Support the Blend Wall waiver

Growth Energy and 52 ethanol manufacturers petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month to raise the maximum blend level for ethanol in gasoline to as much as 15 percent. Starting April 21st, the EPA is soliciting comments on the waiver up until May 19th (30 days). The EPA then has 270 days to consider the waiver and make a determination.

A podcast reported by Cindy Zimmerman of Domestic Fuel blog titled "Drive Toward Higher Blends in High Gear" features comments from RFA President and CEO Bob Dinneen who concludes:

We are approaching a critical crossroads for the ethanol industry. One road leads to 36 billion gallons of ethanol and more production from cellulosic feedstocks, higher level blends, E85, and an incredibly bright future for ethanol as a low carbon fuel source. Another road takes us to division and failure, casting ethanol eternally as merely a blend component forfeiting the opportunity to expand into cellulosic and potentially marking ethanol as a blip in the history of motor fuels as the nation converts to electric vehicles. The road we choose is up to us.

As Chairman of the Board of Growth Energy, General Wesley Clark is committed to the issue primarily for energy independence and national security. He has become a leading advocate for pushing the blend wall upward from the current "arbitrary" 10% to a scientifically supportable 15%. In a recent article of BIOMASS magazine:

Clark stressed the necessity for the continued advancement of domestically-produced renewable fuels and said that an increase in blending limits for ethanol is vital in order to move the renewable fuels industry forward. “The ethanol industry has plateaued at 10 percent,” he said. “Let’s get this blend wall cap lifted from E10 to E15. It’s good for America.” According to Clark, the waiver request was accompanied by scientific evidence proving that fueling the nation’s automobiles with E15 will not detrimentally affect their performance.

Tom Buis, new CEO for Growth Energy wrote an article titled "Advocating for a Higher Blend" in this month's issue of Ethanol Producers magazine:

Growth Energy and more than 50 other companies submitted a Green Jobs Waiver to the U.S. EPA asking to lift the decades-old arbitrary cap that limits ethanol to 10 percent in a gallon of gas. Shortly afterward, many voices endorsed the move to a higher blend, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, several members of Congress and representatives from diverse organizations. These leaders understand that lifting the cap on ethanol to up to 15 percent will create green-collar jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Below is the text of an email sent out by Growth Energy to solicit comments to be sent to the EPA on the proposed waiver. It lays out specific steps anyone can use to voice their support of the waiver.

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Dear eTeam Member,

On March 6, 2009, Growth Energy and 54 ethanol manufacturers requested that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) increase ethanol blend levels in gasoline up to 15 percent (E15).

This is THE most important issue facing the ethanol industry today. Increasing blend levels from 10 to 15 percent will create more than 136,000 new green-collar jobs, generate $24.4 billion for the U.S. economy, displace seven billion gallons of imported gasoline each year, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an additional 20 million tons per year.

WE NEED YOUR VOICE!

Yesterday was the first day of a 30-day public comment period begins. During this time, Growth Energy needs YOUR help to achieve our goal of 20,000 favorable submissions to the EPA supporting the move to E15.

Your support of homegrown ethanol is needed now more than ever. We only have 30 days to make ourselves heard. We have created some talking points to help make commenting easier.

Email Comments to the EPA

The easiest way to make your opinion and voice heard by the EPA is to email comments directly. Click here to submit comments online via email at GrowthEnergy.org. It only takes a few minutes and will be submitted directly to the EPA for review. You can also refer your friends and family directly to our website to submit comments as well.

Mailing & Reporting Procedures

The EPA also accepts written comments through the mail. In an effort to efficiently submit and track comments to the EPA, please perform the following procedures for mailing in comments and reporting the quantity of comments back to the eTeam Leader.

Sending in Handwritten & Typed Comments

Upon receipt of handwritten comments or typed letters, please make three (3) copies.

• Please ensure that the docket number EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0211 is included on the letter.

• Mail two (2) copies to:

Air and Radiation Docket
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0211
Environmental Protection Agency
Mailcode: 6102T
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460

• Mail one (1) copy to:

Attn: E15 Waiver Comments
Growth Energy – Midwest Office
17220 Wright Street, Suite 150
Omaha, NE 68130

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technorati emissions, electricity, biofuels, bioenergy, bioproducts

Reforming hydrogen from ethanol

There are so many "discoveries" these days I would hate to have to handicap the winners. Some reports inspire confidence that we are on track to make the leap from today to tomorrow - and the next day.

One thing to know about ethanol is that it is a carrier for hydrogen. That means you could deliver ethanol from origin to distribution point and extract the hydrogen from the ethanol. The question has always been how do you do it without expending excess energy or spending money on expensive reforming processes?

Below is an article from Biopact that demonstrates how research focused to answer such questions can lead to discoveries with game-changing results.

What it means is that gas stations that currently service demand for petroleum products but that could eventually sell blends of ethanol may provide a smooth transition to a hydrogen energy economy. They will be able to cheaply reform hydrogen from their stores of ethanol to fill clean hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

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Scientists develop cheap catalyst for hydrogen production from biofuels

Scientists from Ohio State University have developed a very cheap non-precious metal catalyst that converts biofuels like ethanol into hydrogen with an efficiency of up to 90%. This development opens up a future of decentralised, on-the-spot hydrogen production for use in fuel cell cars. What is more, it makes the prospect of a carbon-negative transportation fuel more realistic.

The rationale behind converting biofuels to hydrogen is simple: you no longer need an expensive hydrogen transportation infrastructure, because you can transport the fuel safely in the form of the biofuel and turn it into hydrogen wherever you want; using hydrogen in fuel cells is also far more efficient than using biofuels in internal combustion engines.

Best of all, when the carbon dioxide that is released during the conversion process is captured and sequestered, a truly carbon-negative fuel is obtained. The more you were to use of this fuel, the more you were to combat climate change, because you would be actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere (earlier post, and see schematic).

Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, says that the new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium. Rhodium is used most often for this kind of catalyst, and it costs around $9,000 an ounce. The new catalyst costs around $9 a kilogram - that's about 35,000 times less.

The new catalyst allows us to over come the many practical issues that need to be resolved before we can use hydrogen as fuel - how to make it, how to transport it, how to create the infrastructure for people to fill their cars with it.
Our research lends itself to what's called a 'distributed production' strategy. Instead of making hydrogen from biofuel at a centralized facility and transporting it to gas stations, we could use our catalyst inside reactors that are actually located at the gas stations. So we wouldn't have to transport or store the hydrogen - we could store the biofuel, and make hydrogen on the spot. - Professor Umit Ozkan

The catalyst is inexpensive to make and to use compared to others under investigation worldwide. Those others are often made from precious metals, or only work at very high temperatures. Precious metals have high catalytic activity and - in most cases - high stability, but they're also very expensive. The scientists' goal from the outset was to come up with a precious-metal-free catalyst, one that was based on metals that are readily available and inexpensive, but still highly active and stable. This sets Ozkan's team apart from most of the other groups in the world.

