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.

A sample of switchgrass at Sandia National
Laboratories

So when QUEST decided to move forward on producing a story about biofuels, I welcomed the opportunity to assist Series Producer Josh Rosen in its crafting. Being QUEST, we weren't content to merely renumerate the different kinds of biofuels and how cellulosic ethanol is more efficient than corn-based ethanol. Instead, our story focuses on the pioneering work being done by researchers affiliated with the Joint BioEnergy Initiative (JBEI), a multi-billion dollar research initiative based in Emeryville, as they look beyond ethanol to the next generation of biofuels. So not only is JBEI looking at various feedstocks like switchgrass, rice, poplar and innovative ways to “deconstruct” the cellulosic material, it also attempts to synthesize fuels that work more efficiently in America's automotive fleet, still overwhelmingly reliant on gasoline.

But even top researchers at JBEI like Jay Keasling and Blake Simmons caution that this next generation of biofuels won't be coming online for years. Moreover, new research suggests that the net production cycle of biofuels, from the clear-cutting of trees to grow the crops to their transport to markets far away, may yield as many or more emissions as the use of petroleum-based fuel. A recent Op-Ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle by UC Berkeley Alex Farrell cites the reason for this as primarily one of production– the way we clear land for growing biofuels, as well as our emphasis on the use of food-based crops like corn and soybean, which aren't terribly efficient sources of ethanol to begin with.

Tad Patzek, also at UC Berkeley, has been an ardent critic of the carbon-neutral reputation of biofuels, garnering controversy for conducting studies that some other researchers have criticized for their calculations of emissions arising from biofuel production. (See Patzek's co-authored article on page 19 of the March 2007 edition of Energy Tribune). Earlier this year, a study by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute suggests that biofuels are not created equal, as those made from U.S. corn, Malaysian palm oil and Brazilian soy yield more emissions than their petroleum-based counterparts, given the environmental damage they reap when grown for fuel. The study cites recycled cooking oil and biofuel made from grassy and woody cellulosic material as being more intelligent choices for cutting down on emissions.

And so the debate continues, struggling to keep pace with the technological progress made by scientists toiling away in their quest to find the holy grail of an efficient, cheap and environmentally-friendly biofuel.

Watch the "Biofuels: Beyond Ethanol" TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Sheraz Sadiq is an Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.