Congress Asked to Up Ethanol Production

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-cong/2005/apr/18/041805758.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - Corn-based ethanol is being pumped into more gas tanks every year, and farm-state senators and a majority of governors want an even greater flow. They say an energy bill Republicans are pushing through the House this week does not go far enough to replace foreign oil with homegrown ethanol.

The legislation would require refiners to use 5 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol a year by 2012, about 20 percent more than the industry expects to produce this year.

But governors from 30 states, in a recent letter to President Bush and members of Congress, urged lawmakers to boost the requirement to 8 billion gallons a year and provide tax breaks and other federal help to spur production from non-corn sources including grasses, wood chips and even garbage.

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The higher number is opposed by both Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Rep. Joe Barton, both of Texas. Barton will manage the energy legislation on the House floor, beginning Wednesday. The oil industry also has vowed to vehemently oppose any requirement beyond what's already in the bill.

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[Coastie for Truth]

1. Two routes to ethanol (EtOH)

Ethyl alcohol is derived from two main processes, hydration of ethylene and fermentation of sugars. Hydration of ethylene is the primary method for the industrial production of ethyl alcohol, while fermentation is the primary method for production of beverage alcohol.

Industrial Production: Traditionally, industrial ethanol is manufactured via the acid catalyzed hydration of ethylene. Current technology uses porous catalyst carriers (zeolites, silica gels) impregnated with phosphoric acid.

The reaction with phosphoric acid is as follows:

Ethylene + Phosphoric acid catalyst --> Ethanol + Phosphoric acid catalyst

Ethylene is a petroleum product, requiring high temperature processing.

Fermentation and Beverage Production All beverage alcohol and much of that used in industry is formed through fermentation of a variety of starches, carbohydrates, and sugars. (In earlier years, until about 1947, the largest proportion of the production of industrial alcohol was also from fermentation). Fermentation can be defined as an enzyme (yeast) catalyzed chemical reaction at about room temperature.

C6H1206 --> 2CH3CH2OH + 2CO2

The initial fermentation mixture contains approximately 3% (beer) to 15% ethanol (wine and sherry). This is a "natural" limit of sacchromyces cerivisae (brewers yeast, vintners yeast) because higher concentrations of ethanol kills the yeast.

Distillation is required to generate higher alcohol concentrations. However, this is not the high temperature distillation required in petroleum refining.

My bottom line --- the ethylene route to ethanol starts from a petroleum product, which is thermally converted to ethylene (energy into the process), which is in turn converted to ethanol, which has to be distilled (more energy into the process). This is where we get the rubric that it takes more energy make ethanol then you can get out of the ethanol as a fuel.

The fermentation route to ethanol is much slower, and still requires a distillation step (energy into the process) - but much less energy into the process then the ethylene route. But, this is where we get the rubric that it takes time and money and vast amounts of real estate (for growing the grains and then for the vats) to make ethanol.

Take your choice.

[htuttle]

2. There's no single step to the energy future

I haven't seen ANYTHING that would replace petroleum barrel for barrel -- it don't exist.

If we want to switch to biomass fuel for vehicular travel, we will also have to start driving vehicles that are MUCH more efficient. If you have to grow your fuel (which is essentially choosing between food and fuel for a given piece of farmland), it makes no sense to drive something that only gets 30 miles per gallon or less.

For example, imagine how much less fuel of any type, we'd use if the preferred single passenger vehicle in US urban areas was the scooter (as it is in Asia), rather than the SUV. Widespread mass transit has become a 'must' as well, though electrical power generated through various means probably makes more sense for that.

There are a lot of things that will end up changing in the energy future -- the fuel source of our vehicles is only one of them.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. You will get no disagreement from me - same wavelength

After 9/11 I sold my SUV and went to an econo car. We now have two econo cars. The only reason I did not go down to a Scion or Echo is my wife's arthritis. We live in a high rise condo in a "Transit Village."

Your statement "I haven't seen ANYTHING that would replace petroleum barrel for barrel -- it don't exist." is good thermodynamics - and frightening politics (I do believe that our military aggression and misadventure in Iraq is an "aggressive war" of "Blood for Oil.")

