Perspective: Waiting for energy tech's best and brightest

Hard to believe but 30 years have passed since the spring speech in which Jimmy Carter urged the country to get real about energy consumption, calling it the "moral equivalent of war."

Time slips by so fast we usually don't pay attention unless an extraordinary event jogs our memory. So it was this week that I spotted my first filling station advertising $4-per-gallon gasoline.

Regular readers of this publication may have noticed that CNET News.com has included a lot more coverage of alternative-fuel technologies and new modes of personal transportation. That's been a no-brainer because this is the cutting edge. In the last year, the drive to reduce the nation's dependence on imported oil has become intertwined with our sense of national security.

These days Silicon Valley is awash with ideas--some loony, some very intriguing--about how to shape the future of motorized transport. And this isn't only a California craze. Venture capitalists all over the country are funding start-ups in hopes of finding the next big thing.

If current demand for ethanol continues, then our own inventories of corn will fall to dangerously low levels.

In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush set an annual production target of 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2017. Unfortunately, this is going to be a slow haul--the country's less than one-third of the way from realizing that objective--and there's a more immediate concern. With nary a murmur of protest in Congress, we've allowed a massive corporate welfare system to take hold that survives due to obscenely large public subsidies.

Corn subsidies are already almost $9 billion a year, and that doesn't count any of the goodies en route to the likes of Archer Daniels Midland, the nation's biggest producer of ethanol, thanks to energy legislation passed by Congress a couple of years ago. (Oh, and did I mention the U.S. slaps a ridiculous 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports in order to protect domestic producers?)

The corn ethanol industry is understandably following its own self-interest by trying to cash in on the biofuels mania. But it has to root for oil prices to remain high--if not climb higher. If demand eased and the price for a barrel of crude dropped another $30 or so, corn ethanol production would suddenly turn unprofitable. Agribusiness and farmers would then need even bigger government subsidies to survive or they'd go bust by the bushel.

I can't predict global crude trends, but as more corn gets earmarked for ethanol production, this much is clear: food supplies here and around the world will suffer. The U.S. produces 40 percent of the planet's corn. The production of ethanol from corn requires a lot more energy compared to the process based on cellulosic sources.

Here's the rub: if current demand for ethanol continues, then our own inventories of corn likely will fall to dangerously low levels. And with U.S. farmers devoting more acreage to corn at the expense of planting other crops, that's going to hit hard in the developing world.

In the current edition of Foreign Affairs, two economists from the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, document the damage caused by the growing use of staples like corn and oilseeds--and even cassava, a crucial food for poor Africans--in the production of ethanol. Runge and Senauer say the better choice would be the use of sugar cane rather than corn. Down the road, they urge more investment in solar and wind power and in finding ways to improve energy efficiency in vehicles, homes and factories.

I think they're right. But the political constellation of forces in this country would short-circuit any move to sugar-based ethanol before it got going. There's more hope for the future-ific alternatives they sketch out--but that's going to need a big helping hand from technology's best and brightest.

We may think Uncle Sam has a grip on what needs to get fixed. But as Americans point their cars for the four corners of the country this Memorial Day weekend, it's appropriate to ask whether we're still heading in the right direction.

Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.

More Perspectives

[Commander_Spock]

Hi "Charles Cooper "....

... This was indeed a very thought provoking article. Keep up the good work. One question for you anyway: Since the subject of America's energy security is/must be or has been the focus for the last thirty or more years years -- when is there going to be an expanded list (or a CNET REPORT) that include the energy production source/capability from "AMMONIA"! The "technology name" to be provided if requested.

Regards.

Commander_Spock

[Commander_Spock]

Answer: One Example of "AMMONIA" usage!