The new dark gray powder is made from tiny granules of cerium oxide - a common ingredient in ceramics - and calcium, covered with even smaller particles of cobalt. It produces hydrogen with 90 percent efficiency at 660 degrees Fahrenheit (around 350 degrees Celsius) - a low temperature by industrial standards.

Whenever a process works at a lower temperature, that brings energy savings and cost savings. Also, if the catalyst is highly active and can achieve high hydrogen yields, one doesn’t need as much of it. That will bring down the size of the reactor, and its cost.

The process starts with a liquid biofuel such as ethanol, which is heated and pumped into a reactor, where the catalyst spurs a series of chemical reactions that ultimately convert the liquid to a hydrogen-rich gas.

One of the biggest challenges the researchers faced was how to prevent "coking" -- the formation of carbon fragments on the surface of the catalyst. The combination of metals - cerium oxide and calcium - solved that problem, because it promoted the movement of oxygen ions inside the catalyst. When exposed to enough oxygen, the carbon, like the biofuel, is converted into a gas and gets oxidized; it becomes carbon dioxide.

At the end of the process, waste gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane are removed, and the hydrogen is purified. To make the process more energy-efficient, heat exchangers capture waste heat and put that energy back into the reactor. Methane recovered in the process can be used to supply part of the energy.

Though this work was based on converting ethanol, Ozkan's team is now studying how to use the same catalyst with other liquid biofuels. Her coauthors on this presentation included Ohio State doctoral students Hua Song and Lingzhi Zhang.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

References:
Ohio State University: A Better Way to Make Hydrogen from Biofuels - August 20, 2008.


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technorati BIOblog, BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, biofuels, waste, vehicles, bioenergy, bioproducts

U.S. Demand for Renewable Power

The U.S. Department of Energy / Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has published a June 2007 chart of the states whose legislatures have mandated that a certain percentage or volume of their electricity will come from renewable sources - wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, tidal, and bioenergy.

This policy is called a "renewable portfolio standard" and it is interesting to note that a federal RPS was considered for inclusion in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). It did not pass because the Southern states would be at a disadvantage meeting the standard because of the lack of wind and solar resources. Should the march of state-by-state standards be implemented throughout the South - like the new RPS for Virginia (enacted April, 2007) and North Carolina (enacted August, 2007) - the bulk of the renewable power would have to come from biomass.

Florida is in full legislative consideration of a large Renewable Portfolio Standard. Their charismatic governor, Charlie Crist, advocates a 20% mandate.

The U.S. Department of Energy's version of the map below is imaged mapped to an expanded description of each state's policy. Their listing includes links to the administering organizations.

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A renewable portfolio standard (RPS) is a state policy that requires electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. Currently there are 24 states plus the District of Columbia that have RPS policies in place. Together these states account for more than half of the electricity sales in the United States.

Four other states, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have nonbinding goals for adoption of renewable energy instead of an RPS.

Summary of State Renewable Portfolio Standards
The following table gives a rough summary of state renewable portfolio standards. Percentages refer to a portion of electricity sales and megawatts (MW) to absolute capacity requirements. Most of these standards phase in over years, and the date refers to when the full requirement takes effect.

*Three states, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have set voluntary goals for adopting renewable energy instead of portfolio standards with binding targets.

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technorati electricity, waste, bioenergy, bioproducts

Greener buildings in our future

What is the most environmentally sustainable construction material available for erecting homes and buildings? If net carbon emissions per ton of material is the key measurement, the answer is framing studs and medium density fiberboard made from wood.

That is one of the key messages from a new issue of Eco-link, a publication of the Temperate Forest Foundation's Research and Education division, which focuses on Consumer Choices; Greening Your Purchases.

How much more efficient is wood over the other materials when all steps in their manufacture is taken into consideration? Taking a look at the following chart from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gives us the answer to this question.

At the extreme, virgin aluminum requires 137.3 times more carbon emissions per ton of material than wood.

Of course every material has its specific uses. You wouldn't build a skyscraper with wood beams and little glass. But with new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design LEEDs® rating systems receiving much more prestige among builders, any material that raises energy efficiency while lowering its carbon materials footprint is going to garner more ratings credit.

Combined with the insulation superiority of wood over other more modern materials (steel and glass) that require much more energy to heat and cool, wood would appear to be on the verge of making a comeback.

Joseph Lstiburek, Ph.D., P.Eng., is a principal of Building Science Corporation LLC and an ASHRAE Fellow. He has twenty-five years of experience in design, construction, investigation, and building science research. Through the Department of Energy's Building America program, Dr. Lstiburek has forged partnerships with designers, builders, developers, materials suppliers and equipment manufacturers to build higher performance homes across the U.S. His company specializes in building homes that require less energy to heat and cool. Their designs utilize wood for structural support and fiberboard sheathing of surfaces. His presentations include one that advocates that Wood is Good.

Climate-specific design and construction of high performance homes is a cornerstone of all BSC work. We recently modified both our criteria and our North American map for the hygro-thermal regions. The changes are not drastic but they are important because they make our criteria and map align with the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) Climate Zones as developed by the Department of Energy. Whenever the building science community and the code community get on (literally) the same page, this is good news for builders of any homes, but particularly those that build climate-tuned, high performance homes.

Treated wood in an assembly performs better in a fire than steel studs, and wood is not thermally conductive. Don't believe me? Visit New Zealand and Australia and check out some of their 10- and 20-story buildings. They use concrete structural frames and treated wood frame wall infill assemblies with gypsum board linings on the inside and outside of the wood frame assembly covered with open rain screen vented fiber cement panels. These structures are exceptionally energy efficient, low cost and sustainable.

Sustainable management of wood resources, with forests being a significant part of the carbon sequestration equation, will play and increasingly important role in our climate change future.

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technorati emissions, biofuels, bioproducts

Surprising MPG results for low blends of ethanol

One of the "knocks" on ethanol (pun intended) is that for all the performance and emissions improvement that it provides as an oxygenate for gasoline, the more that you blend in, the lower the miles per gallon you should expect. For the lay person, that means more frequent stops to the filling station - roughly one extra fill-up for every three the vehicle currently requires. Even at price parity the annoyance of increased stops may deter some from using E85 (which is 85% ethanol/15% gasoline).

