Is corn ethanol a poor fit for future U.S. liquid fuel needs?

The timing, then, was quite appropriate for a panel discussion last week organized by the Friends of Berkeley Lab at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Titled “Hope or Hype: What’s Next For Biofuels?” the event, hosted by KTVU’s John Fowler, featured a panel with Jay Keasling, Susanna Green Tringe, and Jim Bristow, three scientists exploring the role that synthetic biology might play in fabricating a better fuel for tomorrow’s autos. The evening consisted mainly of two themes: the relative limits of both crude oil and corn-based ethanol, and an outline of research being pursued to make new ideas practical.

Fossil fuels are unsustainable, a point that saturates public rhetoric each election cycle to the point of ad nauseum. It might be slightly more surprising to learn, however, that fuel based on ethanol (the alcohol found in all common beers, wines, and liquors) may be as bad for global warming as gasoline, perhaps even be worse. When extracted from corn, considerable energy is lost on fertilizers. If that energy was generated using a coal plant, global warming is still a problem. Additionally, ethanol is an unwieldy fuel. It is corrosive, for example, and therefore must be trucked, rather than piped, from one location to another. “I like to say that ethanol is for drinking, not for driving,” Keasling joked as he explained these faults.

The push in the American science community, then, tends to be away from corn-based ethanol and toward something called cellulosic biomass (Editor's Note: see our QUEST video "Beyond Biofuels" for more information). The idea is to make fuels not from corn, but rather from corn stover—plant leftovers after the crop has already been harvested. Alternatively, almost any other organic material ranging from wheat stover to sorghum to garbage could be used if the proper techniques are developed.

There are considerable scientific challenges. Much of the material we might like to use as fuel is tough and woody. Scientists have yet to figure out a satisfactory method for breaking this down, and a great deal of gene-sequencing effort is currently underway with the aim figuring this out. There are also challenges in terms of deciding what product will be generated from these woody materials. At least one idea is to genetically engineer an organism that can transform organic matter not into ethanol, but rather into something more amenable to transport and carbon neutrality.

What should we make of these new efforts? My own feelings are mixed. I enjoy my car, and I love road trips. As Bristow said during the panel, “The reality in the U.S. is that people are going to drive cars. We need liquid fuel.” The current push in biofuels research is tremendously important. The vast majority of energy sources are simply inadequate for powering cars to the extent that the public is accustomed to. The maximum power one could ever expect to obtain from a solar-powered car, for example, is less than 10 horsepower. Even the Geo Metro gets 55 horsepower. The new Volkswagen Beetle gets over 100 horsepower. Electric cars might hold some promise, but at this point it is impossible to tell whether batteries or biofuels will ultimately make a better alternative. These two fronts are also not necessarily exclusive, as the hybrid explosion of recent years has shown.

And yet, for all the excitement, selling the American public on biofuels feels a little like feeding methadone to a heroin addict. We believe that a shift to biofuels will assuage the continued seeping of carbon into the atmosphere. But there are a lot of side effects. The controlled production of biomass requires land, and with that allocation comes a host of ecological concerns. When it comes down to it, there will never be a substitute for good old fashioned belt-tightening.

An image of a bioreactor being developed by OriginOil scientists.

Today’s episode of QUEST features our 10-minute TV story about efforts to produce biofuels from algae. In 1996, when the U.S. Department of Energy concluded its 25-year research project into the potential of algae as biofuels, its report concluded that the most cost-effective way to grow algae was in open ponds. With climate change and geopolitics prompting new research into the algae-as-fuel question, some companies are pursuing the open pond route, while others are looking into closed systems such as bioreactors. In our TV story we profile OriginOil, a Los Angeles-based company developing a bioreactor that looks like a miniature Christmas tree, complete with bright, colored lights. And we interview the CEO of Aurora Biofuels, a company based in the Bay Area city of Alameda, which is re-imagining open ponds, as well as trying to create strains of algae that are ideal for fuel production. Before becoming the CEO of Aurora Biofuels, Bob Walsh worked at the oil company Shell for 25 years. Here’s an excerpt of QUEST’s March, 2009, interview with Walsh, most of which didn't make it into the TV segment.

QUEST: What excited you about algae?

BOB WALSH: I ran oil products businesses for many years and understand the cost-competitiveness and the commodity basis of it. And what excited me about algae was, A, it’s renewable. B, you're using a feed stock of carbon dioxide, which is basically free. And finally, what excited me about this company, Aurora Biofuels, was the aspect of solving it end to end, not just the biotech (end of things), but also the engineering aspects.

Q: What has algae been grown for in ponds in the past?

WALSH: Algae’s been grown in open ponds for decades. And typically it’s been done with nutraceuticals – spirulina, which many people use as a protein pill. That is grown in open ponds, but not very cost-effectively because they haven’t had to be very cost-effective. They can charge $10 per pound.

Q: What would be the difference that you would be looking for in terms of cost-effectiveness, compared to what’s been done already?

WALSH: Historically, algae were just grown in an open pond and captured carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and the sun. What we’re actually doing is injecting the CO2 we recover from a steel mill or power plant, to give the algae food. And we’ve engineered it to get better mixing, so it grows more quickly. And then finally, rather than drying the algae out, we actually do a wet extraction of the oil, which is much more cost-effective than drying it as they have historically done for proteins.

Q: So what price would you be aiming for, and what price can the algae be grown for now?

WALSH: Oil today has been around $50 per barrel. We believe we need to be competitive in the $50-60 range. And that’s what our final target is. I think oil will be $60-100 over the next 10 to 15 years.

Q: What would the algae biofuels facility of the future look like?

WALSH: You’ll situate it very close to a CO2 source – a steel mill or a power plant. It will encompass several thousand acres of barren land – because you want dry, barren land – and use salt water. And it would produce roughly 120 million gallons a year of useable fuel into the existing infrastructure.

Q: Can algae fuel actually make a contribution to our transportation needs?

WALSH: Algae can be a player. It’s going to take a lot of different solutions because of the different climates and things that you need for it. It’s also a trillion-gallon market. And so it’s not going to happen tomorrow. But certainly algae can be a 5- to 10-percent player in ten years, in the marketplace.

Watch the Algae Power television story online.

Abengoa's solar power tower, PS10, near Seville, Spain. It is capable of supplying 11 megawatts, or approximately 5,500 households worth of power.Photo: afloresm

Comprised of one or two tall narrow towers surrounded by an enormous field of shimmering mirrors beaming sunlight back up from ground level, these power plants work by essentially the same principle you might have exploited as a child in using a magnifying glass and a hot sunny day to burn holes in the leaves of a backyard playground. A magnifying glass focuses sunlight from a round disk into a single bright dot. A solar power tower's field of mirrors focuses light onto a single water tank high in the air. The concentrated light boils the water, and the steam is used to generate electricity.

In other parts of the world the concept of the solar power tower has gained dazzling momentum as well. Last April, the Spanish company Abengoa commenced operation of a new power tower of its own, dubbed PS20. The power output is still a pittance compared to some of the largest fossil fuel or nuclear plants, but at 20 MW it is currently the largest power tower in existence.

The surge of excitement recently in solar power towers may be grounded on more than hype. Other solar technologies tend to be limited in their promise by cost. Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimena, an eSolar press contact, said that many of the components employed in the company are relatively cheap. She noted, for example, that the mirrors used to collect the Sierra Sun Tower's light are "just a step above a bathroom mirror" in quality. Because they are relatively small, they can also be manufactured to be flat, which is considerably less expensive than the parabolic mirrors used in some other designs.

Nevertheless, solar power towers are just one design in a rich assortment of ideas that people have had for harnessing solar energy. Photovoltaic cells are already used ubiquitously to energize calculators, solar-powered cars, and many satellites, and rapid advances continue to be made in this area. A less flashy form of solar thermal power known as SEGS (Solar Energy Generating Systems) uses curved mirrors to heat long troughs of water. The largest solar power plants in the world today are based on this method. Some companies are even proposing that we exploit solar energy by heating air beneath what amounts to a gigantic clear skirt. (Visit this link for a wild virtual tour of one such proposed plant.)