"Multi stage thermoelectric power generation using an ammonia absorption refrigeration cycle and thermoelectric elements at numerous locations in the cycle"

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5644185.html

[acrider]

Politicians aren't serious about reducing dependence

It is obvious that politicians are not serious about reducing dependence on foreign oil, or doing anything to reduce the price of gasoline. The lack of refinery capacity is at least partially responsible for the current high prices, but Congress has not permitted the construction of a new refinery in twenty to thirty years and apparently is not going to permit a new one anytime soon. Another action that would reduce the price is to reduce the taxes on gasoline, but government is so addicted to spending money that they continue to refuse to consider that option either.

As for the dependence on foreign oil, the easy solution is to build more nuclear power plants and permit drilling in the vast untapped oil reserves within the United States, but politicians continue to give in to the environmental extremists and refuse to allow either to happen.

[Commander_Spock]

>>>"As for the dependence on foreign oil,...

... the easy solution is to build more nuclear power plants and permit drilling in the vast untapped oil reserves within the United States,..."<<<; "nuclear power plants"! Nah; Do ya remember Chernobyl in Russia?; then, how about quiet diplomacy (not gun-boat) like that which have got the Chinese about to eat the Americans' lunches and dinners in places in Africa, South America....

[anon2005]

The gas tax

The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. It hasn't gone up in 14 years. It is used to build and maintain highways and mass transit systems. If it is eliminated in the name of reducing the price of gasoline, tax money will have to come from somewhere else to keep the highway system running. Such a move doesn't make much sense.

Another thing to consider is that the price of gas is only one component in the cost of keeping a car on the road. I pay more each year for the car itself, insurance, and parking then I do for gas to run my car.

[Manhattan2]

Setting a low price for gas.

To truly come up with an alternative fuel source is there a way to establish a low stop for the price of gasoline to prevent the oil companies from simply lowering their price and driving out all competitors. Any competition that is delivered by renewable sources will drive the cost of oil down but the forced price variance would get put toward advancing GHG reduction technologies.

[suyts]

The price of an

alternative fuel must be considerably cheaper than oil or it won't fly.

[klinkenbecker]

Unfortunately...

...making fuel from food will never be sustainable. There will always be too many people (or animals) who place higher value on the food.

The sustainable way to make fuel from plants (an indirect form of solar energy) is to use the parts of the plant that we can't. Companies like the Australian company MicroBioGen are making alcohol from lignocellulose using a specially developed strain of yeast.

Lignocellulose is all the un-digestible parts of plants that has no value as food and is normally thrown away.

This is the only sustainable approach to energy from plants.

[anon2005]

The amount of oil needed to make alcohol?

Any idea how much oil does it take to make a gallon of alcohol from lignocellulose using the MicroBioGen process? For that matter how oil goes into making alcohol from corn?

[crazynexus]

Ethanol and misconceptions

First, I've read many times on here about the "myth" of ethanol... I'd like to comment on a few items. First, corn that is used in ethanol is INDIRECTLY used in the food industry. When was the last time you went in and bought 'corn' at the grocery store? The kind that comes in a can? yea, that's not what ethanol is made out of. That is sweet corn. If anyone has ever tasted field corn, they'd swear off eating corn forever. 95% of the nations' corn crop goes to support large scale beef and dairy operations, as the cattle consume the majority of the corn in this country.

Second: The cost of food in this country. In the developed world, Canada and the US spend the least amount percentage wise on food than most of the developed world. Why is that? Have you ever talked to a farmer about $1.50 per bushel corn, or $4 a bushel soy beans, or $9/cwt for dry beans? That's not sustainable for the farming community, as the price of fertilizers, pesticides, and deisel fuel that is all needed to support 300 million + people (with only 2% of the population being farmers). And then people gripe about subsidies paid out by the Federal Government to farmers. First, let's dispel another myth. Yes, large corporate farms do get SOME subsidies. But, the Farm Service Agency (which administers direct payments, counter cyclical payments, and one other) has this neat little tool called the Adjusted Gross Income. If you (or any of your members of your corporation) make more than $2 million in adjusted gross income, you're not eligible for ANY farm bill payments, including from FSA's sister agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service. I can't say anything about "indirect" subsidies, like mentioned in the article..but yes, there are tax breaks for doing things good, like reducing dependancy on foreign oil.

