working hard to change that.
They face an up-hill battle. In 2009-2010, only 3 percent of bills introduced in Congress were enacted. n
carbon. The idea is can we do better than the RFS – not only providing the incentive to produce renewable energy, but also to produce energy that is truly climate friendly.
Could you explain how that would work?
It would be like a cap and trade [emissions trading]. Blenders
could be assigned a particular target for greenhouse gas intensity
for their blended fuel. Then if they do better than that, they could
sell credits to other refiners. Or they could purchase credits from
others. So, each blender could figure out the cheapest way to meet
their target. The intensity would be determined based on the mix
of different types of fuels that they would be blending with the
fossil fuel that they are selling.
So, there would be an implicit price for carbon that would be determined in the market. A Low-Carbon Fuel Standard would implicitly subsidize the consumption of blending of biofuels, so no
government payments are involved.
Would the low-carbon fuel standard replace the Renewable Fuel Standard? Or
supplement it?
We’ve analyzed it both as a stand-alone policy as well as a policy
with the Renewable Fuel Standard. We think it would be beneficial to have it in addition to the RFS. The nice thing about the
Renewable Fuel Standard is that it actually offers an assurance of
demand for certain types of fuels that are very risky – something
that encourages investment.
A low-carbon fuel standard would be a national policy?
Right. Because the problem with having state-by-state or regional
low-carbon fuels standards is that it would just create incentives for
shuffling fuels from one state to another. A national policy would
overcome these obstacles.
Who would set up the regulatory framework?
Congress would have to set in place the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard and say what the reductions should be. There are a number
of things that would need to be determined – how much banking is possible, what percentage of allowances could be banked,
and whether the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard would be applicable
across fuels such as gasoline, diesel, natural gas and so on.
What would American consumers gain from
a low-carbon fuel standard?
First, it would accelerate the transition to second-generation
[non-food] biofuels. It would reduce the pressure on land for biofuel production because these low-carbon second-generation fuels can be grown on [marginal] cropland. It would also contribute
to much greater reductions in greenhouse gas than the Renewable
Fuel Standard alone and result in more fuel conservation. Finally,
it would lead to greater energy security because it will help displace fossil fuels.
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
Credit: Saul Bromberger
30
31
VOL. 2.2
How a mission to Central America in his
teens helped shape George Huber, one
of bioenergy's rising stars
guatemala
ON THE ROAD TO GRASSOLINE
By Elaine Herscher
W
hen he was just 19, George Huber went
on a two-year mission to Guatemala
for his church and was shocked by what
he saw. “I lived, ate, and slept with families who
were mostly in poverty. I thought somebody was
well off if they had a cement floor in their house
instead of dirt,” Huber said. “When I came home
from Guatemala, I thought my family was rich
because we had carpet and two cars.”
Huber, now a Ph.D. and professor of
chemical and biological engineering at
University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes the experience helped to shape
him as a scientist dedicated to bringing
renewable energy to the United States
and to Third World countries in desperate need of alternative fuels. “I still dream
of being able to return to Guatemala and
help improve the people’s lives,” he said.
Huber, 38, is one of the world’s leading
experts in catalytic pyrolysis, a process
to convert biomass (such as switchgrass, cornstalks, even sawdust) into fuel.
Within the next five to 15 years, Huber
and his group hope to replace a high percentage of petroleum with biofuel.
Huber is considered a rising star in the
field of bioenergy. Scientific American
magazine named a discovery he helped
make among the top 50 technology
breakthroughs of 2003. He has published
81 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including three in Science. He has spoken
at two congressional hearings to discuss
the role of chemical engineering in solving the nation’s energy challenges, and
the College of Engineering at University
of Massachusetts at Amherst gave him
an outstanding young faculty award.
Despite his demanding teaching and
research, Huber and his wife Leslie, 36,
are active parents to their four children,
Rachel, 12, Taylor, 10, Sarah Ann, 7, and
Christian, 3. He confesses, with a rueful
grin, that his wife, a writer, finds his research papers so boring that she refuses
to help edit them. But she fully supports
his goal, which is to do nothing short of
revolutionize the way we get our fuel.
