Rethinking BioFuel

By Robert Pritchett

I'm going to rapidly run through a few biofuel hot buttons in this article.

Speculation

And I'm of the mind that the real reason why prices are going up is because the speculators have moved their money from real estate deals to commodity futures and skewing statistics and market demand.

What used to be free now has a cost and the agribusiness industry smells green gold and have adjusted their price per bushel accordingly.

As folks begin looking at staycations (stay at home vacations) this summer, we watch fuel prices continue to escalate – due mostly to speculation not just stopping at $200 per barrel, but seriously expecting $300 per barrel.

Diesel is close to $5 at the pump and gasoline is getting closer every day. But is Biofuel really the answer?

World Market for Biofuels Expected to Double?

Only double? Maybe it is because for most biofuels we are talking biodiesel and not Ethanol.

Ethanol as Biofuel

Ethanol would be used in internal combustion engines that use spark plugs and not in diesels that run by compression, rather than by spark. I include Ethanol into the biofuel mix, along with biodiesel, et al. I don't consider "biofuel" to be a bad word, but the petroleum-backed press is making it so. However, until Ethanol can prove itself as being enviro-friendly and better than zero-sum carbon-footprintwise, I do consider it to be a bad word. And I'm not alone in my estimation either. The industry has to prove it can be developed for less than it costs in fuel to make. Right now, it is less than zero-sum to produce. Meaning that for each gallon of ethanol, it takes 1.5 gallons of hydrocarbon-based fuel to get from process to market. See the article by Robert Bryce.

I agree with Chris Calder that taking food off the table to feed a machine does not make a whole lot of sense. There is also a class-action suit in California due to the fact that ethanol destroys fiberglass storage tanks on boats, let alone the damage it does to the environment in contamination in drinking water.

Brad Zigler notes what he calls the "dead-cat bounce" of the corn-based Ethanol market.

Food for Fuel

I've gone back and forth with Christopher Calder and he has modified some of his content on his site regarding Biofuel as a Hoax.

I couldn't find the origin of the saying that if we burn our food, we go hungry, but it is attributed to an ancient Chinese proverb. If we produce biofuel from non-food biomass sources, we are a lot better off than if we continue down the road of turning food crops in to fuel crops.

A biorefinery pilot plant designed to extract ethanol from sugarcane is running in Jennings, LA starting May 29, 2008.

Invasive Species and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Giant Reed (Arundo Donax) dries up wetlands when used as a biofuel crop and Jatropha curcas is poisonous and has been banned in 2 states in Australia as an "invasive" species (not Jatropha multifida). So can straw be made into cellulosic ethanol liquid gold?

Swaterro wrote;

"When land and other resources that would have been used for a crop (e.g., corn) are diverted to another crop (e.g., switchgrass), the price of the displaced crop will tend to increase because of the decreased supply, which will in turn tend to increase the price of any substitutes for the displaced crop, such as rice for corn. References to this dynamic are few and vague.

A biofuel plant’s ability to grow on marginal land does not mean it will not be grown on good soil if it is more profitable than the alternative; even planting on land that is marginal or was not previously used for agriculture can have negative consequences, e.g., the increased deforestation in Asia related to the creation of palm oil plantations for biofuels. I have yet to see references to the first part of this statement and scant reference to the second."

Pollution

The Seattle Post Intelligencer posted this table and Treehugger put it into global perspective.

"Oil and glycerin deplete the oxygen content of water very quickly, and that will suffocate fish and other organisms. And for birds, a vegetable oil spill is just as deadly as a crude oil spill.”

Bankruptcies

A number of companies that stepped into the biofuel arena have stepped out because of rising costs associated with feedstocks. Lots of biofuel plants are declaring bankruptcy and shutting their doors or are trying to. The US Judiciary system is forcing them to stay open, reorganize and not go under in order to comply with Federal mandate to n meet goals for alternative fuels. Sounds very much like Soviet Planning™, doesn't it?

Gas stations make 1 penny per gallon on fuel sales. Fuel delivery trucks do not make any money doing deliveries now. One guy I listened to says he delivers from Walla Walla from Yakima every day (fresh produce) and last I spoke with him, his route delivers to around 75 locations with a fuel delivery charge of $2 per stop. He spends over $300 per day in fuel to do the deliveries and the Delis and fast food locations were not doing much business, so his deliveries were either being postponed or not being renewed. $2 times 75 doesn't even cover his fuel costs anymore and when fewer orders are taken for deliveries, he is in a loosing proposition. And that is the main reason I am no longer at Giggles Gluten Free Custom Bakery & Deli. We have personally witnessed the trend of next to no customers throughout the region for the Delis and fast food restaurants as prices for fuel escalates. Feed your vehicle or feed your family, but it is getting increasingly difficult to do both.

Bioenergy of America collateral siezed to satisfy creditors

Bioenergy of America Loses Case

Ethenex files for Bankruptcy

E3 files for Bankruptcy

Green County Biodiesel files for Bankruptcy, NPP Biodiesel plant halts construction

EarthFuels is surviving because they diversified and are now into Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), to make ends meet - only after their bankruptcy proceedings were dismissed and they reorganized.