While it may be true for high blends of ethanol a new study provides laboratory evidence that E20 and E30 blends actually improved MPG on the automobiles tested!

The University of North Dakota Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) and the Minnesota Center for Automotive Research (MnCAR) conducted vehicle fuel economy and emission testing on four 2007 model vehicles. The vehicles tested included a Chevrolet Impala flex-fuel and three non-flex-fuel vehicles: a Ford Fusion, a Toyota Camry, and a Chevrolet Impala.

Highway Fuel Economy Test (HWFET) testing on ethanol blend levels of E20 in the flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala, E30 in the non-flex-fuel Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry, and E40 in the non-flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala resulted in measured miles-per-gallon fuel economy greater than predicted based on per-gallon fuel Btu content. It is notable that the non-flex-fuel vehicles obtained greater fuel economy at higher blends of ethanol than the unleaded gasoline. In the case of the flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala, the highway fuel economy was greater than calculated for all tested blends, with an especially high peak at E20.

While only three non-flex-fuel vehicles were tested in this study, there is a strong indication that non-flex-fuel vehicles operated on optimal ethanol blend levels, which are higher than the standard E10 blend, can obtain better fuel mileage than on gasoline. The Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry obtained a HWFET mileage on E30 of 1% greater than on Tier 2 gasoline; the flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala showed a HWFET mileage of 15% on E20 better than Tier 2 gasoline, as shown in Figure ES-1.

Exhaust emission values for nonmethane organic gases (NMOG), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and carbon monoxide (CO) obtained from both the FTP-75 and the HWFET driving cycles were at or below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier 2, light-duty vehicle, Bin 5 levels of 0.090, 0.07, and 4.2 grams/mile, respectively, for all vehicles tested, with one exception. The flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala exceeded the NMOG standard for the FTP-75 on E20 and Tier 2 gasoline.

It should be noted that it will take time to deploy E85 pumps in significant numbers throughout the U.S. During that time, the automobile manufacturers will be working not only on hybrid vehicles which improve MPG by sharing the load with plug-in and battery charges, but they will also be working on improving flex-fuel and ethanol combustion technology.

The automobile industry has had 100 years to fine tune their engines to work on cheap gasoline. Now that there is a mandate in the Energy Bill of 2007 to increase gasoline MPG significantly there will be significant research invested in improving performance on all kinds of fuels and configurations. Perhaps the relative energy content of the fuel will cause less concern to the driving public as the frequency of fuel fill-ups declines.

As far as emissions are concerned, that will be an area of focus for car manufacturers as well. They have innovated catalytic converters and carburetor designs in the past. There is no reason to expect less from them in the future as public demands turns to competitive environmental performance.

We will doubtless see many breakthroughs as thinking outside the fossil fuel paradigm box explodes.

technorati emissions, biofuels, vehicles, bioenergy, bioproducts

"Energy Victory" - Book of the Sentry

In September of 1911, the fate of two world wars was pre-ordained by England's young First Lord of the Admiralty. He made a choice at considerable national economic and political risk that linked England's future to a dependence on its North Atlantic political, military, and trade relationship with America. Still, Winston Churchill decided the advantages far outweighed the liabilities. From that point on all ships in the Royal Navy would run on oil (which England imported) instead of coal (which the British isles could stockpile in rich abundance).

This counter-intuitive decision meant that England's battleships could be built lighter, refuel at sea, and stoke their fires without drawing precious manpower during combat. As he stated it - "If we overcame the difficulties and surmounted the risks, we should be able to raise the whole power and efficiency of the Navy to a higher level."

It was this advantage that eventually destroyed the coal-burning German navy of WWI. It was lack of access to oil supplies that defeated both Germany and Japan during WWII. The Axis powers had trained troops and effective weapons systems but they couldn't hold the front without fuel.


Robert Zubrin, author of the soon to be released Energy Victory: The War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, cites this history and contrasts it to our harrowing predicament of today. Not only are we thoroughly dependent on an energy resource we no longer control, but those who do control it now have our treasure to fuel terrorism against us and create chaos around the world. With thirty years warning we have squandered ample opportunity to end our dependence on foreign oil supplies. There is no more time to waste.

It is our time to make a decision like Churchill's: define new alternative energy standards, develop a decentralized plan of production and infrastructure development, and stick with it through decades of administration changeover. The challenge is not to pick one alternative, but to increase the range of choices that enable consumers to make purchase decisions based on value (whatever that may be for each decade) instead of allowing ourselves to coerced into making bad decisions caused by limited access.

I highly recommend Robert Zubrin's book to readers of this blog. It is scheduled to be released October 31st by Prometheus Books. In this well-researched study he paints a picture of our current predicament in the Middle East including foreign intrusions into U.S. policymaking. He follows that with an evaluation of alternatives and a broadbrush plan for how we can substantially reduce our dependence within a decade. He excoriates policymakers who perpetrate what he calls the "hydrogen hoax." He draws lessons from the "Brazil experience" and shows how "The New Alcohol World Economy" can benefit developing and developed nations alike. He also addresses "global warming", explains his cynicism about hydrogen, and defends nuclear power as a clean source of electricity. But the bulk of the book is focused on the use of biofuels to break our dependence on oil.

Book orders can be reserved on Amazon right now. Look for book signings at future alternative energy conferences.

technorati bioenergy, biofuels, ethanol, syngas, cellulosic, legislation, decentralization, security

High Performance E85 with Jay Leno

E85 detractors often cite the comparative high energy content of gasoline to ethanol. It is true that currently designed combustion engines and even current flex-fuel models get lower mileage on ethanol than they do on gasoline. However, that is far from the whole story.

On Jay Leno's Garage website he features a video titled "E85 Demystified" which contains an interview with noted engine designer Carl Banks who specializes in high performance engine design. Carl insists that the reason that automobiles don't run as well on ethanol as they do on gasoline is because they are not designed to. If they are designed to, the cars would operate with much higher performance because of the relatively high compression ratio of ethanol compared to gas.

"It’s the octane number,” he says. “Octane is a rating of knock-resistance. The higher the number the better. E-85 is 105 octane.”

Coupled with plug-in hybrid automobile technology, it is not likely that there will be an appreciable difference between buying gasoline or ethanol because the mileage will be dependent on electric storage efficiency and the secondary motor efficiency for whatever fuel it runs on. The decision to buy ethanol is likely to hinge on the comparative price of the fuel options and its availability at local pumps.

technorati emissions, biofuels, vehicles, bioenergy, bioproducts

A scientific assessment of plug-in hybrids

Clean Edge News published a story on a new report that analyzes the benefits of PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Energy Vehicles).

The EPRI-NRDC study represents the most comprehensive analysis of the potential reductions of global warming and other emissions from wide-scale introduction of PHEVs over time. The study addresses the impact that lower-emitting electricity generation can have for increasing these benefits.

How would air quality and greenhouse gas emissions be affected if significant numbers of Americans drove cars that were fueled by the power grid?

A recently completed assessment conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council made a detailed study of the question – looking at a variety of scenarios involving the U.S. fleet of power generation and its fleet of light-duty and medium-duty cars and trucks.

The objectives of this study are the following:
• Understand the impact of widespread PHEV adoption on full fuel-cycle greenhouse gas
emissions from the nationwide vehicle fleet.
• Model the impact of a high level of PHEV adoption on nationwide air quality.
• Develop a consistent analysis methodology for scientific determination of the
environmental impact of future vehicle technology and electric sector scenarios.

The study focused on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and projected changes in power generation technology from 2010 through 2050.

The EPRI Perspective
Policymakers, technology developers, and utility and environmental planners need objective and accurate information to make sound decisions about developing and deploying PHEVs in support of national energy and environmental policy. PHEVs offer the potential for reducing both emissions and fuel consumption, simultaneously addressing the issues of global warming and the nation’s dependence on imported oil. Quantifying these benefits has proved challenging, however, and misinformation has circulated about the environmental performance of PHEVs.

Summary of Results
Because of the significant reduction in emissions from gasoline and diesel fuel use and because caps are in place for some conventional pollutants for the electric power sector, the study finds that in many regions deployment of PHEVs would reduce exposures to ozone and particulate matter, and reduce deposition rates for acids, nutrients, and mercury.

On the other hand, because of assuming no further controls beyond existing regulations for the power sector, ozone levels would increase locally in some areas. Similarly, the direct emissions of particulate matter and mercury would increase somewhat and some regions and populations would experience marginal increases in exposures to those pollutants. However, as explained in the key findings, PHEVs do not increase the U.S. contribution to the global mercury budget over the long term.

Overall, the air quality benefits from PHEVs are due to a reduction of vehicle emissions below levels required by current regulation (due to their non-emitting operation in all-electric mode), and because most electricity generation emissions are constrained by existing regulatory caps. Any additional increase in the amount of all-electric vehicle miles traveled or further emissions constraints on the electric sector would tend to magnify these benefits.

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, vehicles

GM's "green image" challenge in L.A.

Los Angeles has become a tough car market for General Motors. Toyota sold 50% more Priuses in L.A. last year than all the cars GM sold here combined!

That frank admission was part of the message presented by "good cop" GM North America President Troy Clarke to a small, rapt audience of bloggers at the historic and very scenic HRL Laboratories in Malibu, CA.

GM's corresponding "bad cop" would be Chairman Rick Wagoner who on June 5th at the shareholders' meeting criticized the raising of CAFE standards and the U.S. government's mileage requirements - which, subsequently, were added to the Senate's version of the 2007 Energy Bill. The new legislation mandates increases to average fuel economy by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks by 2020.

Producing cars that will meet the standard aren't the big problem for GM. However, squeezing that kind of economy from SUVs and pick-up trucks will require risky and significant technological redesigns of the propulsion system (considering the weight of the vehicles and loads they are designed to handle) with no assurance that the standards set by implacable public and political expectations won't move again. Since California is GM's strongest market for trucks (with three times as many GM trucks sold in Southern California than cars), the stakes are very high.

Both Clarke and Wagoner insist that the future of the company is tied to a successful transition away from gasoline-powered technology. They contend that GM currently leads all U.S. manufacturers with over 30 vehicle models that are rated above 30mpg.

Their plans for the market is to continue to introduce a number of new hybrid and electric cars over the next decade. Some of these represent new technological approaches to the twin transportation challenges of increasing fuel efficiency while lowering emissions. Most are planned to be flex-fuel compatible, able to run on any blend of gasoline and ethanol.

Author's note - In my opinion all combustion engines produced by GM factories should be flex-fuel compatible because it doesn't cost much to do at the factory ($50-200/vehicle vs. thousands for hybrid technology) but allows the consumer the greatest number of fuel purchasing options (simultaneously depressing prices while reducing fossil fuel dependence). It will solve the chicken/egg dilemma faced by service stations of having enough compatible ethanol vehicles available to justify installing the pumps. And it starts the clock on when we cycle out all gasoline-only vehicles - which some estimate will take 15 years.

Still, L.A. is a market that relies more on image than on substance. Sometimes that image is the sleek styling and high performance characteristics of the vehicle. However, with the one-two punch of oil addiction and global warming fears, image and status now comes from driving "greener" vehicles - which is why the ho-hum Prius body shape is looking more stylish every day (while Hummer and Suburban owners are ducking accusatory glares from outraged fellow citizens).

So how can GM crack back into the global trendsetting L.A. market? Apparently Troy and GM's local public relations agency, Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L), believes that building non-traditional relationships with bloggers and their audiences is an effective p.r. strategy - á la The Tipping Point. Convince some passionate, funky bloggers of the company's sincerity and it just might infect their audiences - leading to a cascade of positive image-building and sales.

MS&L calls it One Across Marketing:

One Across Marketing is MS&L's signature approach that strives to build a relationship between a consumer and brand. It focuses entirely on the phenomenon of information "wildfires" or "viruses," which are transmitted by word-of-mouth, usually among individuals who "cluster" (often virtually) around issues, shared situations, lifestyle needs, entertainment pursuits, etc. Driven by one-to-one communications, One Across approaches include: epidemic campaigns, E-community mobilization, influencer seedings, vernacular PR, and grass-tops marketing.

I'm not sure what category I fell into but I'm glad it was good enough to get me invited.

During his speech Troy Clarke talked about effective marketing from his personal viewpoint:

We get the opportunity to talk publicly in the auto industry typically at Auto Shows where we have these wonderfully orchestrated backdrops of cars and models. It is a very tailored environment for us to be able to tell our story to alot of press over a short period of time.

I had the opportunity to do something a little different. In Chicago, interestingly, it was still an Auto Show venue but it was outside the Detroit area and I was asked if I would talk to four bloggers. (I did) and in ten to fifteen minutes this dialog broke out which was kind of a public relations first. I turned to my public relations people and said that this feels a lot better to me than the typical interaction. Part of the reason why is that I learned alot.

Some of this stuff was stuff I didn't want to learn. Some people were making comments to me that I hoped that they wouldn't make. But the fact that they made them accomplished more than I expected.