Of his colleagues at the Huber Research
Group, he said, “We have four key goals:
Cheap renewable gasoline, cheap renewable jet fuel, cheap renewable diesel fuel,
and cheap renewable chemicals. Everything that you can make from crude oil,
we want to be able to make from biomass
and renewable resources.”
Some researchers are doing fast pyrolysis – the process of rapidly heating plant
material up to 600° C in the absence of
air – to make bio oil, but Huber is doing
it differently. He’s adding a catalyst into
the process. “Our approach is that we add
catalysts into the reactor, and rather than
making a low-quality bio-oil, we make
petrochemicals directly,” he said. The
University of Massachusetts, where until
recently Huber was an associate professor of chemical engineering, has licensed
the technology to Anellotech, a startup
Huber co-founded. The catalyst is Huber’s patented secret, but he has said that
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
32
it is made up of silica and alumina – cheap and
readily available resources.
that are the equivalent to those being manufactured now.
In the laboratory, Huber has had great success.
His pyrolysis process works by first feeding the
plant material into a reactor, where it is heated.
The decomposing plant material turns to vapor,
which is then blended with his patented catalyst
“If you make a new plastic, you have to start a
whole new industry, and it has to get approved
by the vendors,” Huber said. “But if you make a
molecule that fits into the existing infrastructure, it’s a lot easier to get to market.” If large-
“We have four key goals: Cheap renewable gasoline,
cheap renewable jet fuel, cheap renewable diesel
fuel, and cheap renewable chemicals."
that turns the gaseous material into aromatics.
Aromatics are hydrocarbons such as benzene,
toluene, and mixed xylenes – compounds typically found in gasoline. The liquid Huber produces contains these aromatics and could in the
future make up as much as a third of the gasoline we get at the pump.
The aromatics are already sold in a commercial market worth $110 billion a year, mainly to
make plastics. “We’re going to enable beverage
manufacturers like Pepsi to make soda bottles
from renewable resources” rather than petroleum, he says. Huber points out that he isn’t creating a new type of plastic – he’s making plastics
scale production of the biochemicals begins,
his product could even be used to make seat
cushions and car interiors that are now made
from polyurethane.
Huber gets animated when he talks about catalysis or pyrolysis – even refineries. Truth be
told, he loves refineries. “A lot of people think
chemical plants are dirty and they pollute [but]
they’re rather beautiful. Chemical plants are
highly efficient with a minimal amount of pollutants.” He is passionate about cheap renewable
energy, and he clearly loves his work. But if you
told him when he was a kid that he would grow
up to be an internationally renowned innovator,
he might have laughed.
As a youngster in Santa Rosa, Calif., Huber was
not an exceptional student. In fact, he failed
his first chemistry test as an undergraduate at
Brigham Young University. But one day, while
still an undergrad, he passed by a professor’s
lab and noticed a sign on the door seeking a
research assistant. The professor told Huber
that he was working on a project to make liquid fuel from natural gas. From then on, Huber
was hooked. “That sounded like such a cool
project, and I thought, ‘I really, really want to
do that.’” Before long, he realized he had found
his life’s work.
During college, Huber spent a year in Spain
working under Dr. Avelino Corma, research
professor for the Institute of Chemical Technology at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Corma, known worldwide for his work on
catalysis, has published more than 700 research
papers and is the inventor on more than 100
patents. With more than 100 scientists developing new catalytic technologies, Corma’s lab
is one of the largest in the world. While he was
there, Huber spent four or five months working
every day on a paper that is referred to now as
the “bible of biofuels” (see References).
“Several companies have told me that this is
the first article they give to people who work
in the bioenergy field,” Huber noted. “I thought
it would be a waste of time and nobody would
read it.”
Dr. Calvin Bartholomew, who was Huber’s
masters degree advisor in chemical engineering, describes his pupil as “a first-rate, productive, enthusiastic researcher.” Bartholomew
said his young charge was less interested in his
grade than he was in learning and would often
read well beyond the scientific literature that
Bartholomew suggested. Eventually the older
man invited Huber to work in his research
group and he quickly became an asset. “George
has many fine qualities, including a good sense
of humor, an affability and congeniality, that
make him a joy to be with,” Bartholomew said.
In addition to his other skills, Huber plays a
mean piano, he said.