Third: The arguments constantly being thrown up about ethanol being a net less in energy. WRONG. Stop reading that 1992 study done by an EXTREMELY biased Cornell University Professor (which has been discredited MANY times over). Start reading Univ of N Dakota, Michigan State University, UC Davis, research. You will find those are much much more current, unbiased, and using the new ethanol technology. And holy crap, there's a net gain in energy! 1 barrel of oil used yields aprox 1.4 barrels of ethanol. This also figures in the use of the corn mash which is left over and subsequently fed to cattle.

Noone talks about soy diesel around here, and I wonder why.. Soy diesel is amazing. First, this has been confirmed on my own family farm (I am not a participant in the farm, but I do work within the agricultural industry with the US Government), and in many articles and trials of biodiesel. I don't hear people griping about OMG, they're using soybeans! Soy has a huge place in the food chain as well, anyone ever think of that? Anyway, soy diesel does quite a number of things. First, it reduces sulfer emissions substantially with only a 2% replacement of diesel. Now, start ramping that up.. at B10, diesel equipment has been found to have increases in horsepower. Not small, like 2 or 3 HP (on a 110 horse tractor, that's a significant increase). Put B10 into a diesel powered pickup, such as the F250, and you go from averaging 17 MPG to 21.. Humm, that's a great way to increase MPG without doing a whole lot.

Will ethanol ever replace fuel? No. It can't. If all the corn grain in the US was used strictly for Ethanol, it would displace ~5% of the gasoline consumption in the US. Can it be used as an additive? You bet, as it is in many states.

Celluosic ethanol has much more promise, as you can use plant fibers to break down into ethanol production. This can take marginal use land which has been out of production for a number of years, plant switch grass (a NATIVE grass to the united states), and harvest it. This has huge potential, and UNSD and Michigan State are both currently working on the research in this area. This can also take wood by products (like branches) that are left after a sustainable and selective cut (not clear cutting..that's horrific for the environment), and be used to produce ethanol. The nice thing with switchgrass is once it is established, it has very little in the way of inputs (mostly just some weed control in the first 3 years after planting).

Here is a link to many great articles from PUBLICLY HELD UNIVERSITIES and NATIONAL LABS about Ethanol: http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

One closing comment..has anyone ever thought where the negativity about Ethanol stems from? Who has the most to lose by even seeing 2% of their record yearly profits go away? Big oil. Who has the massive amounts of funding to wage a false ad campaign against something they don't want? Big Oil.

By 2 cents.

[LuvThatCO2]

Thank you

It grows tiring listen to people who know very little about the energy industry drone on and on about the myth of 'corn ethanol', acting like they know what they are talking about. As you point out, corn is just one of quite a few possible ethanol sources.

Ethanol isnt perfect - no energy source is - but if we cant use gasoline, it and biodiesel are probably the next best bets.

[crazynexus]

oops

Wrong year on the study, it was 1998, and the author is David Pimentel et al. My bad. :)

[charlie cooper]

Shilling for Big Oil?

Well, I've been called many things but never a suck-up for the oil interests. You're obviously passionate about corn ethanol but do you believe that market forces are driving the train instead of a few big companies and politics? ADM -- yeah, the "supermarket to the world" -- is now this country's biggest producer of ethanol. And they've been doing a great job throwing around their weight to get Congress to establish subsidies for its products.