Well here is a piece of advice from this blogger that I would hope GM and MS&L would hear:

In October 19-20 Santa Monica will host its second Alt Car Expo. Last year's event was much more fun and informative about green transportation at a grass roots level than the glitzy L.A. Auto Show across town (see A Tale of Two Auto Shows). Toyota was a huge beneficiary because most of the alternative designs were converted Priuses. GM had a paltry presence at this event (one flex-fuel pickup and a salt-in-wound carcass EV1) and was not even listed as a sponsor. This year none of the Big Three is a listed sponsor - but Honda is. This show is a green opportunity for GM to build bridges with the Southern California market.

One interesting new propulsion approach that Troy focused attention on is being demonstrated by the new Chevy Volt, a 5-seater concept car. Its "E-Flex Drive" always delivers power to the wheels through its battery charged electric engine. However, after the initial plug-in charge is depleted (at about 40 miles) an onboard flex-fuel combustion motor can generate a surplus charge giving the vehicle a potential range of 650 miles between charge and refill. GM is logging votes from consumers who would like to see the vehicle produced and on the showroom floor. The current tally of nearly half a million votes is about 99.5% in favor. I would gladly sign up to be a test driver.

I came away very impressed by the sincerity of the presentation and the approachability of its speaker. Just walking around on a tour, I was able to steal 5 minutes of uninterrupted time with Troy to talk about my pet projects - promoting the 25x'25 Alliance (I gave him a lapel pin), expanded recycling of waste-to-energy, the energy renaissance potential of a depressed paper and pulp industry, and the need to support local regulatory reform efforts in California.

No, we didn't talk about cars, but the kicker is that he echoed my sentiment that all of these facets are necessary parts of the new continuum that will affect the sale of cars in the coming decades. To make green profits on its green product offerings, GM will not only have to develop and deploy new technologies, but will also have to weather the challenges of fickle public opinion, shortages in raw materials and energy supply, strained labor relations, unpredictable world events, and environmentally sensitive regulatory reform.

It's a daunting task for any multi-national corporation. Of the Big Three in America, I'd put my money on GM.

technorati BIOoutput, electricity, biofuels, vehicles, bioenergy

Ethanol Boosting Systems for Automobiles

Biofuel naysayers have a wealth of criticisms to use if they really want to derail the renewable energy juggernaut. "The EROIE is not as good as petroleum" "The feedstock is better used as food" "The emissions from ethanol is more toxic than gasoline" "Subsidies are the only reason that ethanol producers make any profits", etc.

Well the oil industry "wasn't built in a day" either (and the resemblance to Rome is pretty apt). The reality is that if Henry Ford had succeeded in encouraging the use of ethanol when he produced the first Model T, engines would have developed much differently than they did and the EROIE, toxicity, feedstock diversity, and subsidy issues would have been solved a long time ago. Give ethanol a hundred years and lets see how efficient and clean it and other biofuels can be.

Here are excerpts from an October 2006 article in Green Car Congress that demonstrates the potential for redesigned combustion engines that exploit the high octane of ethanol.

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Startup Working to Commercialize Direct Injection Ethanol Boosting + Turbocharging
Ethanol boost with turbocharging promises a cost-effective means to obtain high fuel efficiency in gasoline and flex ethanol/gasoline powered engines.

MIT scientists and engineers earlier this year founded a company—Ethanol Boosting Systems, LLC (EBS)—to commercialize their work on direct-injection ethanol boosting combined with aggressive turbocharging in a gasoline engine. (Earlier post.) The result is a gasoline engine with the fuel efficiency of current hybrids or turbodiesels—up to 30% better than a conventional gasoline engine—but at lower cost.

EBS has a collaborative R&D agreement with Ford, and anticipates engine tests in 2007 with subsequent licensing to Ford and other automakers. If all goes as expected, vehicles with the new engine could be on the road by 2011.

The foundation of the approach is the enhanced knock suppression resulting from the separate, direct injection of small amounts of ethanol into the cylinder in addition to the main gasoline fuel charge.

The injection of a small amount of ethanol into the hot combustion chamber cools the fuel charge and makes spontaneous combustion much less likely. According to a simulation developed by the MIT group, with ethanol injection the engine won’t knock even when the pressure inside the cylinder is three times higher than that in a conventional SI engine. Engine tests by collaborators at Ford Motor Company produced results consistent with the model’s predictions.

With knock essentially eliminated, the researchers could incorporate into their engine two operating techniques that help make today’s diesel engines so efficient: a high degree of turbocharging and the use of a higher compression ratio.

The combined changes could increase the power of a given-sized engine by more than a factor of two. But rather than seeking higher vehicle performance, the MIT researchers cut their engine size in half. Using well-established computer models, they determined that their small, turbocharged, high-compression-ratio engine will provide the same peak power as the full-scale SI version but will be 20 to 30% more fuel efficient.

The ethanol-boosted engine could provide efficiency gains comparable to those of today’s hybrid engine systems for less extra investment: about $1,000 as opposed to $3,000 to $5,000. The engine should use less than five gallons of ethanol for every 100 gallons of gasoline, so drivers would need to fill their ethanol tank only every one to three months. The ethanol used could be E85.

Given the short fuel-savings payback time—three to four years at present US gasoline prices—the MIT researchers believe that their ethanol-boosted turbo engine has real potential for widespread adoption.

To actually affect oil consumption, we need to have people want to buy our engine, so our work also emphasizes keeping down the added cost and minimizing any inconvenience to the driver.
—Daniel Cohn, MIT senior research scientist and CEO of EBS

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, biofuels, vehicles, bioenergy, bioproducts

Pipeline research for ethanol transport

New bipartisan legislation is being introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that propose funding research to investigate transport of ethanol by pipeline.

I think the proposal is an excellent idea and a quite relevant area of research for site developers with whom I work.

I would like to know the results of the kind of pipe research that is being proposed. Not being able to pipe ethanol is a drawback in comparison to fossil fuels because of the relative trouble and expense (not to mention emissions) of hauling it any other way.

Conventional understanding of the problem of piping ethanol is that 1) it is susceptible to water contamination from pipe leaks and 2) it is best not to alternate between other fuels and ethanol using the same pipes.

Once an industrial site is built, it frequently converts to similar industrial usage because of the raw material, zoning, and transportation corridor development that went into it. There are existing pipes that connect prospective biorefinery sites with existing transportation hubs that could be upgraded at relatively low expense compared to these hauling costs - saving time and money.

Could pipes that carted chemicals and fuels yesterday be upgraded to service ethanol today and maybe other fuels like biobutanol tomorrow? Maybe the research could give us the answers.

Here are excerpts from a recent article on the announcement...