George Huber as a graduate student in 2005 with his professor, Dr. James Dumesic (Photo: University of
Wisconsin/Madison photo library)
Huber was only following his heart when he
went into catalysis research, but he also hap-
33
VOL. 2.2
PROFILE: George Huber
pened to be heading toward the right place at
the right time. “When I started studying biofuels, nobody was studying them. I started in
2000 for my Ph.D. really studying biofuels. And
people thought we were kind of crazy. I had one
guy come up to me at conference and he says,
‘George, what we do is we work with industry,
and industry tells us what problems to work on.’
And I remember people even telling me that if
you want to get into an academic position, don’t
do catalysis.”
In spite of these warnings, Huber persevered.
Between 2000 and 2005 he and his lab developed numerous techniques for making biofuel.
Shortly after, oil prices skyrocketed. In 2004 the
price of oil was $20 a barrel; by 2007 oil prices
shot up to $100 a barrel. “So you saw this four or
five times increase in the price of oil. And now
everybody is working on it. All the people in my
field who criticized me for working on this, now
they’re working on the same problem.”
For Huber, the work paid off. In 2008, Huber
received a multi-million-dollar grant from the
military for his research into biofuels. He welcomed the funding, but was surprised one day
when two men in suits showed up at his office
looking just like laboratory equipment salesmen. At first he was reluctant to talk to them,
but he quickly changed his mind when they
flashed their FBI badges. Apparently, all they
wanted was to make sure that no one was spying on him.
For all his enthusiasm, Huber understands that
getting his biofuel to market will be complicated
and expensive. He estimates that the first plant
built using his technique will cost from $300
million to $600 million. “Commodity markets
are very, very challenging. Fuels are a commodity, renewable resources are a commodity, but it’s
all about money,” he said.
The initial plant will be built in the U.S., he said,
somewhere close to a source of cheap, local biomass to make it cost effective. “Most of these
plants will need 2,000 to 5,000 tons of biomass
a day. And you need to guarantee that you have a
supply of biomass 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.”
One potential site would be wherever there
is – or used to be – a paper mill. The pulp
and paper industry is failing because it’s become cheaper to make pulp in Brazil and
ship it to Maine than it is to actually make
pulp in Maine, he said. Why not revitalize
paper mills in this country for the purpose
of making biomass residue for fuel and at the
same time put thousands of laid-off Americans back to work? Huber is zeroing in on
prove Third World economies,” Huber said. “You
could really see a huge infusion of cash there
where you’re developing these plants, really creating a lot of great jobs.”
In the meantime, Huber’s career and the biomass revolution are flourishing. Huber alone
has received more than $12 million from com-
Huber hopes to revitalize paper mills in the United
States to produce biomass residue for fuel, putting
thousand of laid-off Americans back to work. He
also still dreams of creating renewable fuels in
developing countries around the world.
other feedstock, too. Corn stover – the stalk
and leaves left over after harvesting – is another option.
And Huber continues to ponder his dream
to create renewable resources worldwide.
Outside the United States, there are abundant choices for plants using biomass: South
America and Africa, for example, where there
is plenty of plant life that can be turned into
low-cost biomass.
“I think (production of biofuel) will really im-
petitive research grants. He says he’s fortunate
to have had great mentors and deep support
from the scientific community. “In the academic community we all compete for funds,”
he said, “but it’s actually very supportive of
young researchers and young people as well –
and new ideas.” n
References
Huber, G. W.; Iborra, S.; and Corma, A.; “Synthesis of
transportation fuels from biomass: chemistry, catalysts,
and engineering,” Chemical Reviews 106, 2006.
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
34
Europe Charts
a New Path for Bioenergy
A talk with EUROPEAN experts
Luuk van der Wielen and
Patricia Osseweijer
By Laurie Udesky
35
VOL. 2.2
Last October, a European Commission proposal
suggesting certain changes in Europe’s bioenergy
policies was leaked to the press.
The proposal followed public protests about
rising food prices and grain shortages that critics
linked to the use of food crops for biofuel. Some
scientists had also warned about the potential for
a jump in greenhouse gasses if forests were felled
to plant biofuel crops.
Although the proposed law upheld the EU’s
overall target of 10 percent renewable energy in
transportation by 2020, it limited land conversion
for food-based biofuels such as corn ethanol.