[suyts]

That was a wonderfully informative

article. I thank you. Still the question on my mind is, why corn? I knew all of your arguments prior to your post. You articulated it very well. But knowing we can make ethanol out of any plant that grows, why corn? Why not a grass or even a weed? I've made ethanol out of dandelions before. With corn, farmers have to buy special equipment to harvest it. Why not a grass to where all farmers can participate in the increase of price/bushel? Why subsidize corn at all? Have you seen the price today? This year, if it quits raining, any farmer who has a decent "field" corn yield will make a killing. PLEASE NOTE! I did say this year and IF it quits raining. Like you, I am not a farmer but I'm sensitive to the toils and snares all farmers go through season in and season out. Hope someone can enlighten me as to why corn. Ty

[Dandy55]

Gasoline (petrol) prices - comparison with Europe

OK, let's ask ourselves a question: is $4 per gallon too expensive? Nowadays everybody knows - best way to give the correct answer to such questions is to compare the prices on the Internet, isn't it?

Look at the price of petrol (that is what they call gasoline in Europe) in comparable terms - median price per country in April 2007:
(Source of data: http://www.aaroadwatch.ie/eupetrolprices/default.asp - I just recalculated it into $ per gallon from Euro per Liter, to make it recognisable):

Country Unleaded Diesel
Norway $7.57 $6.96
Netherlands $7.47 $5.49
Denmark $7.22 $6.15
GB $7.02 $7.22
Northern Ireland $6.96 $7.17
Belgium $6.91 $5.44
Sweden $6.76 $6.10
Germany $6.71 $5.74
Portugal $6.61 $5.29
Finland $6.56 $5.03
Italy $6.46 $6.00
France $6.46 $5.39
Slovakia $5.90 $5.85
Poland $5.90 $5.13
Hungary $5.90 $5.59
Luxembourg $5.74 $4.58
Ireland $5.64 $5.44
Austria $5.39 $4.93
Switzerland $5.39 $5.54
Czech Republic $5.34 $5.19
Spain $5.13 $4.73
Latvia $4.98 $4.73
Greece $4.88 $4.73
Lithuania $4.68 $4.42
Estonia $4.52 $4.42
USA $2.95 $2.95

Folks, we are not ripped off just yet, even in California! If you are not happy with American prices on gasoline, would you prefer living in Nigeria (approx. $0.40) or, even better, in Venezuela (approx. $0.15)?

[Andre580]

Practical Alternative

In all the commentary on what we need to do to cut our dependence on foreign fuels, on slowing global warming, and on protecting our environment, the technology that can do all of these things today is never mentioned. What is it?

Plasma Gasification is what it is! The supplies to make ethanol with it are not corn or straw grass or sugar cane. The supplies are wastes, which are not only delivered for gasification free of charge, the deliverer must pay a fee to have the wastes taken for gasification.

Plasma gasification pyrolizes the waste at temperatures hotter than the surface of the Sun, with very little oxygen introduced. The wastes are not burned as in an incinerator but are reduced to their basic elements. Carbon-based organics in wastes are reduced to fuel gas. Inorganics such as soil, gravel, rock, cement, asbestos, and metals are reduced to a glassy slag. Plasma gasification leaves nothing to be buried.

The gas can be burned in a turbine to generate electricity or it can be synthesized into ethanol.
The slag can be separated into glassy pellets and recyclable metals. The pellets can be used as aggregate in cement.

Plasma Gasification facilities could be located at landfills to both take new wastes and reduce old wastes to valuable products. Located at landfills, the plasma gasification facilities could turn methane engendered by decaying wastes into carbon dioxide. Why? Methane is twenty-three times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Why don't we use what we have to do the work that needs to be done? The Waste Management Industry in the U.S. doesn't want it done because it would cut their profits from the status quo. The U.S. Congess and Administration would rather support the status quo than effectively address the real problems we face as a nation.

[dmaland]

Waste to Fuel

The Planning is done. Fuel Frontiers, Inc. is doing just what you suggest. With a twist they are recycleing the gases from the electrical gernerators back into Ultra Clean Diesel.

Going Green can be a commercial success too. check out their website at www.fuelfrontiers.com

[Michael Grogan]

Self-sustaining?

Is plasma gasification self-sustaining with a net surplus of energy? It takes a lot of energy to produce those temperatures; can it be done using only the gas output of the plant and still leave some gas left over for sale to the public? I'm not putting down the process here, just curious.