I agree "If we want to switch to biomass fuel for vehicular travel, we will also have to start driving vehicles that are MUCH more efficient. If you have to grow your fuel (which is essentially choosing between food and fuel for a given piece of farmland), it makes no sense to drive something that only gets 30 miles per gallon or less. "

As to "For example, imagine how much less fuel of any type, we'd use if the preferred single passenger vehicle in US urban areas was the scooter (as it is in Asia), rather than the SUV. Widespread mass transit has become a 'must' as well, though electrical power generated through various means probably makes more sense for that."

1) The only time I ever voted against a Democrat was when Pete Flaherty ran for Mayor of Pittsburgh on anANTI TRANSIT Platform - and I voted for Republican John Tabor (1969)

2) I voted to increase our county sales tax in Santa Clara County CA to extend rapid transit (BART) to San Jose.

3) I have regularly appeared at VTA (Valley Transit Authority) public hearings to testify in favor of extending rapid transit (BART) to San Jose.

4) I do not drive to San Francisco - I take almost rapid transit (CALTRAIN).

And I was even on the "informal sanity check committee" for Dr Jim Saklas' PhD dissertation (an application of Maslow's Need Hierarchy to transit riders).

[hunter]

4. Are you familiar with DME Synthesis?

There really isn't anything you can't do with an oxygen separation plant and a pile of bio-mass...

DME is a bottled gas similar to propane. It is an excellent diesel fuel, better than natural gas, and an excellent cooking fuel, better than ethanol.

I have yet to be convinced that ethanol from corn is anything more than a very complicated and expensive way of turning petroleum into ethanol. There is a huge stink of "corporate welfare" about it.

Here is a nice DME reference:

Journal of Natural Gas Chemistry 12(2003)219-227

Direct Dimethyl Ether Synthesis

Takashi Ogawa^*, Norio Inoue, Tutomu Shikada, Yotaro Ohno

DME Development Co., Ltd, Shoro-koku Shiranuka-ch, Hokkaido, 088-0563 Japan



Abstract: Dimethyl ether (DME) is a clean and economical alternative fuel which can be produced from natural gas through synthesis gas. The properties of DME are very similar to those of LP gas. DME can be used for various fields as a fuel such as power generation, transportation, home heating and cooking, etc. It contains no sulfur or nitrogen. It is not corrosive to any metal and not harmful to human body. An innovative process of direct synthesis of DME from synthesis gas has been developed. Newly developed catalyst in a slurry phase reactor gave a high conversion and high selectivity of DME production. One and half year pilot scale plant (5 tons per day) testing, which was supported by METI, had successfully finished with about 400 tons DME production.

http://www.jfe-holdings.co.jp/dme/pdf/ronbun08.pdf (664K)

[Coastie for Truth]

5. I've seen it mentioned - but haven't dug into it

(my "areas" are electrochem and photovoltaics). But I had a Physical Chem professor - who also "tutored" Organic - and he used to go through the whole catalog of alternative hydrocarbon fuels and synthesis - over coffee at the student union. He actually made synthetic organic chem fun he was so enthusiastic. (But he was even better for Physical Chem. ;-))

[NNadir]

7. Like hydrogen, from which it is conveniently made, DME is not a form

of energy, but a means of chemically storing energy.

As a storage medium, DME has properties that are very, very, very hard for any other chemical fuel to meet. It is non-toxic, easily removable from water, liquifiable, can be used with great flexibility, is easy to transport and store, extremely clean to use, has a short atmospheric life time (ca 5 days) and therefore a low greenhouse gas potential. It is applicable wherever natural gas or diesel fuel are applicable. In addition it is useful as a propellant (it is now widely used in hairspray cans) and it is an excellent non-toxic (albeit flammable) refrigerant.

In this regard DME is far superior to ethanol. Ethanol is merely a much hyped fuel that is more notable for inspiring paroxysms of wishful thinking from poorly educated day dreamers (especially those in congress) than for actually addressing real problems. Even in Brazil, where ethanol is actually economic as opposed to the highly subsidized fuel it represents in the US, the use of ethanol has had enormous environmental consequences - particularly with respect to the destruction of rain forest, soil depletion, toxic agricultural run-off, etc, etc.

Since DME can be safely stored and transported, it is also superior to the other fuel often hyped by those with poor comprehension of energy issues, hydrogen. In fact, hydrogen's best use might not to be to load it into incredibly expensive demonstration buses manufactured by the DOE for the benefit of inspiring Oooooos and ahhhhhhhs from the uneducated. Hydrogen's best use may be as a synthetic intermediate for the manufacture of DME.

