White House seeks to speed advanced biofuels
The Obama administration on Tuesday took steps to promote biofuels and is expected to publish a proposal for measuring the environmental impact from biofuels, in a move likely to spark a debate within the industry.
The administration has created the Biofuels Interagency Working Group, which is tasked with helping the ailing biofuels industry and creating policies to improve the environmental sustainability of biofuels. Measures include making money available to refinance existing biorefineries or to make them more energy efficient.
During a conference call on Tuesday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the availability of $786.5 million for biofuels research and to accelerate commercialization of advanced biofuels, such as ethanol from wood chips and grasses.
The bulk of the money--$480 million--will be made available in grants to demonstrate "integrated biorefinery technologies" where refineries use alternatives to fossil fuels to operate, such as biofuels and combined heat and power systems. Of the total, $130 million will go toward research, including the creation of an algae biofuels consortium and a group dedicated to biofuels compatible with the existing infrastructure.
Later on Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency will publish a proposal for rules on how to assess the greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels, EPA director Lisa Jackson said during the call. The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) required the EPA to do a lifecycle analysis of biofuels' greenhouse gas emissions compared with petroleum fuels.
Representatives from the biofuels industry said that they are pleased with the creation of the working group and that the EPA has moved ahead on the lifecycle assessment process. But they are wary that including land use changes in measuring biofuels' environmental impact could hurt the industry, even for fuels considered less polluting than corn ethanol.
During the call, Jackson said that the EPA analysis found that corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions 16 percent compared with gasoline. Different factors, such as what fuel is used at the refinery, affect the overall impact.
"We were concerned that the EPA ruling would have a chilling effect on the whole industry," said Paul Winters, the director of communications of the Biotechnology Industry Association. "We do expect the announcements will give people the confidence to keep investing in advanced biofuels."
However, Winters said that biofuels companies will be participating in the EPA's comment period to delve into the details of the greenhouse gas analysis, particularly a controversial indirect land use factor.
Under the 2007 EISA, biofuels makers need to reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of their products in the coming years on a scale that ranges from 20 percent for corn ethanol producers to 60 percent for different advanced biofuels.
The increased demand from government biofuels mandates has led to farmers devoting more land to fuel crops and, in other countries, the destruction of rain forests for farming. But biofuels producers oppose including indirect land use into the environmental analysis, said Brooke Coleman, the executive director of biofuels industry group New Fuels Alliance.
Land use policies should be addressed directly in biofuels policies, rather than adding to the greenhouse gas score of biofuels producers, he said. In addition, the indirect land model isn't a fair comparison because the indirect land use of petroleum or power generation industries isn't considered, he argued.
"There's a breaking point of how hard you can push a new industry. You're already requiring these new fuels to be 20 percent to 60 percent better than status quo. Then if you look at the ripple effect (of land use) that you're not doing for petroleum or natural gas, then you're really pushing a fledgling industry really hard," Coleman said.
Some environmental groups said that he EPA's proposal opens a public discussion on indirect effects of biofuels, which will need to be addressed sooner or later.
"To ignore it is going to really tilt the playing field in a direction that is going to send the industry off in a direction that will have to be reversed later and will be counterproductive," Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists' clean vehicles program, told Reuters.
The Natural Resources Defense Council's director of renewable energy policy, Nathanael Greene, said the EPA is taking the right approach to lifecycle analysis because biofuels have the potential for environmental harm.
"It is imperative that we develop biofuels the smart way, and we are encouraged that EPA Administrator Jackson has offered a science-based proposal to get this done. If we get the rules of the road right through policies such as this one, we can harness the ingenuity of America's farmers, foresters, and entrepreneurs to create a new generation of biofuels that will help create jobs and end our dependence on oil," he said in a statement.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Ethanol has the potential to represent substantial energy resources worldwide but the most promising ethanol production strategies are unproven on a commercial scale, may not be economical for some time, and will certainly entail side effects and limitations not yet completely understood. We do know that large-scale ethanol production will require vast water resources, endanger areas reserved for conservation, spur deforestation, and decrease food security. The net greenhouse gas impact could be positive or negative depending on the type of feedstock plant materials, the process used to distill the biofuels, and the difference in reflected solar radiation between biofuel crops and the preexisting vegetation.
Alternately, if we focused our efforts on cutting energy consumption in half, which would still leave us with more energy per capita than numerous other nations with comparable standards of living, we wouldn?t need to find additional locations for ethanol facilities but could rather decide which existing fuel plants should be decommissioned first.
