May 2009 Archives
The world today is much different than it was a mere 200 years ago. Change is not surprising; it is a result of development, growth, and life itself carried out. Ian McHarg, in a speech entitled The Planetary Disease of Man stated, "We are engaged at adaptation for survival at every level -- cells in you, tissues in you, organs in you, you in a community, you in an ecosystem, all ecosystems in a biosphere -- all are engaged in trying to find a creative fit (I. McHarg 640)." A disconnect from the natural realm has led humans to live industrialized lives, thinking nothing of this fit in regard to the world around us. The human today is part of a very anthropocentric ethical system. The goal is to succeed in a society,
in a system, in which humans are highly regarded in comparison to everything else. Just below is a picture of Dubai, currently the fastest growing city in the world. This place was a "desert" much like Las Vegas just 10 years ago.
As a result of our growth as a global civilization, geographies are shrinking, as large distances are now smaller in relative perception to the individual. An individual travels greater distances in a day than many would travel in a lifetime 200 years ago. These innovations, however, have not only provided a primary source of disconnect from our ecosystem, but also have a highly negative effect on our environment, whether it be destruction of land through infrastructure development, or the most pressing problem of waste. The primary waste concern with transportation has to do with the power or the fuel of the product itself. The fuel of cars, buses, airplanes and other petroleum powered transportation vehicles is based around fossil fuel consumption. The emissions from the burning of petroleum have a highly negative effect on the biosphere, leaving a fast-paced, technology-driven civilization searching for answers.
Gravity
The scope of the problem provided by the toxic emissions produced from oil based fuel engines is larger that most environmental issues. With over 51 million cars to be produced in 2009 (Cars Produced), even trace chemicals emitted from one vehicle have disastrous affects when applied to this scale. The primary toxic chemicals emitted from petroleum combustion engines are carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, benzene, formaldehyde, polycyclic hydrocarbons, and lead. However, the most disastrous emission happens to be a compound that is expelled naturally from every animal. CO2 expelled from engines has contributed to an imbalance of a natural symbiotic relationship that every plant and animal enjoys the benefits of every day. The US in particular is the biggest culprit with net CO2 emissions annually of 5,984 million metric tons in 2007 (US Carbon Dioxide).
All these modes of transportation need infrastructure as well. Roads, railroad tracks, and runways are tearing up our environment, leaving the landscape with pock marks to remind us of our dependence. The focus of this essay however, is not to discuss the degrading effects of this infrastructure but to understand the scope of the problem systemically; a critical understanding of this component is crucial.
A modest move away from these vehicles, a common opinion provided by some popular quasi-environmentalists like Orson Scott Card, should be an answer, but how realistic is it? In a high-speed society, reliance on these quick-fix means of transportation is necessary for adoption by the average consumer; no one wants to sacrifice their independence, speed and ability to come and go as (quickly) as they please. Many individuals would fight to continue their lifestyle before even thinking of the repercussions revealed in recent years. As McHarg mentioned in his vital speech on Man, these so-called misfits are pathogens, a cancer on the biosphere (McHarg 635).
The reliance and dependence on cars, buses and planes also stems from a modern mythology, rich in false information and misreading of available information. The mythology is that the expense of being green is too costly and therefore unattainable. Anyone versed in economics, however, knows that once the technology is identified, and the means to scale it are developed, the more following and backing the quicker the costs will decrease. This is the economic curve of scaling technology. Scaling is a large issue to tackle, however, pertaining to not only cost scaling, but also mass production as well as societal embrace. Shrouded in myth as well is the individual cooperation of citizens. The tendency of many individuals is to feel as though they cannot make a difference; however, every change has to start at an individual level and there is much a person can do. The lack of change is in part due to a simple lack of relevant education amongst a large fraction of the population, coupled with the individual's perception of the possible impact of their efforts. This same type of information-action disconnects shows up in nearly every environmental issue. Individuals need to realize that everyone is a part of the problem, and that everyone needs to do his or her part to amend it. This lack of effort just seems to be yet another incarnation of a societal system, induced by delusional self-oriented members of a society, which Hardin identified in the late sixties (Hardin, Garret J).