The commission suggested capping food-based
biofuels at five percent while promoting the
development of second-generation biofuels – such
as grasses or straw – which don’t compete directly
with food production.
“For biofuels to help us combat climate change,
we must use truly sustainable biofuels,” declared
Connie Hedegaard, the European Commissioner
for Climate Action. “We are of course not closing
down first-generation biofuels, but we are sending
a clear signal that future increases in biofuels must
come from advanced biofuels. Everything else is
unsustainable.”
For Bioenergy Connection , reporter Laurie Udesky
talked with Netherlands bioenergy experts Luuk
van der Wielen and Patricia Osseweijer of Delft
University about the proposal.
Photo: Andreas Meyer
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
36
Pathway through a European field of rapeseed,
one of the EU’s most common energy crops
photo: Simon Greig/Dreamstime.com
Q. What is driving the European Commission’s proposal to limit first-generation biofuels?
Luuk van der Wielen: “The EU is concerned about the sustainability of feedstock for
biofuels. My feeling is that none of this is entirely a change – it’s just underlining the importance of sustainability once more. We also witnessed exploding food prices for which biofuels
and bioenergy in general were blamed.
eases and drought had major implications for
food prices, and that the relation to bioenergy
was not so large ... But perception is everything.
In that sense, the proposal was a sharpening of
policy in which sustainability is driving. I’m not
quite sure it’s a U-turn in EU policy. It’s a continuation of that policy.”
“Now, we know from the previous two [food
crises] that bioenergy didn’t really play a big
role. It was very clear that speculation, that dis-
Patricia Osseweijer: “In 2010 the member
states in Europe set the directive on renewable
energy: a 20 percent share of energy from re-
Q.
newable sources by 2020 and a 10 percent share
of renewable energy specifically in the transport
sector. Now this has been under debate for the
last few months. It is actually reflecting the discussion on the food/fuel issue. There’s concern
that [renewable energy] cannot be sustainable if
we have to rely on first generation bioenergy for
transport fuels.”
Is the EU Commission's proposal to limit crop-based biofuels to 5 percent of transportation renewables likely to pass?
Luuk van der Wielen: “That’s something
we cannot predict. As far as I know, we’re talking about a leaked report from the EU commission. It’s not yet carved in stone. What the report
does tell you is that we’re not at the end of the
debate yet ... At the end of day, it tells you what
Europeans want is a balanced discussion about
sustainability across all the parameters: climate,
energy, security, and income. And all these things
are interrelated.
“The EU, like everybody else, is looking at what a
bio-based economy could mean. For energy, Europe has some alternatives, including solar, wind,
and bioenergy. But the chemical industry in Europe is the largest worldwide, and there are no al-
ternatives other than bio-based when you change
to renewables. In terms of [renewable] liquid fuels, since you want to drive a car from the north
of Scandinavia to the South of Spain with one
engine, everyone has to agree on certain fuels. So
there are a number of problems to work through.”
Q. Did the commission’s leaked proposal come as a surprise to many people?
Patricia Osseweijer: “I don't think it's
a surprise. Politically, the food/fuel debate in
Europe is filled with a lot of assumptions, halftruths, and causal relationships that are not there.
What I mean is, it’s often mentioned that developing biomass for fuels, energy and materials will
heavily affect food security.
"But food security is dependent on a lot of other
factors, and it's mostly dependent on poverty and
access to food.”
“In fact, there are papers coming out noting that
development of biomass for energy and fuels
could actually provide food security for poor areas that have land available to grow crops. We’re
talking about Africa, for instance, and this is research that Africans themselves are involved in.”
Luuk van der Wielen: “I think what Patricia said about poverty is terribly important. If
there's no income, then there is no food security,
however you cast it, because of the fluctuations
of crops and local markets. For developing coun-
tries, climate is not their primary issue; food security is. And the way to get there is not growing
more crops, but by ensuring income.”
“So, one cannot look at change in EU policy on
biofuels independently of the rest of the world.
Food security is something we should get right. It
needs a high priority and should be a part of the
international collaborations that we have with
U.S., Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. But
it’s still just one part of the equation.”
