25 February 2008
Advances in Technology Position Biofuels for Clean Future
But industry must address concerns about compromising food availability
Washington – Biomass has been a reliable, simple source of power since early humans burned their first logs at least 400,000 years ago. Today, driven by an urgent need to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, technology advances are bringing biomass into the future.
Many hail biofuels, an important subset of biomass, as clean, renewable alternatives to fossil fuels for transportation. Others say biofuels, like ethanol from corn, compromise world cropland and food availability, and that nonfood technology fixes for such problems are too many years in the future.
Biomass, defined as any organic material, includes sawmill waste, forest thinnings, agricultural byproducts, animal and human waste, the organic components of municipal and industrial waste and much more.
Depending on the organic material involved, biomass can be used to produce a range of common products, including plastics, polymers, carpets, fabrics, detergents, fabrics, lubricants and transportation fuels.
Unlike other renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power, biomass can be converted directly into liquid biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. These are some of the fastest-growing uses of biomass.
World ethanol production was nearly 51.1 billion liters in 2006, according to the Washington-based Renewable Fuels Association, and production is accelerating as nations seek to reduce petroleum imports, boost rural economies and improve air quality. Increasing concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and dwindling world oil supplies also are expected to spur production.
“There’s rapid growth in ethanol worldwide,” Bill Holmberg, a board member for the American Council on Renewable Energy, told America.gov. “The United States has the biggest production capacity, Brazil is second and other countries are developing their ethanol industries.”
Canada, China, India and countries in Latin America also are developing biofuels programs.
FOOD VERSUS FUEL
Ethanol is an alcohol fuel made from sugars found in grains like corn, sorghum and wheat, and in potato skins, rice, sugarcane and sugar beets.
“Brazil produces ethanol almost exclusively from sugarcane,” Tom Foust, technology manager of the Biomass Program at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), told America.gov. “In the United States it comes almost exclusively from corn.”
Europe is not pursuing ethanol as aggressively as the United States, Brazil and China, Foust said, mainly because that continent is moving rapidly to a diesel-powered transportation fleet, and ethanol is not a substitute for diesel. However, biodiesel, a fuel made from fats or greases like recycled restaurant grease, can be used in diesel engines without engine modification.
China rapidly is developing a biofuels program, Foust said, but it has “put a complete moratorium on food-based ethanol because of the concern about food versus fuel. Now they’re developing what they call Generation 1.5 and Generation 2 technologies.”
Generation 1.5 fuels are made from less critical food sources like sweet sorghum and cassava; Generation 2 fuels are made from nonfood sources like cellulose from plants, trees, grasses and waste. Cellulose makes up much of the mass of woody plants and crop waste, but breaking it down into liquid fuels currently is difficult and expensive.
At NREL in Golden, Colorado, scientists have been working on biofuels since 1978.
“The very good news,” Foust said, “is that we’ve made a lot of progress over the years. As it stands right now, we’re on the verge of making these Generation 2 technologies cost-effective for ethanol and gasoline at current crude oil prices.”
GENERATION 2
In February 2007, DOE announced it would invest $385 million over four years for six biorefinery projects that will produce more than 494 million liters (130 million gallons) of celluosic ethanol a year. That funding, combined with contributions from six companies, represents an investment in biorefineries worth more than $1.2 billion.
The projects directly support President Bush’s Twenty in Ten Initiative, one goal of which is increasing the use of renewable and alternative fuels in the transportation sector to the equivalent of 132.5 billion liters of ethanol annually by 2017.
In September 2007, the 20th meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Round Table on Sustainable Development considered the sustainable potential of biofuels and government policies to support them.
In their report, meeting participants concluded that “the potential of the current technologies of choice -- ethanol and biodiesel -- to deliver a major contribution to the energy demands of the transport sector without compromising food prices and the environment is very limited.”
At the same time, it concluded, “according to Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO [U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in the Financial Times, August, 15, 2007], bioenergy provides a chance to enhance growth in many of the world’s poorest countries by bringing about an agricultural renaissance and supplying modern energy to a third of the world’s population.”
At NREL, scientists are working with their counterparts in Europe, Brazil, China, Europe and India to advance the technology and make sure it is sustainable over the long term, Foust said.
“We all need to work together to ensure that biofuels are developed,” Foust added, “not in a way that’s best for any individual country, but in a way that’s best for the world as a whole.”
More information about biomass and biofuels is available on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Web site.
