Biofuels Essays Part 3: What the solution should look like?
So now that we’re here, what do we do about it?
But I think I can describe some things of a potential “end-game” solution. This, I think, is important to begin to understand the ultimate direction the industry must take (the route to this solution being the real unknown).
There are three elements to an ultimate solution:
(1) Must exist within an existing natural process
(2) Must support behavior that allows for abundance rather than temperance
(3) Cheap
These are mostly just a re-hashing of Cradle-to-cradle thinking. However, I think it provides a strong guideline to where we ultimately should go. Let’s talk about each one:
Must exist within an existing natural process
This is simply a re-iteration of Cradle-to-cradle thinking. The problem we’re having now is that we are using a source of carbon that is not part of the earth’s current metabolism. Further, we are destroying the earth’s ability to metabolize its “normal” levels of CO2.
What does this mean? A good example of this is a water wheel. Using the kinetic energy from naturally falling water (a natural transference of potential energy to kinetic energy) and convert this kinetic energy into electricity (hopefully with as little loss as possible).
Biofuels offer some opportunity for this. Plants build themselves with the CO2 they absorb from the atmosphere. When we break them down to use a fuels and burn them in our cars, we are merely returning this CO2 back into the atmosphere. The problem with this process is that plant materials don’t naturally return their own biomass to the atmosphere, but rather the ground as other forms of nutrients. So, therefore, biofuels (plant-based biofuels at least) ought not provide a long-term solution. They can, however, provide a vital step in the global fight to mitigate CO2 emissions.
Must support behavior that allows for abundance rather than temperance
On the other hand, we can’t utilize an energy source where, when used in abundance, creates additional problems. Human beings don’t have a good track record of minimizing our consumption. Wealth attainment is almost always associated with an increase in energy consumption. But we ought not have to create a solution that makes a tradeoff between the utility of consuming energy and the impact to the environment. In other words, we ought not have to create a hybridized car, simply for the sake of creating fuel economy (rather than it being an affordable transportation technology). If the fuel was something that provided a nutrient (read waste=food) to the environment, then it would serve man kind rather than detract from it. It’s important to note the previous qualification that the notion of abundance should be taken within the context of the scale available resources. Taken in this sense, economy is warranted.
This requirement also underscores that, perhaps, we need to change the context within which we consume energy/fuels. The book Winning the Oil Endgame suggests an economical way for the
Cheap
We can’t run our cars on moon rocks. This has to be something that poor people can afford and can be utilized in perpetuity at low-cost. This is a deceptively obvious point because it illustrates that the solution is most likely something we are already familiar with, but have not figured out how to harness it.
There are three primary paradigms for producing biofuels that are being vetted:
(1) Tranesterification (biodiesel)
Transesterification is the transformation of an ester group with one methyl group to another group. Biodiesel uses transesterification to transform free fatty acids and triglycerides to turn them into long-chain alcohols. These can be substituted into petrodiesel as an additive to reduce emissions and improve some performance.
(2) Thermoprocessing (ethanol, methanol, and other hydrocarbons)
Thermoprocessing utilizes heat to breakdown biomass into a char or into a syngas. Syngas can then be transformed into methanol, ethanol, or other molecules
(3) Fermentation or other biological transformation (ethanol)
This platform utilizes some biologic to transform a feedstock into ethanol (or some other intermediate). There are many variations of this process. The “base” case is one that utilizes enzymes that break down cellulose into basic sugars. These sugars are fermented into ethanol. There are other variants to this model such as growing algae from which to extract bio-octanes. But the basic process is one that utilizes a biological system to transform a feedstock into a desired product.
Various companies are taking some variant of these formats. Nearly all biodiesel companies use transesterification (rather simple process) to make biodiesel; the difference being some improvements in the processing technology and the feedstock yields. RangeFuels utilizes a modified version of process (2) that improves their economics and scalability. ZeaChem uses a hybrid between (3) and (2) to improve overall yield and efficiency (utilizing a lactic acid intermediate platform from which to produce ethanol). Some are more pure-plays only producing enzymes to sell to companies wanting to build a production process (Genencor, Novozymes, and others). Iogen developes its own enzymes and production technologies. Codexis is developing a recombinant DNA process to genetically engineer application-specific catalysts.
But is this a good investment target environment? We’ll talk about that next time.