(Cont'd p. 38)
Energy from Biomass:
The UK’s Energy Research Center Examines the Evidence
By Leonore Reiser
Energy produced from biological matter (biomass) currently provides
about 10 percent of the world’s energy demands. Most experts predict
that the contribution of bioenergy will only grow in the coming years, but
there remains considerable debate about how much much energy we can
really expect from corn, miscanthus, switchgrass and other sources. Some
foresee explosive growth in biofuel production, while others see modest,
even incremental gains. A recent report from the UK Energy Research
Center, “Energy from biomass: the size of the global reserve,” attempted to
clarify the picture through a systematic review of recent studies.
Like the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Billion-Ton Update” on biomass
availability, the report uncovered widely different assumptions about the
basics of biofuel production – including the availability of land, competition for land and the productivity of food and fuel crops. Until researchers can settle on these basic concepts, disagreements about the future of
bioenergy will rage on.
In the end, the report didn’t end the controversy or answer the most pressing questions. But it successfully identified the key parameters that will
drive the discussion in the coming years. When current unknowns such
as crop yields and land use come into focus, the future of bioenergy will
be much more clear. As the authors conclude, “If biomass is believed to
be a necessary component of the future global energy supply... then more
needs to be done to make it a sustainable option.”
References
“U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Byproducts Industry,”
U.S. Department of Energy, August 2011.
“Energy from Biomass: the size of the global resource,” UK Energy Research Centre,
November 2011.
Differing visions, common themes
At the low end of the spectrum, some studies concluded that bioenergy
will meet none to 10 percent of current energy demands. Other studies
projected that, in ideal situations, the true contribution could be as high as
60 to150 percent. Most estimates fell in the middle ground.
The low-end estimates had several features in common: They assumed
that little-to-no land will be set aside for energy crops, that there will be
little or no change in crop yields, and and that non-crop sources of biomass – such as miscanthus and switchgrass – will be minor sources of bioenergy. At the other extreme, the high-end estimates forecasted that vast
amounts of land currently used to raise food crops could be converted to
biofuel production, an unlikely scenario.
The moderate estimates fell in the middle, predicting that bioenergy
would meet between 10 to 60 percent of global energy demand. They projected that increased yields will improve supplies of both food and energy
crops, which in turn will minimize conflicts over land use. Many models
also assumed that energy crops could be grown on land that is too marginal for farmland.
Many other variables push estimates in one direction or another. Some
models predict a global shift to a more Western high-meat diet, a move
that would turn land that could be used for energy crops into feedlots
and pasture. On the other hand, one study suggests that biomass potential
would more than double if global meat consumption declined. Water is
another important variable. While most of the models assume growing
energy crops solely with rain water, sustainability would likely require effective management of water resources and more drought-tolerant crops.
The Virgin Voyager, the UK’s first biodiesel train
(Photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
38
Q. What would changes in bioenergy policy mean for different EU member states?
Luuk van der Wielen: “Since the diversity
of Europe at least matches that of the USA, it
makes it hard to converge on a single path. Take
the adjacent countries of Spain and Portugal:
The middle of Spain is like a desert, while Portugal, in principle, has a great potential [for bioenergy crops]. However, it doesn’t have industries
or a government that can invest.
“The northern states have more chemical
and energy industries; southern states have
more food industries. In Italy and in Greece,
for example, there is virtually no chemical
industry, so for them the impact of bioenergy will be entirely different than in the
northern states.
“Germany picked up biofuels early on, but
these were first generation biofuels. Now they
are stuck with an industry with certain vested
interests, such as those involved with creating
biodiesel from rapeseed. There’s certainly not
a long-term future in it. So now they have to
change a vested industry.”
Q. Do certain agricultural policies need to change?
Luuk van der Wielen: “In the EU, we didn’t
do an elaborate study of how a bio-based economy may impact the common agricultural policy.
If there is excessive wine or wheat production,
say, the policy in Europe only compensates the
farmer for certain losses in income. We don’t
utilize the enormous amount of money that European tax collectors put into this in innovation.
Maybe there is land set aside that could be used
for bioenergy or biochemical production. The
only solution that southern European vintners
apparently have is to replant vines or grapes on
that piece of land, and they don’t look into the
alternatives of producing bioenergy. That’s a
cultural change that has to be made.”