2008 brought a slight decline in CO2 emissions by comparison to past years in the US; however, the oil price spike had to play a part in this decline. What happened as the oil spike subsided? Car use once again returned to a happy dependence found in oblivion to past events. This quick respite from excusing any task by just using a car was a time for green technologies to strike, and it was. Companies, industries, and corporations saw that Americans, as well as any other nation's citizens, would not adhere to a price gauge without a behavioral change. These responses have paved the road necessary for forward thinking projects on ethanol and biofuel development to realize their full market potential, thus buying more backers and fueling a push for change. The individual still needs to understand that change is incremental and there will not be one cure-all. There will be many band-aids applied to the wound before a true solution is met. The video below is a speach given at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in April 2009 by the founder Amory Lovins describing a positive future, the speech is titled "Image a World".
Development
In response to the environmental problems of today, many chemical, agricultural and biotechnology companies are marshalling their resources alone, and in some cases as collaborations, to provide solutions. Ethanol-based fuel is one of the most prominent biofuel research operations underway. It is currently one of the most effective fuel alternatives. As a fuel source, it can be blended with gasoline as anhydrous ethanol and can work in most standard cars on the road today. It is produced through hydration of ethylene, primarily in host crops of corn or sugar. Interest in ethanol as a fuel has been widespread since inception. Currently, Brazil has the largest percentage of supporting products and consumers; the country achieved that current status through a long and highly incremental change. Starting in the late seventies, Brazil passed policy mandating ethanol content minimums in gasoline. By 1977, Brazil mandated that 20 percent of gasoline be ethanol. Thirty years later, cars in the United States typically still only run on up to 10 percent ethanol. Brazil has also provided tax incentives over time to produce and purchase lite-ethanol vehicles.
The appeal of ethanol fuel is quite strong, though there are great negatives attached to the existing ethanol development practices. These negatives are amplified when large industrialized nations are trying to get up to speed at a rapid pace. Crop cycles are an agricultural practice that humans have understood for thousands of years. The crop must change every few years to avoid soil degradation as well as to replace vital nutrients necessary for growth. Whether corn produces food or ethanol, the crop can't always be corn and impatient scaling can have disastrous outcomes as rain forest land and other important ecosystems are destroyed to keep up with demand as has been the case in Borneo and parts of South America.
The most important aspect of the agricultural issues surrounding ethanol development is the so-called food versus fuel quandary. Simply stated, the issue is should a crop be used for food or for fuel? In a world with poverty and far reaching hunger, this issue has social and political ramifications. The 2007-2008 world-food crises were rooted in food scarcity, however, the crisis was in part self perpetuating: when the price of food exceeds the ability of the consumer to pay for it, the food gets moved to a location where a profitable sale can be made. This paradoxically causes the "scarcity." The US's greatest crop yield each year is corn. Corn also happens to be the currently most feasible way for the US to produce ethanol from crops. In three years US corn prices have tripled, maize prices have almost tripled, wheat is estimated up 127 percent and rice is up 170 percent. Through the years 1974 to 2005, food prices actually decreased. This spike in prices has produced more hunger and more discontent. The US and other large nations cannot switch as fast as they would like using existing ethanol development operations, so the search for alternative source development has become the focus for new research efforts by companies like DuPont and Genencore and collaborative efforts between the Department of Energy and oil-producing companies such as Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
Cellulosic ethanol development is a proposed new process for biofuel development. Cellulosic ethanol is quite different from typical ethanol. Cellulose bearing organic material, biomass, is used to produce fuel through an enzyme created for the specific process. Issues with cellulosic ethanol development are very clear. The yields per hectare of land are nowhere near as high, and the process is twice as costly in comparison to producing ethanol from corn (Gardner). Furthermore, the process is not streamlined in comparison to typical feedstock ethanol practices. However, cellulosic ethanol development is opening up a much wider range of potential crop fields used for biomass.