Ozzie Zehner
Ozzie Zehner is an energy consultant and the Executive Director of Imagitrends.com, a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit. His forthcoming book, The Alternative Energy Fetish: Better Alternatives to Alternative Energy, will be published in 2010.
This is a Yes or No question.
Thank You.
Good bye republitards!
Regulations are a important and necessary component to keeping our environment clean when applied with a little common sense.
But when you let the fringe radical environmentalist near anything .it always heads off into some extreme that is either prehistoric ..like pushing everyone to riding bicycles to work too investing in public transportation via little human powered vehicles to light rail...as if everyone lives in New York City.
The reality is corn ethanol alone has reduced our gasoline needs by 7% via ethanol as an additive and as an alternative fuel like E85. That contribution has lowered greenhouse gases that otherwise would have been coming from drilling and refining Oil ..so the net effect is "even" corn ethanol is making substantila strides in reducing greenhouse gases.
Water usage.. it takes a whopping
2.7 gallons of water to make 1 Gallon of ethanol
2 gallons of water to brush our teeth
40 Gallons of water to make to make 1 gallon of Gasoline
Golf Courses uses 100,000 of gallons every single day .. In South Florida alone they use 18.2 million gallons a day
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flpgolfwater0811pnaug11,0,1542212.story
so enough of the water usage nonsense..
Again Common sense Regulations.. Nope sorry we cannot allow you to build an ethanol plant in the Middle of the desert.
The bottom line is the Oil Companies control and have always controlled our (American Consumers) ability on what fuel we can use.. Gasoline or Gasoline
That Monopoly is showing breaks in the Monopoly ..and it is Ethanol that is that is driving Oil nuts..
Despite all the hype about electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles , Mr Ozzies Bicycles and flying cars..
The REALITY is Ethanol as E85 is the only alternative fuel that has give American any choice at all the pump.. real competition.. Middle East Gasoline or American raised E85 ethanol and as additive for E10 is reducing our dependence on foreign oil and reducing greenhouse gases.
Today there are 200 Stations across nearly 1500 US Cities selling E85 ethanol. 8 Million vehicles can already run on E85 and the Auto Industry has pledged that 80% of all production vehicles will be flex fuel capable by 2015. (cost ..less than $150 per vehicle)
The US Energy and Security Act ..the RFS requires a total of 36 billion gallons of ethanol a year 2022..and of that 16 Billion must be of cellulosic feedstock
The ethanol Industry can easily meet those goals (already meet the 2011 goal), the Auto Industry has the vehicles here (36 FFV Models this year)and will provide all the E85 flex fuel vehicles needed as ethanol grows and meets their mandates.
This is all good stuff for the United States as a whole ..lowering our dependence on Foreign oil..lowering our trillion dollar subsidies protecting those "oil interests. We can still do business with you..but no longer will we be subservient to you..the bloody oils fields ends..the bowing ends.
Hundreds of billions of dollars ..no longer going to the Middle East funding God knows what .. that s money that can stay home creating jobs , keeping our economy healthy..allowing Joe to pay the mortgage and take the family on vacation
Adding ethanol as mentioned above has already lowered our gasoline needs by 7% ..that's direct competition to the Oil Companies and is playing major role in keeping all fuel prices low..gasoline as well as ethanol
So before we run off repeating the same old nonsense from the radical environmentalist and Oil Propaganda.. and consider all the variables ..ethanol isn't perfect ..nothing is nor ever will be ..that doesn't mean you don't move ahead with what is available today that IS considerably better than the alternative to using Oil.
To Far to the Left to Far to the right..lets move behind the radicals on both sides.. lets just keep moving forward..break Oils Monopoly, allow choice at the fuel pump , have cleaner choices than what we had before , create Jobs here and quit funding the Middle East..and all at minimal cost .. thats what ethanol brings to the table..that is what ethanol is already contributing and can really make a huge advances .as long as common sense prevails and keeps the radicals and propagandist on the sidelines and out of actual Policy.
Dan McCullough
E85Prices.com
Unlike MR Ozzie I have no book for sale..just average Joe that likes the idea of helping anything that moves us beyond Oil..or at least Foreign Oil..
We Import 68% of the Oil we need.. it's ludicrous that a Country as great as our is subservient to especially the Middle East where 16% of our Oil imports come from.(Again why are we subsidizing Oil with blood as well as money for this oil when we can make it an alternative here?)