Q. What else might make a difference?
Patricia Osseweijer: “One thing we haven’t talked about is
the role of the consumers themselves in the transition to a biobased economy. For instance, the CEO of Unilever recently said,
‘We are doing everything to make sure we resource from sustainable producers, but two-thirds of our eco-footprint depends on
consumer behavior such as recycling, not just throwing [the package] away.’ How the consumer can reduce our footprint on energy
– including consuming less – should be part of the equation.”
Luuk van der Wielen: Credentials
Affiliations: Director of BE-Basic, a public-private
renewables R&D consortium and full professor at the
Department of Biotechnology at the Delft University of
Technology in the Netherlands; Visiting Professor, Institute for
Bioproduct Development, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Education: Holds his Ph.D. from Delft University of
Technology
Impact: Advises industry, the sustainable energy section of
the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, and collaborates
with bioenergy centers nationally and internationally
Outside the office: Passive and active interest in
jazz music
Planet-saving advice: "Global challenges have local
solutions: there is no one-size-fits all."
Patricia Osseweijer: “The agricultural
policy is designed to help farmers get sustainable income for their crops and not to have the
food prices go down when there’s overproduction. But this provides no incentive to develop
a sustainable agricultural infrastructure providing for both food and non-food uses.”
Q. What lessons could the United States learn from Europe?
Luuk van der Wielen: “In my understanding, the climate side of bioenergy is a little less important in the United States because of the urgency
of energy security. But you see the same sort of [problems from] overfertilization in the Mississippi Delta that we in Europe have been facing and
trying to solve over the long term. If there is a lesson to be learned from
Europe, it’s to look ahead at problems and not just at the problems that are
directly facing you, such as energy security. Because the other problems
are not going away.”
Patricia Osseweijer: Credentials
Affiliations: Flagship manager of the Centre for Bio-Based Ecologically Balanced
Sustainable Industrial Chemistry (BE-Basic); professor in Biotechnology and Society at the
Department of Biotechnology at Delft University; professor of Science Communication,
Royal Institute of Engineering, visiting professor at the University Putra in Malaysia.
On global partnerships : “It’s very interesting to collaborate with different institutions
around the world and combine studies and insights to see how we can learn how to do
things better.”
Education: Ph.D. from the Free University of Amsterdam
Education Impact: Co-leader in national agenda for sustainable, responsible
development; collaborates with industry and NGOs on the embedding of a bio-based
economy
Planet-saving advice: “If we really want a sustainable planet, we need to better
involve consumers and citizens in the challenges ahead so they get motivated to change
attitudes and consuming behaviors.”
39
VOL. 2.2
A fine, aged biomass?
Connecting the dots between
biofuels and bubbly
By Michelle Locke
Illustration by David Dudley
You get that big promotion or reach that special milestone and pull out a nicely
chilled bottle of … fermented biomass?
It doesn’t sound quite right, but bubbly and biofuel may have more in
common than appears at first glance. Sure, one tastes a lot better (that
would be the bubbly), but both are fermented products that start out with
plant matter.
“As a scientist you always try to break everything down to the basics, and
making wine is about fermentation and the product is ethanol. It’s basically a fuel,” says Timo Schuerg, a postdoctoral fellow at the Energy Biosciences Institute who was among about two dozen EBI researchers and
students to get a firsthand look at the winemaking process at a field trip
to Mumm Napa, a well-known producer of sparkling wine in California’s
Napa Valley.
For wine, the biomass in question consists of grapes, specifically varieties of the species Vitis vinifera, which are picked only when certain
sugar levels have been reached – something that's assessed by the Brix
measuring system, named for German mathematician and engineer
Adolf Brix.
Once picked, the juice is extracted and fermentation begins. All wines
start out white; red wines get their color from leaving the skins in contact with the fermenting juice. As with current biofuels, it takes yeast
to produce ethyl alcohol, or ethanol. Winemakers may add cultivated
yeasts or let the process take place through naturally occurring ambient yeasts. The yeasts consume the sugar, creating alcohol as a byprod-
BIOENERGY CONNECTION
uct – but only enough to fuel dreams, not vehicles. Wine alcohol levels
typically run from 12 percent to 15 percent by volume, too low to run
an engine.
Winemakers have an advantage over biofuels producers in that their
feedstock is bursting with easily extracted sugars. And they can sell their
product for $60 a gallon without anyone blinking an eye. Even Two Buck
Chuck, the love-it-or-hate-it famously cheap Charles Shaw wine that sells
for $1.99 in California, works out to about $10 a gallon.