Switchgrass is a crop under heavy research. Switchgrass can grow very easily with little to no maintenance, it produces as large amount of biomass per hectare and it is a fast developing plant species. However, there are many skeptics of the use of switch grass biofuel development. Patzek mentions the corn and switchgrass industries and states that implementing the new 55 million acre switchgrass quota will inevitably eliminate space for other crops (Patzek, "Why Cellulosic Ethanol Will Not Save Us?"). Reaching the appropriate growth and manufacturing scale also poses a great issue. Some economists have argued for an incentive program (Morris 3). Scaling this macro in such a short period, however, almost always results in failure and collapse of the original thesis. It is important to remember that soil content and local weather impact which crops will grow on a given piece of land, furthermore much of our nations suburban housing is being constructed on what might otherwise be prime farmland.
Sequestration of CO2 is another grave concern with ethanol practices. In order to become carbon negative or at least carbon neutral, the life cycle of the whole system must be under critical review (McDonough, Braungart, "Waste Equals Food"). In switchgrass, sequestration is a concern with the root system left in place after harvest. The leftover biomass cannot be used for animal grain feed as it can in the case of corn and sugar cane. The leftover biomass must be burned, requiring more time and energy.
Conclusion
Considering all the issues with new and old practices in ethanol development, the benefits are still very great, especially on a local level. Using ethanol as fuel is a cleaner practice for fuel, and the engine technology is readily available and waiting for implementation. Cars developed with "flex" technology allow for greater mileage with nearly a closed lifecycle in terms of CO2 emission. The cooperation of car industries is essential to put this technology into action. Switch grass cellulosic ethanol development is the most promising of the ethanol production methods on a global scale.
Switch grass ethanol extraction will play a vital role in the band aid global environmental recovery. The potential for the technology is far greater than initially speculated. The policies pertaining to development of such practices are giving an appropriate push for the technology. In contrast, global powers need to provide more policy cohesion in relation to this backing. As a crop that has the ability to maintain itself, switch grass crop implementation needs to pick up over the next few years. Country to country networking and decision making in the future can potentially yield to continents such as Africa to be more influential and vital in the growth processes and extraction methods.
The development of new ethanol practices must be clearly and plainly understood; it is likely that no single practice will be a cure-all. As mentioned before, these developments are all band-aid solutions until a new innovation is researched, designed, and implemented. Individuals are a crucial component to change and they must get past the perceived limitation of impact surrounding their efforts. Cooperation is the only way globally to correct the errors of our ways. Through proper knowledge and understanding of the issue everyone can help to avoid the bleak future that is waiting with failure.
Cited Sources
Card, Orson S. "Life Without Cars." Rhinoceros Times [Greensboro, NC] 8 Apr. 2007, Civilization Watch sec.
"Cars Produced in the World." Online Posting. Worldometers.com. 2009. Worldometers: World
Ekawati, Arti. "Energy Consultant Urges Investment in Nonfood Crop Sources of Biofuels." Online Posting. Checkbiotech.com. 21 Jan 2009. Checkbiotech. 1 April 2009 http://bioenergy.checkbiotech.org/news/energy_consultant_urges_investment_nonfood_crop_sources_biofuels
Gardner, Timothy. "Switch Grass Fuel Yields Bountiful Energy." Online Posting. Planetark.com. 10 Jan 2008 Reuters. 3 April 2009 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46338/story.htm
"Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle." EPA.com. Feb 2005. US Environmental Protection Agency. 1 April 2009 http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/420f05004.pdf
Hammel-Smith, C, Fang, J., Powders, M., and Aabakken, J.. "Issues Associated with the Use of Higher Ethanol Blends." NREL.gov. Oct 2002. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. 1 April 2009 http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy03osti/32206.pdf
Hardin, Garret J. The Tragedy of the Commons. Macmillan, 1968.
Ian, McHarg. "Man: Planetary Disease." North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference. Portland, Oregon. 10 Mar. 1971.
McDonough, William, and Michael Braungart. Cradle to Cradle. New York: North Point P, 2002.
