Bush may call for billions of more gallons of ethanol from corn in his state of the union address. This being the same guy who said we were addicted to oil and then did nothing to help us kick the habit, yes I remain skeptical. In an effort to stay on top of the flood of interesting biofuel (ethanol and biodiesel) related news stories I have posted this handy link roundup for you.
Bush to call for Billions of gallons of ethanol from corn.
From here.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush is expected to call for a huge increase in the amount of ethanol that refiners mix with gasoline, probably double the current goal of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012.
While the details of the proposal are not known, 15 billion gallons of ethanol would work out to more than 10 percent of the country’s current gasoline consumption, and is far beyond the current capacity of about 5.4 billion gallons.
Personally I am still unconvinced about the energy balance of Ethanol using the current technology to make it. I have read reports that show that you do get more energy from ethanol than it takes to create it, but I worry that food that should be going to people will instead be powering our cars. I am much more in favor of developing ethanol from wood waste or switch grass or hemp or some other non-edible plant. In this way we could use non-premium land that is not suited for growing crops to create ethanol.
They finally did it, biodiesel from algae, ohh yea.
From here.
an unconventional crop could produce 100 times more biodiesel per hectare than either canola or soy. It can thrive in places where other crops can’t grow at all, and it only requires the equivalent of 5 centimeters of rain a year. It’s algae, a small but familiar plant, usually seen as a green scum that forms on ponds or aquarium glass.
To demonstrate his crop’s potential, Sears leads the way inside a former coal-fired electric power plant, now the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory at Colorado State University. CSU and Sears’ small company, Solix Biofuels, have teamed up for this research.
Sears passes a two-story tall engine that may soon be running on his biodiesel, and heads to a quieter room where test batches of algae grow in glass beakers. The water ranges from pale yellow to soft Irish green, thanks to millions of microscopic algae.
The idea of making biodiesel from algae has been kicking around for over 30 years. I have read a DOE study from the 70’s talking about the use of desert open tank growers to produce tons of algae. A lot of the problems with water loss, and algae die off have been solved and biofuels from algae are moving full steam ahead.
Brazil going crazy with the Ethanol
From here.
Brazilian companies and other investors are likely to invest an estimated 17.4 billion Brazilian reals ($8.1 billion) in the country’s biofuels sector over the next four years, which should yield a confirmed 77 new ethanol mills and 46 new biodiesel plants by 2010, said the Energy Ministry on Monday.
“By the end of 2010, Brazil should have the industrial capacity of producing 23.3 billion liters of ethanol, and the industrial capacity of producing 3.34 billion liters of biodiesel,“ said a Mines & Energy spokesman in a phone interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
If these investments come through, Brazil is set to produce about 33% more ethanol in four years’ time than the roughly 17.5 billion liters of ethanol the country is expected to produce in its 2006-07 sugarcane season (May-April).
At the same time, the country is also on track to produce four times more biodiesel by 2010, compared to the roughly 840 million liters of biodiesel that local companies are set to deliver to state-owned oil firm Petrobras SA by the end of this year.
his amount also includes two possible ethanol pipelines spanning a combined total of 1,150 kilometers currently under discussion by Petrobras, he added. The first of these pipelines is an ethanol-dedicated pipe running from the center-south state of Goias to Sao Sebastiao port in Sao Paulo state.
The second is a proposed pipeline that would carry ethanol as well as other fuels which would begin in the Mato Grosso state capital of Cuiaba and run to the country’s No. 2 port of Paranagua in the southern state of Parana.
In addition to these pipelines, Petrobras has also committed to investing BRL570 million ($266 million) in three biodiesel plants with the combined capacity of producing 150,000 tons of biodiesel per year, with additional plants possibly underway.
Brazil has had sugar cane ethanol for a long time. I am worried that the rapid growth of this sector in that country could lead to more loss of rain forest to produce more sugar cane crop land. The same worry concerns me when people want to make biodiesel out of palm oil. People seem to think that its OK to cut down large swaths of rain forest in order to make a “green” fuel. Sorry just doesn’t work that way.
Biofuels can be a very ecologically sound way to power things, but we can not simply continue to deforest the earth and ruin the soil to create them. It has been unsustainable practises in agriculture and energy use that got us into this problem in the first place. A well thought out biofuel production plan that takes into consideration the environment and the source of the fuel stock is vital to making a truly ecologically sound fuel.