It's ludicrous as well as dangerous and that is exactly why the RFS ethanol Mandate was included in the 2005/2007 Energy and Security Act
1. The same facts are repeated multiple times in the same statement:
"Adding ethanol as mentioned above has already lowered our gasoline needs by 7% .."
"The reality is corn ethanol alone has reduced our gasoline needs by 7% via ethanol as an additive and as an alternative fuel like E85."
2. Scare tactics are used, when it's not needed:
"This is all good stuff for the United States as a whole ..lowering our dependence on Foreign oil..lowering our trillion dollar subsidies protecting those "oil interests. We can still do business with you..but no longer will we be subservient to you..the bloody oils fields ends..the bowing ends."
3. You are given the "I've thought about it and I can't think of a better solution so you should just agree with me" argument:
"So before we run off repeating the same old nonsense from the radical environmentalist and Oil Propaganda.. and consider all the variables ..ethanol isn't perfect ..nothing is nor ever will be ..that doesn't mean you don't move ahead with what is available today that IS considerably better than the alternative to using Oil."
Corn ethanol is no where near a good product to use, but ethanol produced from sources that contain more energy are such as switch grass and sugar, but we use it because the Corn industry has the right people working for them lobbying.
4. Statements that the person most probably doesn't have inside knowledge on gets stated as if they do:
"It's ludicrous as well as dangerous and that is exactly why the RFS ethanol Mandate was included in the 2005/2007 Energy and Security Act"
Are these the reasons it was added to the 2005/2007 Energy and Security Act or was it because of Corn ethanol lobbyists fought for their product to get a little special treatment. - Occam's Razor
You may not have a book, Dan, but you do have a website that you have a self interest in maintaining a large user base.
Just the Facts Please..
Cost of Corn in 1lb of Chicken...
1 Bushel of Corn weighs 56lbs.
2.6 Bushel of Corn (to raise 1 lb of chicken )
$10.04/ 56 = 17 cents
Cost of Corn in 1 lb of Beef...
1 Bushel of Corn weighs 56lbs.
6 Bushels of Corn = $24
$24.00 / 56 = 42 cents
1 Lb of ground beef is the same as 4 1/4lb hamburgers..
realize that the next time you are grilling your burgers.. it only took 42 cents worth of corn to make those 4 hamburgers
Cost of Corn in 1 lb of Corn Flakes...
1 Bushel of Corn weighs 56lbs.
1 Bushel of Corn @ $4.00
$4.00 / 56 = 7 cents
1 Lb of Corn Flakes..enough for 8 bowls of cereal..
Realize that..only 7 cents worth of corn to make 8 bowls of cereal
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/biofuels/biofuels-text
I should hope so. The biofuels industry is based on turning food acreage into fuel acreage, thus pushing food production to South America where rain forests are burned down to grow more corn and soy. By most measures, most biofuels are worse for the climate than oil if you get past the feel-good concept of an ideal carbon cycling that might work on a planet with about 1/5 our population. That's where the industry's profits come from - using up natural resources and not replacing them while screwing the climate and the biosphere, whether its fossil fuels or bio.
- by jamesn53 May 10, 2009 2:11 PM PDT
- It never ceases to amaze how humans look for "the magic bullet" as the only solution.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(12 Comments)I do not pretend to be an expert just well read as I can be to as many aspects as possible with the following thoughts:
>Fossil fuels are not in our distant future yet with state of the art science there is no reason we are not achieving 100mpg in a regular size clean burn auto today. Industry needs prompting.
>The push to ethanol obviously has detrimental downsides to multiple areas which have created more issues than its benefits, today, outweigh. Politics cannot continue to over ride common sense and must play "what if" in determining cause and effect of any action.
>Solar is far from free of negatives, It will require large tracts of land modification, water and its reflective effects to weather patterns have not been addressed, (Another Ethanol band wagon.)
>Wind. Give me a break. The numbers of windmills needed would be huge to generate just a minor percentage of need. And as wind stability zones are also migratory avian routes, chop chop birdies.
>Bio fuel. For the life of me I cannot under stand why this area is not in full development regardless of political / industrial embedment, Do they really think we're that stupid? Never mind.
As this is my favorite subject I wonder why proven industry from the past is so easily ignored?
Why has not industrial hemp, again, been utilized? I will not bore with all the potential benefits and applications. Look it up.
Why is there not a concerted effort to waste water algies, also renewable and added benefit as byproduct.
At least with biofuels there could be multiple renewable sources with if not beneficial impacts at least minimal detriment assuming a common sense approach were utilized.
Sorry I did it again. Never mind.
James Williams