Still, again, like the hydrogen from which it easily can be made, DME is NOT a source of energy. It is a form of stored energy. Unless you have energy with which to make it, DME, like ethanol and hydrogen, is a shell game.

[Coastie for Truth]

8. While I very rarely agree with Kunstler

("The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century" By: James Howard Kunstler) on much, he makes two good points.

1) Fossil fuels were "ideal" (energy/mass, energy recovered/energy input, transportability) for the 20th Century.

2) "Peak oil" is going to send shock waves through our society and economy.

I don't think DME addresses "Peak Oil" - I think summing up lots of location specific sources of electricity on a base of nuclear power is where we will go.

And, from a purely college thermodynamics/physical chemistry viewpoint - I think "pure electric" cars make more sense then "fuel cell" cars. But, with Kunstler - I think that "Peak Oil" spells the end of the multi-car family living in an outer suburb, not pedestrian friendly, not transit friendly, where you "have to drive everywhere."

[NNadir]

9. DME is readily accessible from nuclear energy using the Sulfur Iodine...

and/or related cycles to generate the hydrogen intermediate for DME production.

China will have a nuclear plant on line dedicated to thermochemical hydrogen cycles probably shortly after this decade closes out. It's a high temperature gas cooled reactor and if memory serves me well, ground has already been broken for it.

(China is going gang busters for nuclear power because they recognize that they are in danger of total collapse from coal, as we are too, although we, unlike them, are too stupid, deluded and distracted to recognize what is happening.)

Anyway, back to DME...

Since nuclear driven thermochemical hydrogen cycles operate at high temperatures, typically > 800C, there is a step/down "co-generation" capability here wherein electricity is generated as a side product. Under these conditions, nuclear power plants can operate at very high thermodynamic efficiency, typically approaching 70%.

DME can be utilized in fuel cells through catalytic in line reforming of the same type that has been suggested for methanol. However, I don't think there is a particularly good reason for doing this. DME is perfectly well suited to internal combustion conditions of all types, including turbine systems. As always, these systems are modifiable for hybrids.

Since there are no carbon-carbon bonds in the molecule, there are no particulates as pollutants. The side products of combustion are very similar to those of natural gas, trace CO, trace formaldehyde and trace formic acid. The only major drawback is that DME, a room temperature gas, has poor lubricity in diesel systems. This suggests that it may be necessary to use biodiesel or some similar product as a lubricant. Since biodiesel burns much dirtier than DME, this could be a minor drawback in diesel engines, although it should be said out of the box that biodiesel generally has lower particulates (but sometimes higher NOx) than petroleum diesel.

If CO2 is hydrogenated or if biogenic carbon monoxide is use to make DME, the DME is carbon neutral and has no greenhouse effect whatsoever. In this sense, DME is superior to natural gas (methane) since methane has a relatively long atmospheric lifetime, on the order of decades. DME on the other hand has poor atmospheric stability and is decomposed readily the atmosphere through the ready formation of peroxides that decompose to give single carbon species as just described. Therefore its greenhouse gas potential is transient at best since the equilibrium concentration cannot rise very high.

[hunter]

10. Compressed Natural Gas fueled buses are used in many places now.

DME may be a better diesel fuel than compressed natural gas (CNG) because it has a higher volumetric energy density, and it is much easier to handle. Most of our experiences with "bottled" gasses such as propane are directly applicable to DME.

The experience with methanol and ethanol as fuels for public transportation has been described as "an unmitigated disaster" (and worse) by various sources, mostly because methanol and ethanol are very corrosive solvents.

In Brazil ethanol seems to cause far more accidents than other fuels, especially cooking fuels. People tend to treat ethanol carelessly, transporting it in random plastic bottles, and using it in defective or ad-hoc sorts of stoves.

I would like to see Congress "up" DME production sooner than I would see them "up" ethanol production. There needs to be some large scale tests of DME in urban bus fleets and other applications.

[dcfirefighter]

6. This seems like a reason

to give ADM, ConAgra, etc., billions of our money to grow more corn.

Anyone want to start an Ultra-Light Rail manufactury?