Time will ultimately tell which (if any) of these will turn out to be commercially viable options as the future marches toward us. Still, we are certain to have a wide array of ideas to explore.

The Tesla Roadster is an all-electric sports car you can buy today.

Plug-in hybrids run for a certain distance on batteries (so far, hackers have been able to create plug-in hybrids that run for about 10 miles on batteries). After that, they revert to standard hybrid operation, which uses gas and electricity. When you get home in the evening, you plug the car in and recharge the batteries so that the following day you can drive another 10 miles with the electric charge.

Today you can only get a plug-in hybrid by hacking your Prius to add more batteries to it. We filmed members of the Palo Alto nonprofit CalCars doing just this for our QUEST story on plug-in hybrids in 2007. If you're not handy with tools, you can have someone else retrofit your Prius with the necessary battery pack. Luscious Garage, in San Francisco, has started offering this service. They're featured in today’s QUEST story "Waiting for the Electric Car," which explores why all-electric everyday cars remain an elusive goal. The limiting factor is the difficulty in making a battery that is powerful, long-lasting and cheap. QUEST goes behind the scenes to a battery lab at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley to find out what goes into the making of a lithium-ion battery and why it’s taking so long to make one that can power an all-electric car, or even a plug-in hybrid that can go for more than 10 miles on its electric charge.

Watch the Waiting for the Electric Car television story online.

When I first began researching this story for QUEST, I was surprised that I hadn't heard more about geothermal power. It's never lumped into that renewable energy laundry list that's recited by politicians and journalists alike — you know, "…solar, wind, hydroelectric and biofuels". But it turns out that geothermal energy has really great potential.

To start, it's reliable. Geothermal is base load power, which means that the plants generate power at a constant rate around the clock. In fact, geothermal plants often have capacity factors of 86-95%, well above traditional base load generation such as coal.

It's clean. Geothermal power plants give off little or no sulfur compared to fossil fuel-fired power plants and they emit no nitrogen oxides. Emissions of CO2 per megawatt-hour are extremely low or absent for the newer flash plants. A typical geothermal plant may produce 1 lbs. of CO2 per MW hour. This figure compares with 1030 lbs. per MW hour of CO2 for a natural-gas fired plant, 1600 lbs. per hour of CO2 for an oil-fired plant, and 1820 lbs. per MW hour for a low grade coal-fired plant.

And, if the USGS assessment is accurate, and it probably is, geothermal power is abundant. According to the study:

"the power generation potential from identified geothermal systems range from 3,675 MWe (95% probability) to 16,457 MWe (5% probability); the power generation potential from undiscovered geothermal systems range from 7,917 MWe (95% probability) to 73,286 MWe (5% probability); and the power generation potential from Enhanced Geothermal Systems range from 345,100 MWe (95% probability) to 727,900 MWe (5% probability)."

So, what's wrong with it? As we touched on in the TV segment, there are several little drawbacks that no doubt should be considered. These include induced seismicity (little earthquakes that are triggered by geothermal developments), the initial expense of geothermal exploration and development, and the challenges of connecting the electricity generated by a geothermal plant to the grid at a point where there is sufficient available capacity to sell the electricity.

However, I was never really able to find a strong reason why geothermal energy should not be in everyone's renewables laundry list. And considering Obama included geothermal energy in his list during his last debate against John McCain, I would imagine we will all be hearing more and more about geothermal energy development in the months to come and beyond.

Watch the Geothermal Heats Up television story report online. And don't miss the steamy, behind-the-scenes photos for this story.