Patzek, Tad. "Why Cellulosic Ethanol Will Not Save Us?." Online Posting. Venturebeat.com. 5 Nov 2006. Venturebeat. 2 April 2009 http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/05/why-cellulosic-ethanol-will-not-saveus/
"Putting the Pieces Together: Commercializing Ethanol from Cellulose." Newrules.org. Sept 2006. Institute for Local Self-Reliance. 2 April 2009 http://www.newrules.org/agri/celluloseethanol.pdf
Shapouri, Hosein, A. Duffield, James, and Wang, Michael. "The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update." Ethanolrda.org. July 2002. United States Department of Agriculture. 3 April 2009 http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/documents/79/aer-813.pdf
Statistics Updated in Real Time. 1 April 2009 http://www.worldometers.info/cars/
"US Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reach Record High in 2007." Online Posting. Mongabay.com. 21 May 2008. Mongabay: Tropical Rainforest Conservation. 1 April 2009 http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0521-energy.html
The Discovery Science channel ran a series a few months ago called Ecopolis, which discussed a number of promising new technologies to help citizens of a hypothetical future city deal with critical needs such as energy, food, water, transportation, and waste disposal. Each episode featured four technologies from which Nobel prize-winning energy scientist, Dan Kammen, selected a winner. On the episode entitled A World of Trash, the winner was biochar, a sort of charcoal that can be produced by the pyrolysis of organic materials. Pyrolysis is the process of heating a substance to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen. I recently had the opportunity to attend a biochar presentation called 'Biochar 101' given by Lopa Brunjes, Vice President of Biochar Engineering. She did an excellent job in explaining how biochar works and why it's well positioned to address many issues associated with climate change and fossil fuel depletion.
Biochar's origins can be traced to South America where natives of the Amazon jungles have been using it for millenia to increase soil fertility. The jungles of South America, despite their lush vegetation, do not have very fertile soil because so many organisms are drawing on it. When jungles are cleared and replaced with crops, the soil can only produce crops for a few years before becoming depleted. However, the natives of these lands discovered thousands of years ago that if biochar is mixed in with the soil, it can restore its fertility, creating a dark soil known as terra preta. The biochar, which is basically porous charcoal, works in much the same way as a coral reef does in the ocean. Just one gram of biochar provides as much as 500 square meters of surface area and in this porous material, microbes can thrive and help to make the soil from 80% to 220% more productive. The biochar helps the soil retain moisture and nutrients and thus can reduce the amount of water and fertilizer required to achieve good plant yield.
Biochar can ctually sequester carbon for several thousand years. Unlike most soil amendments that need to be replenished annually, biochar continues to work its magic for centuries. This has several important ramifications. If carbon stored in trees and other biomass can be taken out of the atmosphere for thousands of years, it can counteract the effect of burning fossil fuels, whose carbon tends to concentrate in the atmosphere. If biomass is simply burned as fuel or otherwise consumed, its carbon ends up back in the atmosphere in a year or two. In addition, biochar can help to make infertile soil capable of producing new biomass, further allowing more carbon to be extracted from the atmosphere. The new biomass can be used to produce more crops, fuel, and biochar in a sort of virtuous cycle. Instead of depleting the soil, it can reverse the trend that modern agriculture has set in motion, which requires massive amounts of fossil fuels like natural gas to be used to make fertilizer to maintain soil fertility.
Biochar isn't just carbon neutral, it's carbon negative, and I've yet to hear of any technology that sequesters carbon without incurring a significant cost. Instead of requiring a net input of energy, products from the biochar can be used as the fuel to heat the biomass that is being converted to biochar so it's self-sustaining. In making biochar, the process also produces bio-oil and syngas, a combination of carbon monoxide and methane, and syngas can be reformed using catalysts into other useful products such as liquid fuels like methanol and ethanol. So in addition to making a valuable soil amendment, the process can also produce carbon-neutral transportation fuels.
All societies produce waste biomass, some on massive scales. Much of it gets hauled off to be buried in landfills, and produces no further benefit to society. In fact, burying biomass in a landfill actually creates problems because it turns into methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than CO2, and that leaks into the atmosphere. That's why landfills are now required to put in collection wells and draw out the methane so that it can be flared off. However, flaring methane produces no societal benefit. It's easy to imagine every city having a central repository for yard and agricultural waste that can convert it into useful products like biochar and liquid fuels.
I see a very bright future for this technology. It's something that can be produced and used locally, and has many benefits with no detrimental effects. Buckminster Fuller liked to remind us that there is no waste, just misplaced resources, and biochar looks like a perfect way to turn organic waste into a valuable resource.
Biomass Resources
Biomass Companies