[anon2005]

Nukes, I don't think so.....

The big problem with nuclear power is that it leads to weapons proliferation. Just ask AQ Khan of Pakistan where he got his training to create the technology to produce the Pakistani A-bomb. This same technology then got sent along to Iran.

The other big problem of course is what to do with all those left-over wastes.

Still another problem is how to secure nuclear power plants against terrorist attacks.

[Bwfisher]

Nukes I thinks so

The Candu Reactor and other models do not produce weapons grade uranium. Once used nuclear fuel has less than 2% of its energy extracted. So called nuclear waste can be recycled and reused if we wish to do this. As for terrorist attacks, the containment structures for nuclear reactors can withstand any number of airplanes flying into them.

On the other hand poor air quality caused by internal combustion engines and coal fired electricity generators kill tens of thousands in North America every year.

Bring on clean no carbon nuclear base load electricity and the electric car.

[ed_dykes]

Does any anti-nuke have a brain?

The civilian application of nuclear power in the USA and other industrialized nations has nothing to do with weapons proliferation.

France is the world's largest exporter of electrical power, and produces 70 to 80% of their electricity every year from nuclear power. Several other nations produce 40% or more of their power from nuclear, and this group is in the lowest carbon footprint category for industrial nations.

After 50+ years of successfully handling and reprocessing civilian nuclear waste in industrial nations, it takes an amazing level of scientific ignorance to believe that managing nuclear waste is a scientific problem. That anti-nuclear wing nuts with degrees in political science and psychology are clueless in matters of science does not create a nuclear waste problem, except in their minds. Things more dangerous than nuclear waste are processed daily, such as Arsenic and chemicals, and these things have infinite half lives.

Every American city has large inventories of nuclear isotopes controlled by the medical industry. These are much easier targets than nuclear power plants, which are guarded by armed and anti-terrorist trained professionals.

Assuming that a terrorist organization gets through the armed guards and occupies a nuclear plant, it is technically very difficult to make anything happen in a timely manner that could have an impact on the general public before the police and 4,000 soldiers from the national guard arrive to take charge. Three Mile Island, with the operating staff behaving like terrorists trying their best to wreck havoc, and without anyone trying to stop them, proved this point. Flying an airplane into a nuclear plant is futility as they are designed against such an event.

Practically, more havoc can be created by destroying a chemical plant, as was proved at Bhopal India in 1984. As a refresher, the discharge of just 27 tonnes of methyl isocyanate killed 18,000 people. The total deaths to date from the Soviet disaster at Chernobyl over the 20 years since 1986 is fifty-six (56), and this was a dangerous nuclear plant design that in addition had no containment.

That pollution and the death rate from the application of all other power sources, including so-called alternative energy sources, exceeds that of nuclear power per KWH generated appears to escape the notice of the ill informed.

As a refresher, coal burning has dicharged millions of tons of uranium and thorium into the environment. These nuclear fuel contaminants in coal can release more nuclear energy than chemical energy from burning the coal.

The point is that chemical plants and solar collectors on roofs are more dangerous than the civilian use of nuclear energy in actual real world applications. We have nit-wits turning the risk chart upsided down. The under education of the American public again perverts logical solutions to important issues in cost effective ways, and stops the creation of thousands of highly paid skilled American jobs.

[rivsys]

Same old tired Luddite argument...

Wake up and smell the future.

Teledyne already has the ability to manufacture high pressure hydrogen fueling stations ( http://www.teledynees.com/titan.asp & http://www.teledynees.com/pdfs/doe-0304.pdf ) that can be literally drop-in installed in every convenience store in the country. All they need is electric power and water.

Honda has commercially ready fuel cell powered cars, slated for market introduction in the very near term ( http://preview.tinyurl.com/2mlw6f ).