----------------
Study sought on ethanol pipelines
Supplement to rail transport appears vital as industry expands, Boswell says
By William Ryberg
DesMoines Register Business Writer
May 30, 2007

Two members of Iowa's congressional delegation want to know whether pipelines would be a good way to get ethanol transported across the country in the future.

Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Ia., held a news conference Tuesday to announce that he'd introduced a bill in the U.S. House asking for a $2 million study of the feasibility of transporting ethanol by new or existing pipeline. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., introduced a similar bill in the Senate.

Boswell, in a statement, said practical and economical ways to transport ethanol across the country need to be found because the industry continues to expand.

Pipelines are a major mover of gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel in the United States, but ethanol is moved primarily by rail car.

The bill would direct the U.S. secretary of energy to award money for a study of the feasibility and value of using pipelines to transport ethanol from the Midwest, where it's generally produced, to the eastern and western United States.

Currently, movement of ethanol through pipelines leads to "stress corrosion cracking" in the pipe and welds, Bruce Heine, director of government and media affairs for Magellan Midstream Partners of Tulsa, Okla., said after the news conference. Magellan is a pipeline company with a major terminal near Des Moines.

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, biofuels, bioenergy

Bioethanol or Biodiesel - Which is better?

As a recent article on The Motley Fool (Fueling the Debate: Ethanol vs. Biodiesel) points out, comparing bioethanol and biodiesel is like comparing running or swimming - both are healthy exercises. But it is a good idea to know what the comparable benefits are because there are new technologies being developed all the time and the impact on biofuel infrastructure development is the key to implementation.

For example, as reported by Green Options recent algae farming research at Utah State University predicts that "oil yields of 10,000 gallons per acre could become an economically feasible biodiesel feedstock by the end or the decade. Our most productive feedstock today, the oil palm, doesn't even come close with yields of 635 gallons/acre, and is followed distantly by the U.S. standard, soy, at 48 gallons of oil/acre."

Given the other benefits of biodiesel, such an innovation could mean that more infrastructure and vehicle development should be directed toward exploiting the use biodiesel. Then again, research into cellulosic feedstock bioconversion tends to support the notion that bioethanol and biobutanol will be the superior solution.

Since the infrastructure and market for biodiesel are much better in Europe, it is likely that implementation for biodiesel would take place there. Conversely, ethanol would make more sense in North America.

Regardless, we should be putting renewable energy "trains" on a wheelhouse full of tracks because the ultimate solution will be to develop many sources of feedstock and renewable energy solutions destined for implementation throughout the world.

----------------
Fueling the Debate: Ethanol vs. Biodiesel
Which alternative fuel should investors tie their horses to?
By Jack Uldrich
THE MOTLEY FOOL

According to a study published last summer in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the environmental benefits of biodiesel are substantially greater than those of ethanol. According to the report, biodiesel provides 93% more net energy per gallon than is required for its production, while ethanol generates only 25% more net energy. The study further suggested that biodiesel, when compared with gasoline, reduced greenhouse emissions by 41%, while ethanol yielded only a 12% reduction. From these viewpoints, it would appear that biodiesel is the clear winner.

If only it were that easy. From a land-use and agricultural-efficiency perspective, ethanol appears to be the better choice. That's because an estimated 420 gallons of ethanol can be produced per acre of corn versus only 60 gallons of biodiesel per acre of soybeans. In more practical terms, this means that if the production of biodiesel were ever to increase greatly, the cost of soybean oil would rise significantly.

What's so exciting about cellulosic ethanol is that it has the potential to offer a very high net-energy impact. It can also be produced from feedstocks that use little to no fertilizer. These sources are abundant and aren't major sources of food -- and thus won't drive up food prices as we've seen as of late with corn prices. As an added benefit, it's believed that as the technology improves, the amount of ethanol produced per acre can increase significantly. Some experts have estimated that the figure could reach as high as 2,700 gallons per acre by 2030.

In short, cellulosic ethanol may very well have the environmental benefits of biodiesel and the agricultural efficiency of corn ethanol, but it can also potentially bring additional benefits to the table.

technorati BIOoutput, biofuels, bioenergy, bioproducts

U.S. Congress introduces Federal RPS legislation

Up to now, much of the responsibility for buying renewable energy to replace existing sources is being placed by state legislatures squarely on the back of their electric utilities. Progressive states have been enacting renewable portfolio standards (RPS) which place a set MW quantity or percentage number to be achieved by a specific date (click on chart below to enlarge). According to a recent issue in The Wall Street Journal the utilities used to be highly resistant but some are now realizing that the standards are not as difficult to comply with as they feared.

After several false starts, the federal government is considering similar legislation:

A bill about to be introduced in the Senate would push utilities to generate drastically more of their power -- 15%, compared with the current 2% -- from sources such as wind or the sun by 2020.

The good news is that entrepreneurs and developers who have long held out for capitalization of their innovative technologies, are suddenly finding a ready market to sell to, at a reasonable price.

Obviously, such requirements would have to be filled with different forms of renewable energy depending on which part of the country is involved. Some, like Rick Boucher of Virginia (Democratic chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee) would like coal to be included as long as the carbon emissions are successfully sequestered. Expect this largely unproven technology to receive priority treatment as the voting nears.

Those states that have fewer renewable resources could purchase green tags, aka "Renewable Energy Credits" (RECs), from those states that produce surpluses.

Here are some excerpts from the article published May 25th...

----------------
Senate Pushes Utilities on 'Green' Sources
Proposal to Require Significant Increase Has Broad Support
by John J. Fialka

The Senate proposal, authored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the New Mexico Democrat who is chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, defines renewable energy sources as wind, solar, geothermal, wood chips and other biofuels, as well as various ways to make energy from tides and ocean waves.

So far, state laws, which cover 40% of the U.S. population, haven't made a big difference. The percentage of renewable fuels used in the U.S. has hovered from 2% to 2.5% in recent years and will reach only 5.5% by 2020, when most of the state standards are fully phased in. Dr. Wiser estimates state laws have raised the average consumer's utility bill by 38 cents a month. "Clearly, if you want to expand renewable fuels, something has to be done beyond this," he says.

Backers of the Bingaman legislation think the bill could do the trick.

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, bioenergy, RECs, sequestration

May 2007 Digest

Tying Energy Efficiency to Renewable Energy

Lost in the rush to develop alternative energy technologies is the obvious value of making energy usage more efficient. As Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute would say, "a watt saved is a watt earned." This can be applied to biofuel usage as well. It is far cheaper to save energy than it is to produce more of it, particularly when existing technologies are so wasteful.

