The Solution Eludes us
This is an interesting article from Technology Review that raises a few questions about this whole biofuels thing:
http://technologyreview.com/Biotech/18476/
The article details a company called Amyris - a Khosla Ventures backed company that was originally founded to discover drug treatments and found new uses of its technology for biofuels uses. There are a few things that are discussed that are worth talking about more:
Rather than trying to find better ways to make ethanol–the aim of most new biofuel efforts–the researchers chose to create entirely novel biofuels, guided by their own ideas about what a fuel might look like if designed from scratch. “We looked at the Merck Index and said, If you could pick any molecule to use as fuel, what would you pick?” says Jack Newman, one of Amyris’s cofounders and vice president of research.
and…
Amyris scientists are now designing metabolic pathways that yield these compounds and tinkering with them to make production as efficient as possible. “You have to walk down a cost curve of production,” says Renninger. “At the bottom, you get a product so cheap you can burn it.”
There are a few points to this method that they are employing that I think have broader impacts that just their company.
What’s a good fuel?
I’ve written on this already in detail, but let’s revisit it. While the method of going through the Merck index looking for a good fuel is admirable, I think it’s a bit misguided. It’s clear to me that ethanol is not a “good” fuel, but rather a “good” alternative. The supply-side side question is only half of the equation. I think that a good fuel is one that has the following capabilities:
- Easily managed: can ship it without much trouble, can store it safely in a container, doesn’t get easily contaminated
- Has a good enough energy density
- Is prevalent in our everyday existence.
Finding a fancy way of making a relatively fancy molecule doesn’t sound like the best way to make something entirely ubiquitous. “Walking down the cost curve” seems like a daunting task. Combine that with the fact that after a significant amount of cars has this new-fangled fuel, there isn’t much incentive to keep it cheap. The oil industry, despite how much money it makes now, was going bankrupt in the 90’s (remember all those mega-mergers when oil was $10/barrel). The oil companies have plenty of incentive to keep oil prices high and to continue speculation if we are really running out (at this point, we’re going to pay regardless aren’t we)?
It seems to me that the best fuel alternative would be something that is so prevalent in our world that it’s literally right in front of our face. Right now. You’re looking at it and interacting with it - perhaps you don’t even know it. That’s what hydrogen is essentially. We should be able to harness that…whatever it is, use it, and return it back in the same form (or put it on some pathway).
Need to work out the costs
Biofuels are an interesting start to that - but their economics are tough. These engineered micro-organisms must be produced in large scale and be ubiquitous (otherwise this won’t work). Extraction yield, fermentation yield, plus the transportation costs will ultimately determine cellulosic feedstock’s viability in the long term. We still can’t do it to the scale and the pervasiveness that we would like (if we wanted to, say, go to ALL E85). These economics need to be met and be cheap as dirt. But cheap as dirt catalysts don’t make a lot of money.
Pacific ethanol’s gross margins are around 11 or 12%. That’s not good (Apple Computer’s by comparison is 30%). This is for a company that doesn’t use cellulosic processes (corn extraction requires less extravagant technologies). So these micro-organisms that Amyris, Mascoma, Genencor, etc need to be worked into this 11 or 12% margin and still leave enough left over to run the rest of the business. Mind you, this 11%+ is predicated both corn and ethanol prices which fluctuate with many other commodities.
Shouldn’t we change our thinking?
Ethanol only has less energy density than gasoline. But so what. Maybe we should make our engines efficient enough so that they meet our requirements with ethanol (or whatever crap we can figure out how to make). We to do more with less. Period. The same F150s we have today may need to change significantly in terms of its propulsions system. Gasoline isn’t the only way to make things Ford Tough.
We’ll get there.