Credit: California High Speed Rail Authority

Starting with California's state-wide propositions, we have Proposition 1A: Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act. The proposed train would zip from San Francisco to LA in a mere two and a half hours, if voters approve a $10 billion bond. QUEST did a TV story on the science and politics of the high-speed rail last year, and updated it in a web-only video for this year's election. Check out High-Speed Rail on the Ballot. And listen to QUEST's radio story, Fast Trains.

Next, Proposition 2: Standards For Confining Farm Animals. If passed, this proposition would require bigger crates for certain farm animals. It is mostly about animal cruelty, but has implications for human health – and California's egg industry. Listen to The California Report's coverage of the pros and cons of Proposition 2.

Proposition 7: Renewable Energy Generation, would require utilities to get 50% of their power from renewable sources. It sounds straightforward, but actually this one is controversial. Things are explained in this QUEST radio story, Big Solar on the Ballot.

Then we have Proposition 10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy, which combines funding for solar and wind energy research with consumer incentives to encourage the use of clean fuels. There is controversy, because the proposition gives extra bonus points to some alternative fuels, but not others. Check out the coverage by the California Report.

There are three measures across the Bay Area concerning open space: Measure WW in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, Measure P in Napa county and Measure T in Solano county. Listen to a discussion of these measures with the executive director of The Greenbelt Alliance, in this KQED Radio News story.

And in San Francisco, Proposition H lets voters decide whether the electric utilities should be publicly owned. This would give the city flexibility in terms of obtaining power from renewable energy sources, but it's hard to say how it would affect the price of electricity. Reporter Cy Musiker and Craig Miller, senior editor for KQED's Climate Watch series, debate Prop H in this segment from KQED Radio News.

Figure out your opinions on these science and environment issues – and check KQED's Election 2008 page, for additional election coverage. Then voice your opinions, with your vote, and your comments to this blog!

Each big storm with a high tide and an
onshore wind takes a big bite out of Sarichef.Photo By Shishmaref Erosion and Relocation Coalition

In an email this week from John Woodward, an Alaska builder and Home Energy author, he wrote, "I put together a working/management group to manage the relocation of the community of Shishmaref sustainabely. They live on Sarichef, a barrier island that global warming is wiping out."

Shishmaref is home to a small community of Inupiat, a Native American tribe. John is working with the Inupiat Tribal Government, the City of Shishmaref, and the Shishmaref Erosion & Relocation Coalition, to salvage as much of the village as possible before it goes under water and move it, along with the island inhabitants, to a new plot of land in the interior of Alaska.

The Army Corp of Engineers gives the island about 5 or 10 more years of livability. But as the ocean and permafrost warm and the ocean rises, unpredictable storms take a heavy toll on the island. "Each big storm with a high tide and an on-shore wind takes a big bite out of Sarichef," says Woodward.

The community is seeking funds for a comprehensive alternative energy plan, an anaerobic pump/methane generator, and the retrofit of all existing buildings, including more than 110 homes, community buildings and a school. The homes will be retrofit to use less than 5 Btu per square foot to heat. Heating load calculations can be pretty complicated, but in general, contractors recommend furnaces that can provide 30-50 Btu per square foot to heat homes in the Bay Area. To reach such a high level of energy efficiency, the Shishmaref homes will have the insulation installed on the outside of the structure, a technique that Woodward has successfully used in the past. The new village will have the look and functionality of the Inupiat culture as defined and designed through community planning.

"Our community planning process involves community charettes with the whole community gathered in the school gym," say Woodward. "The goal of these meetings is the rough-out of a comprehensive community plan for sustainable relocation of the existing salvageable infrastructure and the development of the new village site."

The Inupiat will build their new village to suit their needs and lifestyles, to be efficient, and to be in harmony with its surroundings-in other words, sustainabely. Let's keep an eye on our northern neighbors, who may teach us some valuable lessons. How long before whole towns in California will have to relocate because of water shortages? We all witnessed what happened in New Orleans a few years ago. How long before towns and cities on the coast of California will have to move inland or be seriously reconfigured because of the rising Pacific Ocean?

You can e-mail John Woodward with questions, comments, ideas, and offers of help at panuktuk@yahoo.com.