In marked contrast to the oil crisis of the 70's when cars lined up on even or odd license number days to tank up on gasoline and speed limits were held to 55 MPH to conserve energy, there has been little preaching by this administration - or the states for that matter - to slow down and use less. Memorial Day weekend driving plans were little impacted by recent gas price spikes. Auto shows still promote performance over gas use efficiency.

It is highly unlikely that the laudable goals of the 25x'25 Initiative for reducing fossil fuel dependence will be reached if we persist in inefficient usage of our energy resources or, in fact, grow our demand beyond current expectations. Similarly, while developing renewable energy (RE) technologies, energy efficiency (EE) needs to be built into the systems.

In a joint report presented by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and the American Council for an Energy-Efficency Economy (ACEEE) case studies are showcased that demonstrate the synergies available when RE and EE are developed together. For installations that have such long lifespans and high capital costs, it is important to address efficiency challenges during early planning.

Here are links to stories that were posted in the BioEnergy BlogRing during May, 2007:

BIOstock Blog--------------
• Clean Wood replaces Coal Power Plant in N.H.
• U.S. paper & pulp industry assesses its bioenergy future

BIOconversion Blog--------------
• Molecular visualization of the bioconversion process
• U.S. State Dept. to host 2008 Int'l Renewable Energy Conference
• IPCC 4th Assessment: Steps to mitigate climate change
• U.S. D.O.E./E.I.A. International Energy Outlook 2007

BIOoutput Blog--------------
• Tying Energy Efficiency to Renewable Energy
• California's electricity - Phasing out coal
• Amory Lovins - RMI and the Hypercar

Each month we provide a similar breakdown of article titles from our favorite "companion" site - Biopact Blog. This list is kept current and is accessible in the right hand column of each of the three blogs.

Please forward a link to this digest to anyone you know who would be interested in keeping track of change that will affect us all. They can add their name to the mailing list on the BioConversion Blog.

technorati digest, biofuels, conversion, bioenergy, cellulosic, feedstock, ethanol, sustainability, forestry

Amory Lovins - RMI and the Hypercar

The Rocky Mountain Institute is a bastion of knowledge concerning energy efficiency and renewable energy. Much of its expertise focuses on the concept that "a watt saved is a watt earned" demand management can reduce energy expense more dramatically than adding new alternative supply production.

Started in 1982 by Hunter and Amory Lovins, the organization now has 55 employees offering energy, engineering, and efficiency design consultation services. Their website has a special page devoted to explaining RMI's Approach to Energy. But they are not satisfied with merely making recommendations - they are committed to implementing their concepts in significant ways. They work with corporations, municipalities, and energy companies to deploy energy saving technologies for architecture, transit, and utility systems.

One example is their production of the Hypercar® - a fullsize demonstration model that incorporates the use of carbon composites instead of much heavier steel of current manufacture. Their online slide show points out that while 6% of the energy in a car's fuel goes to accelerating the car, less than 1% actually is expended to move the driver. Most goes to moving the car, so that reducing the weight of the car will impact the 2/3 to 3/4 of the fuel use that is weight-related.

The recently redesigned website also features a number of audio and video clips including an appearance by Amory Lovins on The Charlie Rose Show on November 28, 2006. The interchange focused on how the U.S. can eliminate its dependence on oil through market-driven approaches. He talks about RMI's progress in several sectors — including heavy trucks, the military, light vehicles, biofuels, airplanes, and financial — in implementing recommendations made in RMI's book, Winning the Oil Endgame - which has been made available for online download or purchase.

It may have taken 25 years to begin to receive the recognition that the enterprise deserves, but it certainly is well-positioned now to help civilization adjust to a more efficiency-conscious view of energy.

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, biofuels, waste, vehicles, bioenergy, bioproducts

California's electricity - Phasing out coal

In its headlong rush to take the front line in the fight against Global Warming (California's AB32) the California Energy Commission has approved regulations that limit the purchase of electricity from power plants that fail to meet strict greenhouse gas emissions standards. That has to be considered bad news for neighboring states which have built coal plant facilities specifically to service the insatiable electricity demands of Californians. According to the Los Angeles Times, 47% of the electricity purchased by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power comes from giant coal-fired plants in Arizona and Utah.

The benchmark number that new contracts must meet is 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt hour. A 2000 study by the U.S. Department of Energy, Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electric Power in the United States, shows that the standard means electricity coming from plants that are cleaner than the average natural gas plants of 1999 (1,321 versus coal's whopping average of 2,095 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour).

There is no discrimination between carbon positive (fossil fuels) vs. carbon neutral sources of energy. There should be because co-firing carbon neutral biostock could ease the blow to existing coal plant operations.

It is important to note that California periodically suffers brown-outs during the summer months and was the victim of the deregulation electricity nightmare of 2000 and 2001. As Wikipedia recounts the tail:

The California electricity crisis (also known as the Western Energy Crisis) of 2000 and 2001 resulted from the gaming of a partially deregulated California energy system by energy companies such as Enron and Reliant Energy. The energy crisis was characterized by a combination of extremely high prices and rolling blackouts. Price instability and spikes lasted from May 2000 to September 2001. Rolling blackouts began in June 2000 and recurred several times in the following 12 months.

That is not to suggest that current legislation is a "result of gaming". However, it is important that compensating power generators be contracted relatively quickly with a clearcut guarantees that the current benchmark does not suffer downward creep that would raise the risks for investors. As we learned in 2001, it is the public that will suffer the possible consequences and pay the ultimate tab of mis-steps of our energy decisionmakers.

Here is a reprint of the press release made May 23, 2007 by the California Energy Commission...

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New Regulations Restrict Purchase of Electricity From Power Plants That Exceed Greenhouse Gas Emission Limits
New Performance Standard to Regulate Power Plants

The California Energy Commission today approved regulations that limit the purchase of electricity from power plants that fail to meet strict greenhouse gas emissions standards. New regulations, as part of SB 1368 (Perata), prohibit the state's publicly owned utilities from entering into long-term financial commitments with plants that exceed 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt hour.

"Working with the Legislature, the Governor has demonstrated a clear vision with this first-in-the-nation legislation to reduce emissions," said Energy Commission Chairman Jackalyne Pfannenstiel. "His bold leadership is helping to reduce California's carbon footprint by ensuring a clean supply of electricity," continued Pfannenstiel.

The implementation of SB 1368 is part of the Energy Commission's further implementation of AB 32 (Nunez), a landmark bill signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that calls for California to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases by 25 percent by 2020.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, SB 1368 directed the Energy Commission, in collaboration with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Air Resources Board, to establish a greenhouse gas emission performance standard for power plants.