Gen-X Energies

At our Speaker's Symposium in our annual Alternative Energy Expo in Pasco, WA, we heard from Scott Johnson, President of Gen-X Energies and his challenges in the Biofuel markets. He is operating in the red after being in business for over a year with plans for expansion and more hiring has now been curtailed .He was refreshingly open about what he has learned and what he faces today. He has reduced his team by two and is not making any money at $4.60 per gallon selling wholesale to the Biofuel industry, even as he has market supplies sold out two years into the future. He is negotiating for more customers, so he can sell the higher Cetane, tallow-based oil generated from beef fat received from Tyson Foods in Wallula, WA.

Gen-X Energies puts out a batch-processed quality product that meets all fuel-processing tests and yet, they can't sell tallow-based biofuel in Portland Oregon, because the vegans have put a cabosh on the smell of hamburger in the air. Gen-X Energies can only sell Portland Oregon, veggie-based oil from the waste stream.

Scott is championing a new seed for oil (Camelina Sativa) that has been harvested the Russian for years that only requires 3 to 7 inches of rain per year, so we can grow it here in dry-land wheat country in my region. Two crops can be harvested per year. 600 acres are in test right now in Montana. He is waiting for the FDA to approve it as a feed crop for animals so the bioremains can be used as a cash crop as well. It is so hardy that it will even grow on parking lots (well, per haps not, but you get the idea) and has even better food characteristics (Omega3) than grape seed. ;^)

The current batch-process at Gen-X Energies is "sustainable", even as they get their methanol from and Integrated Circuit plant in Moses Lake, WA. The chip plant produces methanol as an unwanted byproduct from producing electronic chips and were disposing of it. Gen-X Energies was paying $4 per gallon from the Pacific Ethanol plant in Boardman, Oregon and are now purchasing it for around $2.

What keeps them going even as they are loosing money on the current biofuel proposition? Federal rebates and a promise of better things to come. But for how much longer this situation can go on, Scott doesn’t know.

Gen-X Energies expects to be doing $25 million this year in business. But they are looking for capital funds to keep operating. Why? Commodities went through the roof. When Scott Johnson started Gen-X, he figured he could make a profit at $2.50 per gallon. Today he can't break even at $4.60. The only thing that is keeping Gen-X Energies afloat are the Fed subsidies at $1 per gallon. That means he is running on fumes, based on taxpayer funds from a government that is already deeply in the red itself.

Scott Johnson also would like to get into algae for fuel processing. Two other companies in Washington Sate are already doing so on the west side of the Cascades. We don't know if they will stay in business or not.

Methanol Fires

There has been one methanol fire in Portland, Oregon that took down a biofuel plant and injuries resulted. A week later, another biofuel plant blew up, killing one person. It also was a result of using methanol in the biofuel process. Even though the Gen-X Energies own plant is up to standard, the EPA dropped by to have them make changes to make their plant even safer as lessons learned based on other plants that have burned down recently.

Alternatives to BioFuel

I would also like to point you to a page we created on an alternative to biofuel that produces real petroleum products from waste solids. This is a company that I am under non-disclosure (NDA) and limited to discuss beyond what we posted earlier. As a member of the New Energy Congress, I participated (along with Sterling Allan who is the owner of Pure Energy Systems Network and who helped found the New Energy Congress and who I work for), toured their facility the last week of May with a few folks from around the world looking for viable solutions to help reduce their growing municipal waste streams. I think that they found one. And they are in my own "back yard" in Pasco, WA. Green Power.

This isn't biofuel. This is real petroleum that is created through a proprietary catalytic process that accelerates time and temperature to create the same products that the earth itself produces (see my article on Abiotic Oil) and is commonly referred to incorrectly as fossil fuel. It is created in a matter of minutes instead of millions of years. It makes petroleum a renewable resource.

You can also read my other article this month on my experiences with hydrogen generation in a Ford E350 Cargo Van that appears to have helped doubled fuel mileage.

Conclusions

Forced mandates by government for no-win alternative fuels (i.e. Corn Ethanol) is a no-win proposition and rapes the taxpayer. Subsidies don't make companies profitable.

Biofuel companies will continue to close their doors as food for fuel directives take food off the table and money out of our pockets. That needs to stop. The parts of vegetation that are non-edible should be the focus for fuel and not the parts that are edible.

Processes need to be changed to reduce having to use chemical processes that pollute the environment and destroy buildings and businesses. Accidents happen. A spate of accidents at different locations would indicate something else is happening that would keep conspiracy theorists busy. And it is no secret that the petroleum and agribusiness industries are interested in eliminating any kind of competition to their control.

Companies like Gen-X Energies will continue to operate safely and be enviro-friendly, even as they continue looking into innovations that will eventually cost less in the future – such as continuous-process algae-based biofuels that Valcent in Texas is developing.

We can meet the challenge of biofuel production, if the petroleum and agribusiness industries can stop pushing government to squeeze out biofuel production as competition to petroleum production and allow the biofuel industry to literally grow.

Sapphire Energies is producing gasoline from algae.

Support your local producer.

Further Reading

Greenworld Biofuels

Northwest Biodiesel Discussion List

http://www.tulsabiofuels.com/

http://www.utahbiodiesel.org/biodiesel_links.html

Here in the Northwest, we also have Lyle Rudensey, with his BioLyle Blog - with an entry from May 14, 2008 – "Bio-Confusion- the Biofuels debate".

We've been busy adding to the PESWiki site almost daily as we monitor the situation –

Fuel Efficiency - Alternative Fuels

Biodiesel from Algae Oil

Algae as Oil Videos