Biofuel developers don’t have that luxury. The essential process of depolymerization – breaking the chemical bonds among the large cellulosic
compounds of a plant’s biomass in order to produce small fermentable
sugars – is still a complex and expensive issue. This means bringing down
the cost of depolymerization is one of the utmost priorities in biofuel research.
In nature, the true experts in depolymerization of plant biomass include
creatures that are defined as filamentous fungi. Schuerg is one of the scientists at the EBI who dedicate themselves to study the filamentous fungus
Neurospora crassa, which grows on plant cell wall material and which is
primarily found on burnt grasses, sugarcane stalks and sugarcane bagasse.
A primary goal is fostering understanding of how the fungus regulates
and uses its enzymes – i.e. specialized molecular tools – to efficiently deconstruct plant cell wall material, something that could eventually lead to
easier and cheaper depolymerization.
Fungi are a big part of the wine world, too. Sometimes vintners fight it like the mildew that can blight a crop. But yeasts, also fungi, are crucial to
how a wine turns out – enologists can wax quite passionate over the merits of cultivated vs. wild yeasts. The role of yeast in winemaking prompted
"We had discussions about the yeast
strains. We always came back to our
experiences in the lab, actually."
—Biofuels researcher Timo Schuerg on his team's
conversation about role of yeast in winemaking
during a visit to the St. Supery winery
some interesting conversations on the EBI field trip, which also included a
visit to the St. Supéry winery. “We had discussions about the yeast strains.
We always came back to our experiences in the lab, actually,” says Schuerg.
Organizers arranged the trip partly to have fun, but also to provide a forum for scientists affiliated with EBI to spend time together since many
are scattered across campus at the University of California, Berkeley.
Mission accomplished on both fronts, says Schuerg. “It’s always good to go
out and see something different. It enriches your mind,” he says.
So which is better – crafting wine or brewing biofuel? Schuerg laughs. “I
would say you need years of experience to make a good wine, and I took
the decision to go for biofuels,” he says. Still, the two worlds could meet
again. If the biofuels team makes a big breakthrough, expect to hear the
sound of champagne corks popping. n
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41
From Bio ...
to Fuel
VOL. 2.2
New integrated
process for
Drop -in Fuels
What is it?
Separate is good; integrated is better. Researchers at
UC Berkeley have found a way to put a new spin on
some old chemistry, making renewable drop-in fuels
more efficiently.
How does it work?
Grow the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum
on sugar and it makes a dilute mixture of acetone,
butanol and ethanol. This diesel-like mix was derived
from the products of a bacterial fermentation
discovered nearly 100 years ago. Normally, you
would have to put in a lot of energy and distill the
products, which can be blended with gasoline up
to 16 percent. Alternatively, you could extract the
products with glycerol butyrate and pass them
over a palladium catalyst to make longer chain
hydrocarbons and alcohols.
Why does it matter?
The retooled process produces a mix of products that
contain more energy per gallon than the ethanol that
is used today in transportation fuels. By integrating
the fermentation with extraction and chemical
catalysis, you can reduce the energy demand of the
overall process. This opens the door to selectively
producing petrol, jet and diesel blend stocks from
lignocellulosic and cane sugars at near theoretically
maximal yields.
Where can I read more?
A publication in Nature, which came out in
November 2012:
Biomass boiler (Photo: Imantsu/Dreamstime.com)
"Integration of chemical catalysis with extractive
fermentation to produce fuels." Pazhamalai
Anbarasan, Zachary C. Baer, Sanil Sreekumar, Elad
Gross, Joseph B. Binder, Harvey W. Blanch, Douglas S.
Clark & F. Dean Toste, Nature 491:235-239, 2012.
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The stories in our cover series “Lessons from the Drought” include a feature on biofuel
crops like agave (below) that may be better able to resist drought, flooding, and/or
saltwater. We’re interested in hearing from you, our readers, about your research or
nominations for energy crops that appear well-suited to climate change.
Please write us at [email protected].
Agave plants in Jalisco, Mexico (Carlos Sanchez Pereyra/Dreamstime.com)
For more information, visit us online:
www.energybiosciencesinstitute.org