This standard was reached by evaluating existing combined-cycle natural gas baseload power plants across the west and is the same CO2 measurement approved by the CPUC.

Created by the Legislature in 1974, the California Energy Commission is the state's primary energy policy and planning agency. The Energy Commission has five major responsibilities: forecasting future energy needs and keeping historical energy data; licensing thermal power plants 50 megawatts or larger; promoting energy efficiency through appliance and building standards; developing energy technologies and supporting renewable energy; and planning for and directing state response to energy emergency.

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, legislation

Tying Energy Efficiency to Renewable Energy

The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) has teamed up with the American Council for an Energy-Efficency Economy (ACE3) to make a statement that creating new renewable energy technologies (RE) will not be enough to achieve national and international goals to meet energy demands while reducing our dependence on carbon positive fossil fuel systems. We also have a responsibility to develop energy efficiency (EE) standards and advanced technologies to mitigate the demand for energy and reduce carbon emissions.

This report, while limiting its scope to renewable electricity, does a good job of not only describing the synergies possible between RE and EE, but also provides numerous case studies of progressive state policies, public benefit funding, and corporations who have demonstrated how these synergies can be implemented.

Below are the conclusions of the report. The full report is available for download from the ACEEE website.

----------------
ENERGY EFFICIENCY INVESTMENTS AND RENEWABLE ENERGY PURCHASES TOGETHER ARE "TWIN PILLARS" IN REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS
Bill Prindle and Maggie Eldridge,
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy
Mike Eckhardt and Alyssa Frederick,
American Council on Renewable Energy

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are the cornerstones of sustainable energy policy. Demand growth for energy must be brought into a sustainable range, so that clean renewable energy technologies can begin to “catch up” with energy demand. If energy demand grows too fast, no supply technology, no matter how clean, will be able to substantially reduce fossil fuel consumption.

Energy efficiency and renewables thus must go hand in hand in any clean energy future. Fortunately, pursuing them jointly offers several important synergies over pursuing one to the exclusion of the other, such as:

• Lower total energy cost—A combined efficiency/renewables resource portfolio is typically less expensive than a renewables-only portfolio, and also generates greater total resource impacts;

• Better timing—Efficiency can typically be deployed quickly, achieving important impacts in the near and mid terms; renewables can take longer to deploy, but may ultimately deliver larger resource impacts;

• Electricity price stability—Efficiency and renewables provide complementary price hedges in power markets, by both moderating demand and diversifying fuel sources;

• Electric system reliability—Energy efficiency can reduce peak demand, reducing the risk of blackouts, while renewables diversify generation sources, and both efficiency and renewables can provide locational benefits in the form of distributed generation; and

• Regional resource balance—While renewables’ availability varies from region to region, energy efficiency is consistently available in end-use sectors across the country. Pursuing both efficiency and renewable resources in tandem thus makes it easier to attain national energy resource targets in any given state.

technorati BIOoutput, electricity, renewables, efficiency

April 2007 Digest

Woody Biomass - Energizing a new generation

America is witnessing the balkanization of its renewable energy portfolio. The sun belt is home to solar energy. The corn belt is home to ethanol. Landfill bioenergy is focused in urban areas. The nation's woodpiles are in the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast. Each region will have to come to grips with the economic, technical, environmental, and cultural changes that will be necessary build, market, and sustain development in their communities. NIMBY-ism will be a constant, frustrating impediment to many grand schemes.

We have seen the impact that ethanol has played in the cornbelt. Its communities have embraced the technologies - not without some consternation from its livestock industry. Individual farmers have banded together to form cooperatives to build ethanol plants. Agricultural giants like ADM and Cargill are re-evaluating how they can realign their business units to capitalize on their waste and biomass assets. Politicians are displaying uncharacteristic bipartisanship on ag/energy issues.

Following this model, we are now witnessing an emerging focus in the southeastern U.S. - home to communities that are committed now and in future generations to forestry and wood-related companies. 44% of the existing renewable energy generated in the U.S. comes from and is used by this industry - mostly generated from woody waste accumulating at paper and pulp mills. Landowners are eying biorefinery plans for the region to see if it makes sense to form cooperatives. Moribund mills and chemical factories that have lost business to foreign competition are now viewed as possible sites for new bioenergy ventures since they already have supply and distribution infrastructure in place.

The best resource of the region is the character of the indigenous citizens. Unfailingly patriotic but often regarded as the underappreciated step-children of America, many communities of the Southeast are eager to finally have an opportunity to contribute their regional ingenuity, brawn, and industrial capacity to the national effort to end American addiction to foreign oil. It is, after all, the young, proud southern recruit that continues to carry the bulk of the national security burden caused by this addiction.

As a political footnote, presidential aspirants interested in a Southern strategy should remember that in 2000 Gore lost ALL the states in the region - including his home state of Tennessee which would have put him in the White House. A commitment to woody bioenergy development of the region would be well received. It is not clear that the same can be said of the Pacific Northwest.

Here are links to stories that were posted in the BioEnergy BlogRing during April, 2007:

BIOstock Blog--------------
• E3 Biofuels and Closed Loop Ethanol Plants
• The need for Public Outreach: a case study in China
• BIOstock 101: The BioTown Sourcebook
• Woody Biomass Utilization and the USDA Forest Service
• Development alliance builds between forest and energy giants
• Hybrid poplars reduce carbon emissions best
• Thinning trees to save ecology
• In-Woods Expo 2007 Harvests Energy

BIOconversion Blog--------------
• Industrial Symbiosis: Creating eco-industrial parks
• Latin America's Blueprint for Green Energy
• BIOconversion 101: The BioTown Sourcebook
• EPA releases comprehensive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program
• Converting Biomass to Hydrogen
• D.O.E. to fund ADM/Purdue cellulosic ethanol project
• Friedman Multi-media on "The Power of Green"
• Biomass Gasification at the "Chin-dia" price

BIOoutput Blog--------------
• Good News from the DOE about Carbon Sequestration
• BIOoutput 101: The BioTown Sourcebook

BIOwaste Blog--------------
• BIOwaste 101: The BioTown Sourcebook
• Hurdles to Waste Conversion Technologies
• Smokestack emissions as feedstock for ethanol

Each month we provide a similar breakdown of article titles from our favorite "companion" site - Biopact Blog. This list is kept current and is accessible in the right hand column of each of the three blogs.

Please forward a link to this digest to anyone you know who would be interested in keeping track of change that will affect us all. They can add their name to the mailing list on the BioConversion Blog.

technorati digest, biofuels, conversion, bioenergy, cellulosic, feedstock, ethanol, sustainability, forestry