Both of the technologies could be licensed to competitors in a modern day Manhattan Project designed to eliminate the use of crude oil based automotive fuels in this country. An additional benefit, economically speaking, is that our petroleum products can the be earmarked to higher value uses, petroleum based fuels that are still necessary will be reasonably priced due to drop in crude demand, and our corn production can remain, cheaply, on our tables instead of, comically, in our fuel tanks.

What is lacking is the electric power needed to support these systems, and, unfortunately, it isn't going to come from wind farms (unless we attach contraptions to capture wind from the socio-paths of the Luddite infested Green movement), solar arrays, ocean generators or any other such Rube Goldbergesque technological farces.

The power we must have, in the the quantities we have, can only be generated *cleanly* by nuclear processes - for the time being fission and later this century or early in the next by fusion. As for the "wastes", we have all the capabilities we need and have already developed the technologies needed to deal with them safely.

What is lacking is the will. Not the will to employ our vast capabilities to make it happen - the political will to ignore the whimpering whining voices of the misinformed, the willfully ignorant, the just plain stupid, and the commercially conflicted.

It is utterly beyond me to understand how one mouth can allege our own government secretly and successfully conspired to kill over 3,000 people and destroy billions of dollars of property on 9/11/2001 to start a war with a non-existent enemy, and then the same mouth condemn what is clearly the only way to proceed by expressing fear of the same, previously non-existent, enemy.

[anon2005]

Oil v. Ethanol

So how does the energy content of one barrel of oil compare to 1.4 barrels of ethanol? Also how does the efficiency of using gasoline in a car engine compare to a gasoline/ethanol mixture?

[crazynexus]

oil vs ethanol

I used improper terminology, I realized, by saying barrels (and you can't go back and edit I found out). What I should have said is BTU's. Here is a quote from a report from the USDA (with article title and authors):

The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update", by Hosein Shapouri and James A. Duffield, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Energy Policy and New Uses, and Michael Wang of the Center for Transportation Research, Energy Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory. Agricultural Economic Report No. 813, 2002: "Corn ethanol is energy efficient... For every BTU dedicated to producing ethanol there is a 34% energy gain... Only about 17% of the energy used to produce ethanol comes from liquid fuels, such as gasoline and diesel fuel. For every 1 BTU of liquid fuel used to produce ethanol, there is a 6.34 BTU gain."

Here is a link to some of the key points from this research: http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf

The only problem here is that there is still fossil fuel being used in the production (natural gas, coal), but until nuclear energy gets over the stigma it has in this country, that won't change at all.

[Wiggletoe]

The Best have been on the Job:

The Best are those that have worked for many years in preparation for the day their talents would be needed. The Rocky Mountain Institute has the solution to our energy problems posted for free on their website (read the paper), hybrid car, fuelcells, solar cells, wind turbines, ethanol, bio-diesel, high strength light weight material, etc., etc., have been in development for many years.
The nation put its faith in a Vice President that felt all we had to do was "open the spigot.? Now it time for all to understand that the solution is to change to conservation to drive down demand and starve the enemy of our energy money. You IT types need to read the paper and let the Mechanical Engineers do the driving.

[i_made_this]

The Best IT Types Are Required

The US and other governments hold regular cyber wargames on the Energy grid by inviting the security industry's best and brightest to hack the energy grid. Unfortunately, these experts have found the grid that controls and protects mission-critical energy resources to be far too easy to hack. If the Mechanical Engineers do their job, an equally urgent requirement is to secure our and allies' critical energy facilities, which are managed by IT people.

[wylbur]

ethanol=mining top soil

unfortunately, no matter how you make ethanol (or non-recycled
biodiesel) you are effectively mining top soil. This is especially
true of cellulosic ethanol that would leave no compost to return
to the soil. I once saw an estimate that if we rely on biofeuls, the
US supply of top soil will be exhausted in about 100 years. No
feul, no food.

[Yes, you could use fertilizer, but with plans to turn almost every
form of plant and poop of every animal into energy, the only
source left for fertilizer will be petroleum products].