Subtitle: Ah, ma, soy burgers again?
If you are concerned about the soaring price of oil and the threat to national security resulting from dependency upon imported oil, then biofuels may seem to be a good idea. Relatively cheap bus fares in the future may depend upon whether there is partial or complete electrification of public transit. Some are looking at agricultural sources for a cheap, cleaner alternative to coal as a feedstock for power generation.
Most energy policy analysts. i.e., those not subject to undue influence from the Oily Administration and the COB (Cruise On Booze) crowd, will admit that:
- Corn to ethanol for fuel is dumb
- Clearing rainforest to grow palm oil is dumb
- Growing crops for energy at the expense of our food is dumb.
Chevron Energy Solutions is investing in SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cells) technology. More efficient than gas turbines, “SOFCs are around 50-60 percent efficient at converting fuel to electricity. In applications designed to capture and utilize the system’s waste heat (co-generation), overall fuel use efficiencies could top 80-85 percent,” reports Biopact.
Gas turbines emit air pollutants such as nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide; SOFCs do not, and they emit far less carbon dioxide. Whether landfill or farm, combustion is how bio-gas now becomes electric power. SOFCs provide an alternative; the question is whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Through development of new high-tech materials and processes if the cost of solid oxide fuel cells could be brought down sufficiently, then it increases the diversity of fuel supply for the generation of electricity. While this would mean bio-gas rather than imported natural gas and soybean oil rather than diesel oil, the question remains whether the intense heat necessary for SOFC operation will be the basis for the gasification of pulverized coal, i.e., entrained flow gasifiers operating under high temperature and pressure produce a fuel gas for the fuel cell. In other words, is SOFC code for more Syngas Spin, Jim?
Some are willing to gamble that American farms can provide food and fuel, since it would mean an increase in commodity prices. Les Brown and his Earth Policy Institute are worried that the overall impact could be disastrous from an economic perspective.
The lure is the potential for a new industry based on small-scale, on-site, distributed power generation operating on vegetable oil. Granaries press the oil seed. The oil goes for power generation on site and sold to the Grid and the crushed seed used for feed / food, bioplastics, etc.
The soybean is the primary oil seed in American agriculture, although there is the potential to use corn, cotton seed, hemp seed, and peanut, whereas elsewhere Canola, Jatropha and palm oil is cultivated. The EROEI varies, as does the environmental impact. In some cases, the growth and harvesting of oil seed has a significant negative environmental impact, e.g., when tropical forests are sacrificed for energy crops. Then there is the feedback of anthropogenic GHG producing climate change, which results in drought that diminishes crop yields… just one of the water implications of increased biofuel production.
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Lester Brown is founder and director of the Earth Policy Institute. And, he is a regular contributor to TreeHugger about alternative energy and solutions for a sustainable future.
Data was a vital part of Lester Brown’s latest book from Earth Policy Institute, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
From his book he provides some facts to Treehugger readers that may be of interest to you:
The eight warmest years on record have all occurred in the last decade.
For seven of the last eight years, the world has consumed more grain than it produced; grain stocks are now at a historic low.
One fifth of the U.S. grain harvest is now being turned into fuel ethanol.
One third of reptile, amphibian, and fish species examined by the World Conservation Union are considered to be threatened with extinction.
Grain yields increased half as fast in the 1990s as they did in the 1960s.
Life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa today is lower than it was in the late 1980s.
Today’s economically recoverable reserves of lead, tin, and copper could be depleted within the next 25 years if their extraction expands at current rates.
Nearly half of the annual global military budget of $1.2 trillion is spent by one country: the United States.
And here are some optimistic facts:
South Korea leads the world in paper recycling, recovering an estimated 77 percent of its paper products.
Conservation agriculture is practiced on more than 100 million hectares around the world.
Four years after London introduced a fee on motor vehicles entering the city center, average car traffic had fallen by 36 percent while bicycle trips had increased by 49 percent.
The world produces 110 million bicycles a year, more than twice the annual production of 49 million cars.
Fish farming, largely of herbivorous species, is the fastest growing source of animal protein worldwide, increasing by an average of 7 percent each year since 1995.
World soybean production has quadrupled since 1977.
Coal use in Germany has dropped 37 percent since 1990; in the United Kingdom it has fallen by 43 percent.
Solar cell production is doubling every two years, making it the world’s fastest growing energy source.
Electricity used for lighting around the world can be cut by 65 percent through efficiency improvements like switching from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescents.