The First Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol Plant in the U.S.

I received a two-week reprieve on the book chapter deadline, as some of the other contributors aren’t finished. So I now have time to pick a few other things back up. I have ended up really reworking the structure of the chapter to discuss the size of the biomass resource base, the combustion technologies, the conversion technologies, and the enabling technologies. Thanks to all who provided feedback and sent e-mails.

As I was writing the section on ethanol from wood via hydrolysis (cellulosic ethanol), I came across some very interesting historical facts. I have known that cellulosic ethanol has been around a long time. I used to say that we have been working on this for decades, but then I found a reference back to 1922 which would put it back almost 100 years. Then I found a reference back to 1898, when the Germans first tried to commercialize it. Now I have traced it all the way back.

I don’t think I have ever had the privilege of using a literature reference from 1819, but here it is. In 1819, Henri Braconnot, a French chemist, first discovered how to unlock the sugars from cellulose by treating biomass with sulfuric acid (Braconnot 1819). The technique was later used by the Germans to first commercialize cellulosic ethanol from wood in 1898 (EERE 2009).

But believe it or not, commercialization also took place in the U.S. in 1910. The Standard Alcohol Company built a cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgetown, South Carolina to process waste wood from a lumber mill (PDA 1910). Standard Alcohol later built a second plant in Fullteron, Louisiana. Each plant produced 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of ethanol per day from wood waste, and both were in production for several years (Sherrard 1945).

To put that in perspective, Iogen claimed in 2004 that they were producing the world’s first cellulose ethanol fuel from their 1,500 gallon per day plant. (While 1,500 gal/day is their announced capacity, if you look at their production statistics they have never sustained more than 500 gallons per day over the course of a year; 2008 production averaged 150 gal/day).

Many companies are in a mad rush to be the “first” to commercialize cellulosic ethanol. The next time you hear someone say that they will be the first, ask them if they plan to invent the telephone next.

References

Braconnot, H. Annalen der Physik. (1819) 63, 348.

EERE, U.S. DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. (2009). Biomass Program. Retrieved September 9, 2009 from
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/printable_versions/dilute_acid.html#background

PDA, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. (1910). 16th Annual Report.

Sherrard, E.C.; Kressman, F.W. “Review of Processes in the United States Prior to World War II.” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol 37, No. 1, 1945, pp 5-8.

78 thoughts on “The First Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol Plant in the U.S.”

  1. RR

    Yes. Why not just de-centralize the grid and save the line losses. Plus use unique local resources to make electricity. Fewer brown-outs.

    They have gone back to using DC lines in China to get power from the Gorges Dam to Shanghai. (cheaper transmission than AC)

    Why not just use local resources and produce the juice on home turf ?

    Thanks for historical perspective on cellulostic. It really helps frame the discussion. The history of the oil business is also a fascinating and interesting story.

    Contrary to what some may think, I am not contrary to the oil biz. I just see a limited resource and other solutions.

    John

    John

  2. Lots of things we are reinventing, like electric cars (electric Phaeton), hydrogen cars (Isaac de Rivaz), wood stoves, wind mills, tidal power, solar thermal, district heating. Maybe they never completely disappeared but they fell into disfavor for a long time. The funniest one is perhaps reinventing the wind powered cargo ship (Skysails).

  3. For years (back to at least 1819) we've been making what is called "wood alcohol" from wood fibers and sawdust (cellulose). The chemical name for wood alcohol is methanol.

    Why are we seeking the Holy Grail of making ethanol from wood, when we could be making the simpler compound methanol?

    In fact, we could be making methanol from wood, waste wood, waste fibers, and most importantly from coal. And we could be making blended alcohol fuel through gasification.

    In fact, I've got to believe, the primary thing keeping methanol and blended alcohols from being the alcohol fuels of choice is Big Corn, Big Ethanol, and their lobbying efforts.

  4. If you ever want an interesting read, check up the chemistry of the Jeffrey pine, found in Southern California. Evidently, during the U.S. Civil War, making turpentine (fuel) from pine was commercialized.

    "The exceptional purity of n-heptane distilled from Jeffrey Pine resin led to n-heptane being selected as the zero point on the octane rating scale of petrol.
    As n-heptane is explosive when ignited, Jeffrey Pine resin cannot be used to make turpentine. Before Jeffrey Pine was distinguished from Ponderosa Pine as a distinct species in 1853, resin distillers operating in its range suffered a number of 'inexplicable' explosions during distillation, now known to have been caused by the unwitting use of Jeffrey Pine resin."

    Industrial history is fascinating (like all history) and it is a shame it is often given short shrift in history department of colleges. Moreover, many companies did not keep records, and much is lost even when historians are interested.
    But it is our industrial history that we see how our ancestors made real progress for our fellow man.
    And, it is such a more heartening history to study–man trying to do good, to progress, not contriving to injure fellow man.

  5. Presumably the use for this early ethanol was medical/surgical and as a cleaning agent.

    I doubt that the ethanol would have been potable.

    Do you have any reference in the sources as to the buyers/users of the output from these early plants.

    Cheers

    Andy

  6. That was a great smart aleck conclusion about inventing the telephone. Those old timers had no computers except for the magnificent one on top of their neck.
    The story reminds me of the many articles usually written by grad students Extolling the greatness of the trolley car and urging their rebuilding @ ten million dollars per mile. I would like to ask. Do we really think the very smart people who designed and built the trolley and it's tracks would go to all that work binding itself to fixed rail if pneumatic neophrene tires had already been discovered? JC Sr

  7. Is ‘reinventing’ like ‘preplanning’?

    There is a certain cycle for stupid ideas. After period of time, the knowledge of why we stopped doing something goes away and a new generation wonders why something is not done. There are lots of ideas out there. Rooting for bad ideas is not like rooting for an underdog.

  8. In the software business we have the idea of "refactoring", i.e. continuously improving the architecture of a product as you go along. Inevitably some "genius" invented the concept of "prefactoring", which as far as I can tell means "getting it right in the first place". (I still haven't figured out if it was intended as a joke).

    Anyway, perhaps this great idea could be extended to "preinventing" … i.e. come up with all the good ideas in advance, so all we have to do is build them in the sure expectation that they'll work perfectly first time every time.

    😉

  9. Wendell said…
Why are we seeking the Holy Grail of making ethanol from wood, when we could be making the simpler compound methanol?
 In fact, we could be making methanol from wood, waste wood, waste fibers, and most importantly from coal. And we could be making blended alcohol fuel through gasification. 


    ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

    Wendell: You are focusing quite well in your comment above. The Holy Grail of ethanol from wood? Well, there is more to this story.

    As RR has repeatedly indicated, gasification is the best method to separate out ALL of the carbon contained within varied feedstocks, be they wood, coal, garbage, ground tires, sludge, petcoke, etc.

    The process of converting wood chips or other biomass into sugars via acid hydrolysis for inefficient second-stage batch fermentation into C2 ethanol is pretty much 'all wet' as Iogen and Shell have quietly concluded.

    In fact, the leftovers from true ligno-cellulosic seven-day batch fermentation are still loaded with unconverted carbon content.

    If this leftover woody material were gasified in the beginning of the process – then ALL of this carbon content could be re-arranged via GTL back-end synthesis methods and converted into a continuous 24×7 process of higher mixed alcohols formation.

    Fixed-bed GTL catalysis of CO & H2 syngas doesn't just produce ethanol. It historically has produced a C1 methanol molecule as has been accomplished for well over 100 years with methanol being the largest base chemical on the planet.

    All of the labeled 'chemical volumes' combined do not equate to about 10% of the crude oil 'fuel volumes' being further refined into present-day transportation and heating fuels.

    C1 Methanol has only been "allowed" to become a neat fuel for 37 years to power Indy 500 race cars – and these racers have substituted C2 ethanol for the past three years perhaps for political reasons.

    When CO & H2 syngas is catalyzed with a totally different catalyst than that used to produce CH3OH methanol, then a blend of higher mixed alcohols is produced instead. And in this formulation of linear, single-chained (no branched) alcohols, the C2 ethanol portion dominates and becomes about one-half of this blend of C1-C5 or C1-C8 or C1-C10 normal (n) alcohols.

    This blend of synthetically-produced mixed alcohols performs much better than C2 ethanol alone and can be seamlessly blended into many petroleum distillates and even into ground coal for combustion efficiency increases at power plants.

    This blend of new, non-commercialized low cost (n) alcohols provides about 20% more BTU's than ethanol plus a more favorable mid-range vapor pressure and 20+ more octane points as well.

    In my opinion, ligno-cellulosic ethanol has become a buzz-word enabling certain companies to secure federal grants or loan guarantees when what they intend to produce is not ligno-cellulosic ethanol at all.

    The true ligno-cell batch fermentation process is what Iogen and it's backers have attempted to re-pioneer this decade and it produces low volumes of very expensive C2 ethanol with lots of leftovers to landfill.

    Anticipate some dramatic changes in new bio-fuel outputs and labeling within the next year or two.

    Cliff

  10. This blend of synthetically-produced mixed alcohols performs much better than C2 ethanol alone and can be seamlessly blended into many petroleum distillates and even into ground coal for combustion efficiency increases at power plants.

    Cliff~

    I agree. So how do we get Big Corn, Big Ethanol, and the Corn Belt politicians to back off their single-minded drive for ethanol from corn and get away from their energy-intensive stills to more efficient biomass gasifiers producing a mixed alcohol blend of methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, and hexanol?

    How do we get the politics out of corn ethanol?

  11. I have long thought that methanol is the way to go, with DME as a very good diesel replacement. In fact, yesterday someone e-mailed me a very impressive report done by CSIRO in Australia. IT was about transitioning to a biofuel economy, and they concluded that methanol needed to be a central part of that. In response to the e-mail, I wrote in part: I am in full agreement on the methanol. Of all the liquid fuels you can make from a gasification platform, it is probably the one with the best energy return and lowest capital costs.

    RR

  12. When CO & H2 syngas is catalyzed with a totally different catalyst than that used to produce CH3OH methanol, then a blend of higher mixed alcohols is produced instead. And in this formulation of linear, single-chained (no branched) alcohols, the C2 ethanol portion dominates and becomes about one-half of this blend of C1-C5 or C1-C8 or C1-C10 normal (n) alcohols.

    This blend of synthetically-produced mixed alcohols performs much better than C2 ethanol alone and can be seamlessly blended into many petroleum distillates and even into ground coal for combustion efficiency increases at power plants.

    This blend of new, non-commercialized low cost (n) alcohols provides about 20% more BTU's than ethanol plus a more favorable mid-range vapor pressure and 20+ more octane points as well.
    Sounds pretty exiting, Cliff.

    You have a reference for more info, or is this from Range Fuels?

  13. "How do we get the politics out of corn ethanol?"

    Simple. Remove the 'free money', which politicians take by threat of unpleasantness from ordinary citizens and give to the favored well-connected few.

    How could we do that? You are going to say that I'm a dreamer …, but how about having a supreme law which is difficult to change without massive approval from the citizens. (Let's call it a 'Constitution'). Let's use that Constitution to restrict the Federal Government to specified enumerated powers. And let's not include the words 'corn ethanol' in those enumerated powers.

    We all know that politicians will of course obey that supreme law. Otherwise, there would be a Revolution.

  14. I have long thought that methanol is the way to go

    then I will make one last plug for this book, Beyond Oil and Gas, the Methanol Economy written by George Olah.

    I believe that methanol should be the primary energy carrier and chemical building block for the 21st century.

    You like gasification, methanol is one of (or the) easiest output.

    You like coal or biomass, gasify and make methanol

    You like nuclear, use it to make Hydrogen and feed it into the gasification for methanol production. Solar thermal, same thing.

    Stranded natural gas can be converted to and more easily transported as methanol.

    You can use methanol directly as an ICE fuel. Methanol fuel cells are in early stages.

    Or if you need to, you can make other fuels. Combine methanol to make DME (dimethyl ether). Or you can make mixed alcohols. Or there is a methanol to gasoline reaction developed by Mobile in the 70's.

    Methanol needs to be a big part of our energy future.

    We should have figured this out 8 years ago, to the day. The wasted time and resources makes me very sad.

  15. Ethanol was also produced in the past at sulfite pulp mills. Today there are not to many sulfite mills left, as they've been replaced by kraft pulping processes.

    I did a quick search and found this interesting one, of the remaining sulfite mills in canada does 4 million gallons per year:

    From:http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1297&q=&page=all

    They are apparently Canandas second largest ethanol producer. I also bet that they can sustain higher profitability then most cellulosic ethanol producers since ethanol is a by-product compared to the more expensive pulp and lignosulfates they are producing.

    http://www.fpinnovations.ca/pdfs/13h15-Biglow-Biorefinery_at_Tembec-ENG.pdf

  16. Wendell asked…
    How do we get the politics out of corn ethanol (and instead) utilize gasifiers producing a mixed alcohol blend of methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, and hexanol?

    ••••••••••••••••••
    Wendell, I'm not sure. Removing politics from corn ethanol? Tuff question.

    You've missed one C5 Pentanol molecule in the chain above where you list C1, C2, C3, C4 and C6.

    I'd like for you to think about carbon being carbon being carbon as a basic fuel building block, whether it's output is a float-on-water oil or a water soluble, oil soluble, coal soluble, biodegradable alcohol or blend of synthetically produced alcohols.

    So why plant, fertilize, water, grow and harvest anything, including corn – as a renewable source of fuel (carbon) building blocks?

    I see too many other sources of renewable, cheaper carbon building blocks available. Like municipal quantities of garbage or sewer sludge, beetle-killed pine or big piles of tires.

    And right up against these available carbon resources I see coal of any rank, abundant CH4 methane natural gas, abundant and problematic CO2 greenhouse gas, and mountains of petroleum coke wastes.

    All of these "other carbonaceous feedstocks" can replace the carbon content of corn starch quite easily and at far lower cost when the basic methods of conversion technology switch over from inefficient batch fermentation using bio-bug enzymes and yeasts to 24×7 continuous thermal processing using super-heated steam as basic the process driver here.

    When others begin interpreting this model, they too will suggest to farmers to begin producing organic grains, vegetables and meats instead and thus gain a premium price for cleaner, genetically un-modified agri-products.

    I'd like to think that we should be farming food and not overlapping agri-market politics with an annual harvest of anything resembling liquid fuel cycles.

    Cliff

  17. Robert Rapier responded:
    I have long thought that methanol is the way to go, with DME as a very good diesel replacement. (I wrote to the Aussies that) I am in full agreement on the methanol. Of all the liquid fuels you can make from a gasification platform, it is probably the one with the best energy return and lowest capital costs.
RR

    •••••••••••••••••

    RR,
    Can you visualize a 100 yr. old proven GTL method of synthesizing C1 methanol being slightly adjusted to output nearly 2x the BTU's of methanol now catalytically converted into a blend of higher mixed alcohols instead?

    Or can you interpret that a new biofuel nearly 2x stronger BTU than methanol was produced at 2x the efficiencies when compared to synthesizing just the C1 meoh molecule itself?

    The uncommercialized biofuel product which I'm describing is produced through a C1 methanol GTL chemistry set with only minor adjustments yet a total replacement of specialized catalyst.

    I'm wondering what these increased efficiencies of GTL synthesis and catalysis could add up to regarding the bottom line of what runs through your own mental calculator?

    You've continually educated people herein to think about economies of fuel production scale. If algae oil growth methods indeed worked and could generate a gallon of alternative fuel oil at less than one dollar (not $33 or $100 per gallon) – then a 20,000 bpd GTL steam-driven chemistry set residing on a 20-30 acre footprint could continuously produce the same annual volumes as 73,000 acres under intense algae cultivation, albeit two totally different 'biofuels' products.

    Cliff

  18. Optimist said…September 11, 2009 8:14 AM
    This blend of new, non-commercialized low cost (n) alcohols provides about 20% more BTU's than ethanol plus a more favorable mid-range vapor pressure and 20+ more octane points as well.
 Sounds pretty exiting, Cliff.

 You have a reference for more info, or is this from Range Fuels?

    •••••••••••••••••••

    There are multiple references yet most are hiding somewhat under alternative labeling practices.

    Range Fuels has published nothing akin to what I've described, instead they've publically talked about gasification of wood chips to produce ligno-cellulosic ethanol.

    I've informed people here on these pages that GTL synthesis does NOT produce ethanol, it produces methanol. Or instead, methanol GTL synthesis kinetics can be adjusted to produce a mixture of normal, straight-chain fuel alcohols in which ethanol dominates by volume.

    Perhaps Range will fractionalize and distill out (ligno-cell) ethanol portions from their finished GTL produced recipe? I really have no clue here.

    Range has only mentioned mixed alcohols or higher alcohols a few times during the past 3.5 years. They like Canadian-based Enerkem have publically mentioned a product slate of methanol and ethanol only once or twice. I can't answer any detailed questions concerning Range.

    To the best of my knowledge, there are several different firms and at least 3-4 universities now working to produce what I've described.

    Announcements of bio-blends like these in advance of producing them for sale isn't happening for a multitude of reasons. So instead, let's lump it all together under the buzzwords of 'ligno-cellulosic ethanol." OK?

    Cliff

    Kinuachdrach said…September 11, 2009 10:14 AM
    "How do we get the politics out of corn ethanol?"

Simple. Remove the 'free money', which politicians take by threat of unpleasantness from ordinary citizens and give to the favored well-connected few.

    ••••••••••••••••

    Mr. K.,
    Maybe we should stop and reconsider the basic elements of decentralization once again?

    Like you, I too am dreaming by suggesting that thousands or millions of new equity owners get to participate in a new, green energy economy which reverses other spirals, puts people, equipment and the steel industry back to work, generates new positive cash like a 24×7 printing press and all the while lowers ambient air pollution levels by about one-half, and quickly.

    Would that work? Could this strategy be supported even by those presently growing corn kernels for sale to ethanol fermentation stills?

    Cliff


  19. So many things you can do with the 1.3 billion tons of waste biomass, (or MSW or sewage, etc). You can make some fraction of the electricity we use, or heat some fraction of buildings (or both with CHP) or replace some fraction of the gasoline and diesel we use for transportation. But there isn't enough to go around to do them all. Which end use is going to offer the highest price to those with the billion tons of biomass?

    I remember when CWT's thermal depolymerization plant opened they said they'd get cheap turkey offal from nearby. Later they said it wasn't so cheap because the turkey offal was being sold instead as feed for other meat animals. In that case of food vs fuel, food won out. So I'm interested in seeing who wins out in buying the biomass "waste".

  20. "Which end use is going to offer the highest price to those with the billion tons of biomass?"

    Is that the right question? If you look around, the real question is — Which tiny politicized group of "greenies" is going to be allowed to impose its narrow agenda on the rest of society, regardless of cost?

    One of the fascinating things about RR's blog is the continual reminders of the great creativity of the human race. There are no 'waste products', only resources we have not yet allowed ourselves to use efficiently.

    Across much of the western US, misguided "environmental" policies led to massive over-growth in forests, creating the circumstances for deadly wildfires and for various beetle attacks. There are now millions of acres of standing dead trees, threatening inhabited areas from California to New Mexico.

    No problem! We can use those dead trees to fuel biomass power stations. Except we can't — due to blocking legal actions by a tiny minority of "greenie" extremists.

    So eventually the dead forests will burn in place, animals & humans will die, and the world will be a poorer place.

    We don't have technical challenges on providing food & energy for everyone, and making the world a better place. We have political challenges. What are we going to do about it?

  21. RE various questions about Range Fuels. The best detailed info on what Range (and other DoE awardees) is up to is at
    DoE Reading Room

    They have several good detailed documents on the facility that Range is building. These were required for the NEPA assessment that had to be done because this is a major federally funded project. Presumably they are authoritative and have been reviewed by Range. The January 2009 rpt Range Fuels Final EA indicates that they anticipate 50/50 ethanol / methanol, although they indicate the mixture might change depending on 'market conditions'. It also describes their modular approach to scaling up – basic modules composed of 125 ton/day units.

  22. So eventually the dead forests will burn in place, animals & humans will die…

    And may I add, we will spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to put those fires out before they get to some rich person's million-dollar home in the woods.

  23. Dennis M

    Thanks for another great link. Being a skeptic, whenever I see “written by” I think. 'hi want to buy my book.' So it was nice to see a link to a book written by a scientist (writing in his field of expertize) rather than a journalist or an economists writing about something they were too lazy or too stupid to study in college.

    For example, “The Hydrogen Economy” by Jeremy Rifkin.

    “We should have figured this out 8 years ago ..”

    Who is we Dennis and what should we have figured out?

    From WIKI, “The use of methanol as a motor fuel received attention during the oil crises of the 1970s due to its availability, low cost, and environmental benefits. By the mid-1990s, over 20,000 methanol "flexible fuel vehices" capable of operating on methanol or gasoline were introduced in the U.S. … While the Methanol FFV program was a technical success, rising methanol pricing in the mid- to late-1990s during a period of slumping gasoline pump prices diminished the interest in methanol fuels.”

    So 'we' have been their and done that. It is that consumer acceptance thing I keep preaching about?

  24. Guess what? The ethanol leaving an ethanol plant is denatured, so it is poisonous as well. Even if it wasn't, it is still poisonous to little kids, and anyone who drinks too much. If it gets in the groundwater, though, alcohols get metabolized pretty quickly.

    And Kit, "commercial acceptance" of ethanol was accomplished through government mandate. Don't kid yourself into thinking otherwise. Had methanol been the most efficient usage for corn, we would be blending methanol into our gasoline, and the methanol lobby would be gearing up against the thought of all the illegal ethanol that could be diverted into organized crime if we went down that road.

    RR

  25. “We should have figured this out 8 years ago ..”

    Who is we Dennis and what should we have figured out?

    8 years ago yesterday was an important day. "We" is myself and anyone who wants to go to work without fearing that a 747 will fly through the office window. And anyone who realized that we cannot continue to send billions of dollars to people who hate us and our way of life. And anyone who realized that on that day, everything changed and things that didn't work in the past should be given a second look with some new priorities.

    I'll tell you what I want Kit, I want a huge coal to liquids plant sitting in Wyoming or Montana. Right next door, I want a Nuclear powered Hydrogen factory feeding the CTL.

    I want to buy fuel from people who celebrate life and try to advance our civilization, not from people who celebrate death and are trying to drag the whole world back to a primitive culture.

    Sorry about this post, I would rather not get political. I would rather spend my time learning and trying to figure out what will work and what won't.

  26. Rufus, I work with Methanol nearly every day. I do not drink it. I also do not drink gasoline, diesel fuel or E85. If I did, I would expect to die. I recall some kids from my home town died from drinking brake cleaner, some idiot told them is was just like everclear, it wasn't.

  27. The point is, Dennis, Methanol WILL get in the Groundwater; and, it is a Bitch to get out.

    No one worried too much about MTBE, either. Then, the lawsuits started.

    What are they up to, now? A couple $hundred billion?

  28. The point is, Dennis, Methanol WILL get in the Groundwater; and, it is a Bitch to get out.

    That simply is not true, Rufus. That is why I pointed out above that alcohols are quickly metabolized in the groundwater. Here is a bit from the methanol wiki, but there are many scientific studies on this that are readily available:

    Methanol is readily biodegradable in both aerobic (oxygen present) and anaerobic (oxygen absent) environments. Methanol will not persist in the environment. The "half-life" for methanol in groundwater is just one to seven days, while many common gasoline components have half-lives in the hundreds of days (such as benzene at 10-730 days). Since methanol is miscible with water and biodegradable, methanol is unlikely to accumulate in groundwater, surface water, air or soil. (Reference: Evaluation of the Fate and Transport of Methanol in the Environment, Malcolm Pirnie, January 1999).

    Thus, you would have to have a massive spill into the groundwater for it to be detectable for long. A small leak into the groundwater is going to be metabolized before anyone ends up drinking it. This is nothing like MTBE.

    RR

  29. "I would rather not get political. I would rather spend my time learning and trying to figure out what will work and what won't."

    I can sympathize with that, Dennis. I got interested in energy years ago, through meeting Buz Ivanhoe — now sadly deceased — who did a lot to rescue Hubbert's work from oblivion. Over the years, I have put a lot of hours into researching the topic. Being a slow learner, it took me a long time to see the truth — There really is no technical or resource problem with energy.

    Yes, Mother Nature is in the process of making us an offer we cannot refuse, in terms of getting off of conventional fossil fuels. And, yes, there are lots of tough technical challenges to overcome. But human beings have done all right so far, considering that at the end of the last Ice Age our ancestors were sitting around in caves, hungry & shivering.

    We already have resources & technology which could give every human being on earth a great standard of living for millenia. With boundless human curiosity & inventiveness, we can surely count on discovering even better ways to meet our energy needs in the future. Technically, we are in really great shape — if we could ever get after it.

    Instead, we have horrible poverty in much of Asia & Africa. We have a real unemployment rate in the US approaching 20%. And we have a Political Class that thinks the top priority is to destroy wealth & get rid of even more jobs through the vanity of interrupting the very Carbon Cycle on which life on Earth depends.

    Job 1 is to tear down the self-imposed political barriers which are condemning us to failure. After that, getting everyone on the planet all the energy they need at prices they can afford is simply going to be normal hard work — and fun too!

  30. Besides the obvious energy-density problems with methanol (twice as many tanker truck deliveries needed to gas stations, consumer fill-ups etc), methanol toxicity was a huge part of why it never succeeded despite the best efforts of the Methanol Institute and Enviros to push it in CA and elsewhere. Main concern was blindness caused by ingestion from siphoning gas (as little as 10 ml). Granted that might discourage the practice, but there are lots of exposure scenarios that scared the pants of regulators and oil companies. Groundwater pathway probably wasn't too much of a concern, but biodeg isn't always as fast in the real world as in the lab, and so that was also a concern. MTBE tastes really bad but isn't very toxic – it won't make someone keel over dead from 100 ml like MeOH will. For those reasons (probably), Exxon prefers to cheaply convert the methanol (e.g., from CTL) to gasoline rather than handle straight methanol. They had a NZ plant doing that 10 yrs ago.

  31. You can ignore the fact that Methanol is poisonous "Until" you start "Selling" it. Then, Guess What?

    Rufus~

    And ethanol, E85, gasoline, and jet fuel aren't poisonous?

    You'd be hard-pressed to name a liquid fuel that is not poisonous.

    Come on Rufus, jump on the methanol and blended alcohol fuels band wagon. Methanol from coal and from biomass gasifiers. Help us knock some sense into the corn ethanol lobby that thinks ethanol is the only alcohol fuel that makes sense. (To be fair, I guess if I owned an 800-acre corn farm, or an ethanol still using centuries-old technology, I might think that too.)

    Help us convince people there is no need to waste energy stripping the ethanol out of the blended alcohol fuels that come out of a biomass gasifier.

  32. Methanol Poisoning:

    Like others, I wouldn't consider drinking gasoline or E-85. I don't drink methanol either.

    As little as 2 oz. of C1 MeOH can cause blindness and 3 shot-glasses can kill you.

    The antidote to methanol poisoning is to put a finger down the throat and vomit up what you can of it. Then get rip-roaring drunk on C2 ethanol and confuse the liver between single-carbon MeOH and double-carbon bonded EtOH alcohols.

    While 2-legged and 4-legged mammals can't tolerate methanol, once diluted in water, it simply becomes the fastest and easiest food source to digest for green plants, all living trees, grasses and single-celled bacteria to feed upon.

    Aquatic micro-organisms, even phytoplankton at the root of the oceanic food chain consume dilute methanol as a free lunch while producing a water molecule (OH plus H) in the process while digesting the single carbon atoms contained in methanol or other alcohols a food source.

    In the mid-1980's, a state-run Experimental Station located in northern New Mexico did an experiment using MeOH as a basic fertilizer.

    They grew an irrigated parcel of corn using just regular water from central pivot sprinkler systems. Next to it they irrigated another plot of corn but this time they infused a very dilute solution of methanol into this pivot irrigation spray water.

    The difference in the plant growth was rather phenomenal with the MeOH becoming a basic food/fertilizer which was quickly assimilated by the corn which grew 20-35% larger when fed dilute methanol.

    When some jerk pours a volume of glycol antifreeze down the public sewer, this will cause a massive die-off in the bacteria populations which break down sludge in municipal sewer plants. The quick antidote is to infuse methanol into this public sewage treatment system which then re-grows basic bacteria populations much quicker than anything else does.

    Cliff

  33. From Wikipedia:
    "Methanol is used on a limited basis to fuel internal combustion engines, mainly by virtue of the fact that it is not nearly as flammable as gasoline. Methanol is harder to ignite than gasoline and produces just one-eighth of the heat upon burning. Pure methanol is required by rule to be used in Champcars, Monster Trucks, USAC sprint cars (as well as midgets, modifieds, etc.), and other dirt track series such as World of Outlaws, and Motorcycle Speedway. Methanol is also used in radio control, control line and free flight airplanes (as methanol is required in the "glow-plug" engines that primarily power them), cars and trucks, from such an engine's use of a platinum filament glow plug being able to ignite the methanol vapor through a catalytic reaction. Drag racers and mud racers also use methanol as their primary fuel source. Methanol is required with a supercharged engine in a Top Alcohol Dragster and, until the end of the 2006 season, all vehicles in the Indianapolis 500 had to run methanol. Mud racers have mixed methanol with gasoline and nitrous oxide to produce more power than gasoline and nitrous oxide alone."

    So, I guess it works. The q is, can it compete commercially?
    It is poisonous if you drink it but so are a lot of things.

    It is one more reason not to fear the future. We have so much capital and technical talent today, that technical problems are the least of our worries.

    Now, if we could just get our fellow homo sapiens to stop hating each other….

  34. Combating disinformation cont'd…

    Methanol (M-85) FFV chips in flex-fuel autos pre-dated anything with E-85 FFV's. Yet the methanol variety FFV lost out because of political pressure to utilize ethanol FFV systems instead.

    Most of the world's 'chemical supply' of methanol (used to produce plastics, synthetics, nylon, rayon, paint, varnishes, thinners – even blue windshield washer solvent) is produced in equitorial regions of Trinidad Tobago or at the southern tip of Chile.

    Stranded, abundant and low cost methane natural gas is the primary carbon feedstock. In South Africa, SASOL produces methanol from gasified coal. When one oxygen atom derived from boiling H2O water into steam is catalyzed to CH4 methane gas, the resulting new product falls out as CH3OH methanol (C1) liquid alcohol.

    Pretty simple planetary chemistry here, not rocket science – yet this could become a near-term solution to urban smog and climate change phenomenah.

    This basic GTL reaction of screwing one oxygen atom to methane is accomplished in world-scale methanol plants costing their equity owners less than 20¢ per gallon to produce methanol (in large, economies of scale) and less than 5¢ to tanker abroad. Same methanol is wholesaled today in quantities for about 65¢.

    It would take 2.2x the volumes of methanol to equate to the same BTU's as contained within one gallon of gasoline. So as a motorist, who wouldn't be interested today in purchasing about $1.43 plus tax worth of methanol to travel the same mileage as $2.80-$3 gasoline?

    Kind of a no brainer here despite the fact that a spill of methanol once ignited can be quenched with a simple spray of water, then this spill can be hosed down into a freeway barrow ditch with a tanker of water to become diluted into bug food and plant food.

    Not a big issue here regarding environmental consequences. And the tailpipe emissions of combusting pure MeOH or EtOH for that matter are water soluble and biodegradable too.

    Knowing this, why not high-grade basic methanol by reacting it into itself molecularly and producing a new (non-drinkable) yet highly biodegradable fuel at nearly 2x the BTU's contained within methanol and at 2x the efficiencies of converting the raw carbon feedstocks into liquids in the first place?

    Cliff

  35. Excellent discussion. Gassification and Methanol are important pieces of a big puzzle. However, one thing unmentioned so far is that you don't die or go blind from getting too much gasoline on your hands (except maybe cancer). I've known people who got sick quickly working with methanol. The point is, there are different levels of poison, and Methanol is a potent one, whereas Ethanol is safe by any comparison. On balance, I think I will probably start experimenting with using woodgas (hot) bubbled through Ale to distill farm scale Ethanol with some Methanol captured in process. This way denatured Alcohol is automatically created, with limited toxic concentration, higher volume, low distillation cost, and bio-gas cleaned for use and storage also. Liquid fuel could ideally be seen as a precious range/power extender for a compressed tank of h2 rich bio-gas to cover most short trips.

    Btw, in the main article RR cautions about damaging engines from using too much ethanol. Is there hard evidence on that? More likely with Methanol being quite corrosive. The main revelation about cellulose to ethanol as old technology are also covered in some detail in David Blume's book.

  36. Cliff this is where you lost me,
    When one oxygen atom derived from boiling H2O water into steam is catalyzed to CH4 methane gas, the resulting new product falls out as CH3OH methanol (C1) liquid alcohol.

    You do not derive an oxygen atom by boiling water into steam.

    I was under the impression that current methane to methanol production goes through a gasification process. In other words CH4 plus heat and limited O2 yields CO and H2 These are then catalytically combined to produce methanol.

    There are people working on direct Methane to methanol reactions that skip gasification, but I don't know if anyone is producing methanol this way yet.

    Coal to methanol has one drawback. Lots of CO2 emitted in the process. Coal has too much C and not enough H, so you need to use the water shift gas reaction, CO plus H2O yields H2 and CO2. If you are concerned about this, and many people are, then this can be a problem. (please no global warming debates)

    The solution to this is to feed in some H2 and for that I like nuclear. The kind of reactors that I'm thinking of are still on the drawing board.

    As for the toxicity, there might be an additive that can make methanol unpalletable, just in case Otis the drunk gets real thirsty. As for transdermal toxicity. I have spilled methanol on my hands many times (although I try to avoid this) I have never felt any ill effects. A greater danger is that the methanol can act as a penetration enhancer and help to transport other dangerous molecules across the skin.

    Off topic Robert, your Web page looks fuzzy, I'm having trouble seeing anything. Wait, my keyboard is fuzzy too.

  37. “I want to buy fuel from people who celebrate life”

    Glad to help Dennis. However, I do not buy your terrorist argument. It is a leap of logic. Association is not causation. The only day in my life that I have gone home too angry to work was 9/11. Anyway, it was not a good day to be doing renewable energy business development.

    There is a difference between 'consumers acceptance' and "commercial acceptance". A commercial customer is going to respond to a technical and economic argument. Consumers respond on an emotional level.

    There is no reason to debate the merits of methanol or CNG for POV if consumers will not accept it. Further more, as technical guy I see no compelling reason for me to switch methanol or CNG.

    On the other hand, I am using 10% ethanol in my POS POV PU. No consumer acceptance is required up to 10%. As technical guy I see no compelling technical reason to me against corn ethanol up to 10%.

  38. No consumer acceptance is required up to 10%.

    Not as long as mandates are in place. Before the mandates were in place, there was no consumer acceptance. If the mandates and subsidies went away, so would the corn ethanol industry; thus acceptance is merely a matter of mandate. If methanol were mandated, it would be in the same position as ethanol and you could make the same arguments.

    But one big difference is that methanol can be produced much more efficiently than corn ethanol. Energy return from corn ethanol is in the range of 1.5, plus or minus a fraction. Energy return for methanol has been calculated at 4-5. Thus, ethanol's BTUs derive mostly from fossil fuels, while methanol's are mostly renewable. Guess which one is more sustainable?

    RR

  39. I think one thing that gets overlooked is that DDGS contain about 8,400 btus/lb. For every gallon of ethanol you get about 6 lbs. of DDGS.

    Obviously, you could run the ethanol "Still" on DDGS, and still have a little cattle feed left over.

    Of course, with nat gas selling for $0.003/1,000 btus, and DDGS selling for (6/8400) $0.007/btu when sold as cattle feed, and, probably more importantly, with DDGS being ethanol's defense in the "food for fuel" debate it's only logical that the refineries would burn nat gas, or coal, rather than DDGS.

    However, I am thinking it's DDGEES, for ME in my own little enterprise.

  40. "(please no global warming debates)"

    There is no serious (anthropogenic) global warming debate — that hypothesis has now pretty well been rejected in scientific circles. In political circles — that is something else.

    As a matter of discussion etiquette, if a point is not worth defending, then it is not worth making — and so should be left unsaid.

  41. “I think one thing that gets overlooked is that DDGS ..”

    Thank you Rufus but it is not being overlooked, it is being ignored by folks who have a drill here mentality and are not open to farmers cutting into their business. This is just silly because the idea is to reduce imports not reduce domestically produced oil or gas.

    I have no problem with CNG or methanol but would not buy a POV that ran on them anymore than I would buy an E85 POV or BEV. Consumer like me are using corn ethanol without making an investment.

    “there was no consumer acceptance”

    Well gosh, there is no consumer acceptance now. However, there is no consumer rejection either.

    I do not know why US consumers have rejected CNG and methanol even when NG was much cheaper. Before I would start advocating them I would want to know why.

    Once again I will state the obvious. The energy policy of the US was to reduce oil imports. The incentives are working. I think it is good policy. I think it is good for the US economy. I think it is a good environmental choice.

    RR want to debate if something hypothetical is better. If in addition to corn ethanol providing 10%, methanol provided 10%, CNG provided 10%, CTL provided 10%, BEV provided 10%, and biodiesel provided 10%; I would think that is great too. We could then debate which should be increase to 15%.

  42. Clee: Which end use is going to offer the highest price to those with the billion tons of biomass?

    Kinuachdrach: Is that the right question? If you look around, the real question is — Which tiny politicized group of "greenies" is going to be allowed to impose its narrow agenda on the rest of society, regardless of cost?

    Yes, subsidies and mandates and lawsuits will have an effect on what becomes the answer to my question. It probably is the wrong question. The right question might be "what is the best usage for that billion tons of biomass", but then the answer will depend on what the goal is, which varies quite a bit from person to person. So I just reduced it to a question of the financial benefit of the people controlling the resource as a practicality rather than utopian visions. The political question is beyond me.

    I wonder what happened to the wood chips after the tree guys trimmed some trees on our property and threw the trimmings into their chipper. I'm sure I could call them up and ask if I really wanted to know. Maybe next time.

    I suspect if food riots become commonplace, there will be political consequences to the ethanol mandate no matter whether corn ethanol truly is the cause of the perceived food shortages or not.

    Cliff: Stranded, abundant and low cost methane natural gas is the primary carbon feedstock.

    I recall when GE sold their plastics division to a Saudi company, it was related to using natural gas that would otherwise be flared off, and making plastics with it instead.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1VdEW0lgM40

    Other things we're reinventing. Ethanol FFV cars (Model T). Passive solar homes, an idea abandoned with the promise of power too cheap to meter.

  43. I do not know why US consumers have rejected CNG and methanol even when NG was much cheaper. Before I would start advocating them I would want to know why.

    It's like talking to a brick wall. Ethanol competes now because it is mandated, but before the mandates you could ask why consumers rejecte it. Had the others been mandated, they would be sitting in the same position corn ethanol is in. They were all rejected for the same reason: None of them could compete with the price and overall convenience of gasoline.

    RR

  44. However, I do not buy your terrorist argument.

    Kit, I don't care if you buy my argument and I don't know what argument I'm making. But I do know this, I was in elementary school during the Iranian hostage crisis, it was the first news story that I remember being interested in. Since then, Embassy bombing in Lebanon, Lockerbie, World trade center bombing, Kenya and Tanzania, USS Cole, 9-11, Bali, Madrid, London, these are the big ones off the top of my head.

    It was after 9-11 (about 9:00 am CST) that I decided that we (America and anyone who chooses to join us) should become more self relient when it comes to our transportation fuel. I decided that many of the countries that sell oil don't really have my best intrest in mind, and I would be much better off if I could buy domestically produced fuel.

    This is not some deeply researched political position. For me it is simply the truth, and I think that most Americans would agree with me.

    As far as what kind of fuel we need, that is up for debate. Unfortunately too many people in the debate with deeply held views have absolutely no knowledge of chemistry or thermodynamics. But that doesn't stop them.

    later you say I have no problem with CNG or methanol but would not buy a POV that ran on them anymore than I would buy an E85 POV or BEV. Consumer like me are using corn ethanol without making an investment.

    CNG and BEV are bigger changes, but I believe that making a FFV that can run on E85, M85, mixed OH85, straight gasoline, or any mixture in between would require very little effort on the part of car companies and very little money. Then all the consumer would need to do is choose a blend.

  45. (Dennis Moore said…Cliff this is where you lost me, 
When one oxygen atom derived from boiling H2O water into steam is catalyzed to CH4 methane gas, the resulting new product falls out as CH3OH methanol (C1) liquid alcohol.)
    ••••••
    Dennis: I spoke of the overall net reaction which is only adding an Oxygen atom derived from steam to CH4 methane gas which then is converted into liquid CH3OH methanol.

    I did not describe the entire process on how this all happens whereby methanol is actually synthesized taking a few steps to accomplish.

    When steam reformation front-ends are used, H2O water plus CH4 methane are converted through heat and catalysts to produce a syngas recipe of CO H2 H2 H2.

    One CO and two H2's are next catalytically recombined in a fixed bed reactor vessel to become CH3OH methanol, leaving an extra H2. This extra H2 is typically sold to the nearest oil refinery to hydrocrack a longer chained oil molecule into something one-half as long.

    You seem to be confusing steam reformation of "gasses" with the gasification of "solid carbon materials."

    Methane is steam reformed into CO H2 H2 H2 syngas as I indicated. Carbonaceous solids like coal, tires or biomass are gasified into a CO & H2 recipe of syngas.

    To produce C1 methanol, just one CO and two H2's are utilized. To produce a chain of higher mixed alcohols, only one CO and one H2 are utilized because of the ensuing carbon to carbon bonds in the longer alcohols, less hydrogen is used to magnetically balance the valence of these molecules.


    •••••••••••
    (You do not derive an oxygen atom by boiling water into steam.)

    Oh yes I do! When I boil water, I produce both an H2 and O as steam. I've combusted carbon feedstock to accomplish this because water must be heated to about 212 deg. F at sea level in order to boil it into steam.

    I accomplished this rather difficult rocket science principally because I was looking to isolate an Oxygen atom to covert hydrocarbon oils or coal into a oxycarbon alcohol molecule which is water soluble, oil soluble or coal soluble.

    Please understand that I boiled the water to isolate the Oxygen component within a CO H2 H2 H2 syngas recipe resulting from steam reformation front-ends.

    Wherever possible, I will boil water to isolate Oxygen rather than using membranes to separate Oxygen from the ambient air. It's much safer this way and I can even use seawater for this purpose.
    ••••••••••••••••••••••
    (There are people working on direct Methane to methanol reactions that skip gasification,)

    I think you meant to say "skip steam reformation."

    (I was under the impression that current methane to methanol production goes through a gasification process.)

    No, methane to methanol typically begins with steam reformation. Coal to methanol would involve gasification.

    The resulting C, O and H atoms present in either syngas recipe are then catalytically re-combined into molecules of alcohols all ending with one OH component OR just two of these three atoms (minus the oxygen) can be recombined into synthetic oils when Fischer-Tropsch GTL paraffinic intermediates are first produced needing copious hydrocracking. This is where excessive CO2 offgas loads come from.

    Some gasifiers will offgas CO2 as well when converting coal, biomass or other solids into CO & H2 syngas.

    Still other gasifiers can recycle this CO2 content along with three other unreacted hydrocarbon compounds being methane, ethane and ethylene liquids and produce more target CO & H2 syngas and accomplish this without a smokestack.

    You and other peak oilers ain't seen nothin' yet of what is coming down the pike. I personally believe that we'll finally see some of Tesla's electricity drawn from the thin ether around us or high quality Brown's Gas show up in quantity amid the next generation of electric cars. Yet the ICE's we are now driving will take decades to retire. So back to the gridstone. 🙂

    I appreaciate your concerns and questions.

    Cliff

  46. And yes, Clee – I agree with you. There is quite a bit of stranded and contaminated natural gas globally available to be utilized at even less cost when producing liquid fuels instead of cleaning it for Henry Hub gaseous grid delivery to operate boilers, hot water and space heating systems.

    Waste Flare Gas is plentiful both onshore and also offshore in association with oil drilling platforms.

    Just a few months ago the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced a 34% increase in probable methane reserves in this country.

    T-Boone was only partially right. Personally, I don't want methane compressed to 3,500 psi loaded into my trunk, no thank you!

    I've run spreadsheets using waste flare gas costing operators only 25¢ to 50¢ per 1M BTU unit as well as using cleaned, Henry Hub methane costing from $3 to $8 per unit through various GTL formulations. All of these price ranges can work surprisingly well depending (of course) upon what you are producing via GTL recombination methods.

    Consider that just one ton of Wyoming or Alaskan coal could become value added to $300 to $400 when converted into 3.5 to 4 barrels of a new, stronger BTU biofuel and wholesaling for $2.25 to $3.25 per gallon.

    Or what if just one unit of methane (1M BTU's) was value added to $14 to $21 when converted into a new biofuel and again wholesale priced between $2.25 to $3.25?

    Would people on both sides of the isle get interested when the first green becomes the money here and not energy security or further wars over oil supplies? I wonder sometimes…

    Cliff

  47. Cliff: …coal could become value added to $300 to $400 when converted into 3.5 to 4 barrels of a new, stronger BTU biofuel

    Interesting comments overall Cliff, but you seem to mix terms here and in regard to boiling or reforming above. A subtle problem with Methanol would also be a tendency like this to label it biofuel regardless of what its made from. A fossil fuel is ancient carbon (see fossil), whereas biofuel is made from current era resources. Methane from the sewer plant, landfill, or a digerser is biofuel, while natural gas (methane) is fossil fuel. Methanol made from each of these is also different, but harder to track — and mostly fossil made. Its a little more difficult to make fossil Ethanol though, so we can be fairly confident of purchasing mostly biofuel when filling up on E85. Hopefully price signals on ancient carbon will come into effect to help reduce such confusion in the future. We don't let our neighbors pile up trash to the sky, (mandatory trash service) so why do we let people get away with filling our air with carbon trapped millions of years ago? Invisible trash?

  48. Someone sneaked onto Jeb's computer and wrote: "why do we let people get away with filling our air with carbon trapped millions of years ago? Invisible trash?"

    Jeb, you need to upgrade your security. You obviously could not be responsible for such a breath-taking level of ignorance.

    Jeb, you obviously know about the Carbon Cycle — every high school student used to be taught about it. CO2 in the atmosphere is a vitally necessary part of the processes which keep life on Earth going.

    And Jeb, you obviously know that anthropogenic CO2 is a trivial compenent of the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. You may also know that the principal gas which thankfully keeps the planet warm & suitable for life is water vapor, present in the atmosphere in concentrations many orders of magnitude larger than natural CO2.

    Time to start locking up your computer, Jeb!

  49. Cliff wrote: "Waste Flare Gas is plentiful both onshore and also offshore in association with oil drilling platforms."

    Cliff, you are way, way behind the times. That statement was true about 30 years ago. Not any more. Why would any investor waste a valuable resource?

    30 years ago, natural gas could not be sold in many places. It was just a nuisance by-product of producing oil. Today gas is a valuable product, and is used properly almost everywhere.

    Even in the Middle East, oil-rich countries like Kuwait & Saudi are short of gas and have long-since minimized flaring.

    There are a few places in the world where some gas flaring still continues; Nigeria is the main example. The issue in places like that is (surprise!) the incompetence of the political authorities — they need the oil revenue now, and won't invest in the infrastructure to use gas.

    The very small flares on many nodern oil production installations are a necessary safety feature, for handling emergency upsets.

  50. OK, I get the difference between steam reformation and gasification. I am a chemist, but I don't work with fuels, I do pharmaceuticals, so most of this is new to me and the way you describe things is either very sloppy or wrong. For example, you said,
    Oh yes I do! When I boil water, I produce both an H2 and O as steam.
    When you put a pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil, Do you believe that you are producing H2 and O?

  51. “It was after 9-11 (about 9:00 am CST) that I decided that we…….should become more self relient when it comes to our transportation fuel.”

    Dennis, you do know Iranians are not Arab? You do know that the nut case in North Korea is his own self proclaimed god?

    While there is nothing wrong with self reliance not being self reliant is not the root cause of terrorism. First, there is more than one kind of terrorism. Nut job terrorism has nothing to do with oil or religion. Being self reliant would not have prevented Oklahoma City or 9/11. Association is not causation.

    Asymmetric warfare (aka terrorism) was a tactic used by George Washington. We used it against the USSR in Afghanistan just as the communist used it VN. Korea, and many other insurgencies. It is an effective means of defeating an enemy who has a stronger tactical advantage. For every terrorist group associated with an oil producing country I will show you one that that does not.

    The difference between Oklahoma City and 9/11 is that a sovereign country provided a haven for training. Places that do not tolerate domestic terrorism allow terrorist to train and provide support.

    There is something very important to keep in mind. Since the time I was in the navy with included Viet Nam, the USSR invading Afghanistan, and the Iran hostage thing; the ideas that make the America strong have not changed. The ideas that drive the terrorist are destructive and lead to poverty and weakness.

    Terrorists are just a nuisance like, drug dealers and drivers on cell phones. All being equally dangerous but the latter be stupid not evil. What has changed since Carter was president is that we let marines shoot back.

  52. “I wonder what happened to the wood chips ..”

    I asked! Mine are going to the landfill. The wood would have gone to the landfill if my neighbor did not heat with wood.

    When I lived in Washington State the local landfill had a $16/ton tipping fee but was free to city residents. I could take my tree limbs to the dump and come back with a load of fire wood or wood chips but at the end of the day the left overs went to the land fill.

    Clee's landfill may be in Washington State or Oregon where his renewable energy comes from in the form of wind farms. These super landfill have a $90/ton tipping fee. One of them does have a 10 MWe LFG power plant but considering the amount of diesel fuel to get the waste to the middle of wheat field east of the Cascade Mountains.

    As I have stated, my company is planning to build 10 – 50 MWe to burn wood waste. They will not build any of these plants near Clee. There are too many folks like Clee who think putting a PV on the roof is good for the environment. There was a time my previous company had plans for ½ a billion biomass renewable energy projects. California was the hot market. The miscalculation on the part of my company was the amount of attorney fees necessary to build power plants on the left coast.

  53. A fossil fuel is ancient carbon (see fossil), whereas biofuel is made from current era resources.

    Jeb~

    Coal and petroleum are also biofuels. Coal from the leaves of giant ferns, dead vegetation, peat moss, etc. that died and decomposed millions of years ago.

    Oil from phtyoplanktons (algae, diatoms, cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates) that also died millions of years ago.

    You can consider both Ur-biofuels, and if you think in terms of geological and astronomical time, it is irrelevant when the carbon was locked into the biomass.

  54. Clee said: "Oh yes I do! When I boil water, I produce both an H2 and O as steam. I've combusted carbon feedstock to accomplish this because water must be heated to about 212 deg. F at sea level in order to boil it into steam."

    I think you are confused here. Water is H2O. Steam is H2O. Steam is just water in gaseous phase. There is no chemical reaction involved in boiling water. The combustion of your carbon feedstock does more than just provide heat. It provides free carbon radicals which can partake in an endothermic reaction to produce less stable products than water (CO and H2).

  55. Kinuachdrach said: "you obviously know that anthropogenic CO2 is a trivial compenent of the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. You may also know that the principal gas which thankfully keeps the planet warm & suitable for life is water vapor, present in the atmosphere in concentrations many orders of magnitude larger than natural CO2.

    That's a rather misleading suggestion. Yes, water vapour contributes most to the greenhouse effect, and yes, it is present in concentrations orders of magnitude higher than CO2 (not "many" orders — less than two to be precise). But the argument for anthropogenic global warming never involved a claim that CO2 contribution to the greenhouse effect is higher than that of water vapour. Nor does it follow, given the non-linear reaction of the climate to various forces, that small changes in greenhouse gas concentrations are "trivial".

  56. Sorry Dennis, I have some bad news for you. I am not impressed with cheap root blame of Saudi Arabia or any other form of fear mongering. From wiki

    “Woolsey is also a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was one of the signatories to the January 26, 1998 letter sent to President Clinton that called for the removal of Saddam Hussein.”

    Yes, you can take school children and indoctrinate a certain number to do evil things. WWII Germany and Japan are examples of what happens when ordinary people are afraid to moderate government. Saddam Hussein knew this too.

    I have stood the line against evil. A family tradition. My line was easier to stand than my fathers. While my father hated the Japs, he learned to love the Japanese people when he was stationed there during the Korean War. Rufus has stood the line too, both of us while you were in grade school. You are welcome.

    It is nice that a little light turned on in your adult brain on 9/11. However, I am not impressed with the conclusions that you came to. Now that I know that feel strongly about it energy independence are you , what are you doing about it? I hope something more than blog.

    So Dennis, tell up about your PHEV. James Woolsey has one why not Dennis Moore. RR does not tell how his CNG POV works.

    Sorry, I really get irritated by wine and cheese liberals who get a new religion.

  57. There is no serious (anthropogenic) global warming debate — that hypothesis has now pretty well been rejected in scientific circles.

    That's a complete and utter lie!

  58. Pete said that Clee said: Oh yes I do! When I boil water, I produce both an H2 and O as steam.

    Pete, I am not Cliff. I do not create H2 and O when I boil water into steam.

  59. "Yes, water vapour contributes most to the greenhouse effect, and yes, it is present in concentrations orders of magnitude higher than CO2 (not "many" orders — less than two to be precise)."

    Thanks for that correction, PeteS. This swine flu appears to have created some issues with my math coprocessor, as well as creating my general attitude of testiness.

    I should of course have said that the concentration of H2O in the atmosphere is about 100 times that of CO2.

    "Nor does it follow, given the non-linear reaction of the climate to various forces, that small changes in greenhouse gas concentrations are "trivial"."

    Well, one would first have to establish (a) precisely what one means by 'climate' and (b) that 'climate' has certain types of non-linear reactions to various forces.

    Since you may be one of very few AGW-believers, Pete, who has actually looked at the science, let's carry out a thought experiment together.

    We agree that water vapor is a potent radiatively active gas. Is it possible that 'climate' (however defined) exhibits self-reinforcing Positive Feedback to changes in the atmospheric concentration of this RAG?

    Let's imagine the planet in some distant past — in perfect harmony, not an evil human anywhere. Sometime between when the continents wrenched apart to form the Atlantic and when the meteor struck causing the massive species extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Perfect balance.

    And then a sea creature lazily flips its tail under a sunny sky, splashing some water into the undersaturated air, locally increasing the concentration of "greenhouse gas".

    If there is a Positive Feedback loop in the atmosphere, then the presence of that additional water vapor will inevitably (although only very slightly) increase the temperature of the surface. This temperature increase in turn will cause the evaporation of more water, which in turn will raise the temperature even more, which will further increase water vapor, which will …

    Because of the postulated Postive Feedback Loop, the Earth would long ago have disappeared into the Climate Alarmists' heat disaster — all because some damn fish flapped its tail.

    Of course, what the thought experiment shows is that the hypothesis of Positive Feedback is very unlikely. If it were true, 'climate' would have been in a perilous state of unstable equilibrium. It would inevitably have shifted dramatically long ago to some more stable state.

    In reality, the atmosphere (like almost every other known natural process) is basically in a state of stable equilibrium, with change-cancelling Negative Feedback Loops.

    In the fishy example above, the additional water vapor in the atmosphere would have condensed as clouds, reflecting the Sun's heat back into space and offsetting the higher concentration of radiatively active gas. Because the equilibrium is stable.

    { But what about the Ice Ages?, the Climate Alarmist may say. We know that the planet's 'climate' has been flipping between stable states for millions of years with no human involvement.

    { And then the Climate Alarmist would fall silent, realizing that he has just undermined the whole case for Alarmism.

    { Yes, there is an answer to that. But that is for another day. In the meantime, ask Al Gore about it and see how fast he changes the topic.}

    Returning to the present day when the planet teams with evil humans, that small segment of humanity which runs Global Circulation Models accepts (soto voce) that even the wildest projections of anthropogenic CO2 additions to the atmosphere will not have any significant effect on 'climate' as they define it. They have to invent entirely unproven (and physically unreasonable) Postive Feedback Loops to make their models "predict" global thermal disasters.

    This is one of the principal reasons why GCM-pushers are finding themselves increasingly on the defensive in real scientific circles. Where is the physical evidence for their postulated (and very unusual) Positive Feedback Loops?

  60. bc wrote:
    "That's a complete and utter lie!"

    bc, I understand that you are European, and we all know how Europeans have traditionally dealt with challenges to their conventional wisdom. But please try to be a little more open-minded.

    Doing some background reading on the scientific debate over alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming wouldn't hurt either.

  61. Kit wrote: Asymmetric warfare (aka terrorism) was a tactic used by George Washington.

    Terrorism may be a form of asymmetric warfare, (as is guerilla warfare) but not all asymmetric warfare is terrorism. As far as I know, George Washington did not target british civilians. Please give an example of George Washington's terrorism tactic.

  62. Sorry, I really get irritated by wine and cheese liberals who get a new religion.
    That is a first Kit. I have never been called a wine and cheese liberal before, and the people who know me would be perplexed by that. I do like cheese, usually in the grilled, burger or nacho variety. As for wine, the only time I drink it is in church. I much prefer a Grain Belt Premium. Liberal? nobody who knows me would say that.

    I have stood the line against evil
    Thank you for your service Kit.

    I never served in the military, but I did watch Full Metal Jacket the other night, and that is the next best thing.

    My grandfather was a Marine in the Pacific, he returned from the war, locked all his medals in the closet and rarely mentioned it. He is respected by all because he worked hard running the farm, raised his family and he treats others with honor and respect. If you ask him now, he will talk about the war and tell many great stories. When he does, it is a soft spoken and humble history lesson. Not as a means of demanding respect or demeaning others

    So Dennis, tell up about your PHEV
    I own an electric vehicle Kit. It isn't a car and it isn't fancy, it is a cheap electric bicycle. I frequently use it as transportation to work. I also own a FFV and right now it is full of E85. Is that good enough?

    So far I have tried to answer your questions honestly and politely and you have responded with insults. You do this all the time. Why is it so hard for you to have a civil conversation? It's sad, because I think you really do have something to add to the conversation.

  63. Late night and a few more q's and a's here… 🙂

    ••••••••••••••••••

    (jeb said…
    Cliff: .. a new, stronger BTU biofuel…
Interesting comments overall Cliff, but you seem to mix terms here and in regard to boiling or reforming above.
    A subtle problem with Methanol would also be a tendency like this to label it biofuel regardless of what its made from.)

    JEB, Just last week I read a news release from Rentech saying that their Fischer-Tropsch synthetic GTL oil was biodegradable. Oh how I wish that this were true.

    The term bio-fuel is really a tragic misnomer. Personally, I think "bio-fuel" should designate the "biodegradability characteristics of a fuel" irregardless if whether it was produced from a fossil methane or coal or from a renewable garbage source, even tires or an agri-source like corn.

    The term biodiesel is erronious too as this diesel substitute (whether produced from waste restaurant grease or soy beans) still floats on water just like crude oil does and in the long-haul, biodiesel doesn't biodegrade much faster than a petroleum-derived oil spill does.

    Just ask the fishermen and others living along the Prince William Sound what the half-life of a major oil spill is… I believe that climate change phenomenah has it's roots in uncombusted oils that travel around the planet as brown urban smog.

    It is the alcohols which are the biodegradable species here – whether it is methanol synthesized from methane natural gas or from gasified coal OR ethanol fermented from wood chips or corn kernels.

    Both of these alcohols are water soluble (the first trait to consider regarding biodegradability) and thus when diluted become bug and plant food as I've previously indicated.

    •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

    (Kinuachdrach said…
    Cliff wrote: "Waste Flare Gas is plentiful both onshore and also offshore in association with oil drilling platforms."
Cliff, you are way, way behind the times. That statement was true about 30 years ago. Not any more.)

    Mr. K, My focus is on offshore flare gas (lots of it) being wasted from about 1,000 + – offshore oil platforms globally. And I look also at hundreds of T's of stranded natural gas without a market, stranded in places like Alaska without an export pipeline for it leading towards Chicago and/or stranded sources of methane because of contaminants in some cases.

    Cliff

  64. Last on q's and a's…

    (Dennis Moore said…
    OK, I get the difference between steam reformation and gasification. I am a chemist, but I don't work with fuels, I do pharmaceuticals,
    PeteS said…
    Clee said: "Oh yes I do! When I boil water, I produce both an H2 and O as steam. I've combusted carbon feedstock to accomplish this because water must be heated to about 212 deg. F at sea level in order to boil it into steam."
I think you are confused here. Water is H2O. Steam is H2O. Steam is just water in gaseous phase. There is no chemical reaction involved in boiling water.
    Pete, I am not Cliff. I do not create H2 and O when I boil water into steam.)

    ••••••••••••••••••••

    I think I'll simply quit the dialog here as my statement that Oxygen derived from Water seems to befuddle so many readers. I typically talk about the 'net reactions' which are occurring in these GTL systems or even fermentation and I'm not going to go into a itemized step by step chemistry lesson of GTL reaction kinetics on a public blog.

    Suffice to say that H2O water is first boiled into steam, then via catalysts in a steam reformer, the hot H2O steam is broken apart in a gas/water shift reaction and the Oxygen atom combines with a Carbon atom from a feedstock source and the H2 from water is separated as well and then also becomes part of a mid-stream synthesis gas recipe being either CO H2 from gasification or CO H2 H2 H2 when methane is steam reformed.

    The net result here is that an Oxygen atom was derived from water and two Hydrogen ions (formerly being a water molecule) have now been totally separated and they had to be boiled into steam to initiate this process of gas/water shifts aided by catalysts.

    These same three atoms now in mid-stream syngas all go through another "back-end" catalytic recombination and output as oxycarbon alcohols which contain Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen.

    Hydrocarbon oils and coal only contain Carbon and Hydrogen atoms – they are missing the Oxygen atom in the premium alternative fuel recipe.

    And when an Oxygen atom is catalyzed into oils or coal, (note, many steps to accomplish this) then these float-on-water hydrocarbons get converted into water soluble, oil soluble, coal soluble, BIODEGRADABLE fuel alcohols. Get it now?

    Grade school children seem to understand this – energy bloggers instead seem to want to argue and will miss the bigger picture sometimes.

    Best of luck, enjoy the wine and cheese be you liberal or conservative and I hope you all can drive an electric car someday as you were seemingly not fooled by Gov. Arnie and his hydrogen hallucination.

    Cliff

  65. I think I'll simply quit the dialog here as my statement that Oxygen derived from Water seems to befuddle so many readers. I typically talk about the 'net reactions' which are occurring in these GTL systems or even fermentation and I'm not going to go into a itemized step by step chemistry lesson of GTL reaction kinetics on a public blog.

    Next time, you should say that water and methane are heated to about 1000C in the presence of a catalyst to produce syngas. That is different from saying that you have derived oxygen by boiling water to steam.

  66. Since you may be one of very few AGW-believers, Pete, who has actually looked at the science, let's carry out a thought experiment together.

    Well I should issue a few disclaimers here. Yes, I have actually looked at some of the science, but I am also an evil European, so that probably nets me out at zero in the credibility stakes. However, although I am an evil European and think there is a reasonable likelihood of anthropogenic warming, I am not the Euro-commie-wuss variety, so I happen to disagree quite strongly with many common policy proposals about what to do about the problem. Basically, I don't think we should cripple economies with speculative carbon cuts now, as opposed to spending the same money on mitigation in future (flood controls, relocating coastal cities as necessary, diversifying and/or relocating agriculture, engineering the atmosphere, etc.) when we KNOW what we are dealing with. Nevertheless I understand that some people are arguing from a precautionary principle.

    I don't like the pejorative term "AGW-believer" — I have formed a view based on a better-than-average interested layman's idea of the subject; I will happily take the contrary view if presented with contrary evidence. In either case I acknowledge the obvious: I am no expert, so I rely on the opinions of experts as well as my own limited understanding. But I'm keenly aware of how fads, fashions and philosophies can affect scientific opinion — two hundred years of catastrophism vs. gradualism/uniformitarianism debates in geology make great case studies of how both sides can get it wrong.

    Ok, enough said. Back to the science…

    Well, one would first have to establish (a) precisely what one means by 'climate' and (b) that 'climate' has certain types of non-linear reactions to various forces.

    For the sake of discussion I'm happy with any definition of "climate" that distinguishes it from "weather" by asserting its long-term, global aspect. That it has non-linear behaviour seems borne out by paleoclimatological studies — the climate has regularly flipped between extremes in the past, and there are many cycles within cycles. Even the recent history of the Holocene shows dramatic warming and cooling periods (such as the Younger Dryas). None of this is evidence for AGW. Indeed, as I believe you were saying, it could be argued that the existence of these natural cycles makes the evidence for AGW less compelling because we have to argue for the "unnaturalness" of the present warming trend. Nevertheless it seems like a settled case that it is possible for the climate to establish patterns that persist for some duration, and then rapidly change. (Yes, I understand that "non-linear" has a more particular mathematical sense too, but it's not at odds with the colloquial meaning).

    (cont'd…)

  67. (…cont'd)

    "We agree that water vapor is a potent radiatively active gas. Is it possible that 'climate' (however defined) exhibits self-reinforcing Positive Feedback to changes in the atmospheric concentration of this RAG?"

    Your example is not necessarily a good one though. Dramatic seasonal changes in weather clearly involve hugely bigger effects than your splashing fish tail. And yet the climate remains stable over substantial periods. If we're going to play the catastrophist, we have to look for possible causes of non-linearity. One such is the behaviour of the oceans as a sink for carbon dioxide. Atmospheric CO2 levels, it is argued, could rise dramatically once the levels in the oceans reach a certain concentration, and the resultant warming could cause the ocean to give up more of the dissolved content. Ice caps may shrink, reducing albedo. And so on. There are many models involving different types of positive feedback, but crucially with different lags in the various effects.

    I am more inclined to say that it is widely accepted (including by the scientific academies of the major industrialised countries) that the warming trend since the mid-twentieth century is human-induced and is not explained by natural variability. I am more open to doubting the reliability of predictions for the future, given their substantial range, and that's why I advocate holding off with the major expenditure until we know what's needed.

    Of course, what the thought experiment shows is that the hypothesis of Positive Feedback is very unlikely. If it were true, 'climate' would have been in a perilous state of unstable equilibrium. It would inevitably have shifted dramatically long ago to some more stable state.

    I disagree. Firstly, paleoclimatology provides evidence that such major shifts have indeed happened. You seem to be implying that there is then no reason for these shifts to reverse themselves. But some of the modern findings about non-linear systems (in general, not necessarily climate-related, e.g. Prigogine's work "On the fluctuations of chemical equilibrium") are that classical equilibria as definite final states are not the norm. Edward Lorentz's "attractors" which were derived from studies of convective rolls imply that the atmosphere can flip abruptly between different states.

    I'd be the first to agree that this is fodder for the über-alarmist who claims that because climate flips are possible, there are therefore likely, and coming to a place near you next Tuesday week. As I said, I take a suitably skeptical view about predictions, in spite of accepting the likelihood that anthropogenic global warming is happening now.

  68. PeteS — Thanks for your calmly reasoned views on alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming. You really are quite exceptional for an evil Kool-Aid drinking European.

    Of course, Occam's Razor would suggest that since there is overwhelming scientific evidence of massive climate variability over geological & historical times, the most plausible explanation for the very minor 'climate' ups & downs in the 20th Century is a continuation of that natural variability. Especially since the ups & downs fail to correlate in any way with atmospheric CO2 levels — which does pretty well kill the anthropogenic influence argument stone dead. But you knew all that anyway.

    Since you are obviously an intelligent informed individual, let me pass on an experience I was privileged to enjoy not so long ago — an absolutely fascinating dinner with a top European geologist.

    Since he was European, no-one at the table brought up the topic of alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming. Why spoil a perfectly pleasant evening? But then the geologist himself spontaneously brought the subject up.

    Look at the White Cliffs of Dover, he said. How much carbon must the oceans have had to create those hundreds of feet of chalk? Where in the world is a similar geological process going on today? No-where, that's where! When marine organisms die, their skeletons dissolve.

    The problem is the oceans are starved for carbon. When they found the wreck of the Titanic, you know what they did not find? No skeletons. None! Every scrap of calcium carbonate had been absorbed into the ocean. The oceans are seriously undersupplied with carbon. And yet people have been fooled into believing that there is too much carbon being released into the biosphere.

    But maybe one would have had to be there to get the full impact.

  69. Dennis to Kit: Why is it so hard for you to have a civil conversation? It's sad, because I think you really do have something to add to the conversation.

    I feel exactly the same way, Dennis. It's like there is some kind of filter missing from Kit's personality. He could contribute, but he is not satisfied just to contribute unless he can also insult, be disruptive, and brag about how much he knows and how little everyone else does. If that filter worked, it would catch all of that petty stuff and he could be a more respected contributor.

    RR

  70. "PeteS — Thanks for your calmly reasoned views on alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming. You really are quite exceptional for an evil Kool-Aid drinking European."

    Thanks Kinuachdrach. Likewise, you come across surprisingly well for a xenophobic denialist Yank.

    "…the most plausible explanation for the very minor 'climate' ups & downs in the 20th Century is a continuation of that natural variability. Especially since the ups & downs fail to correlate in any way with atmospheric CO2 levels"

    Ah but, so the Kool-Aid drinkers say, CO2 levels are not the whole story. Naturally increased levels of CO2 from volcanic activity has been accompanied by sulphur dioxide. Sulphate aerosols in concentrations as low as one part per billion have a strong cooling effect. So, the natural warming trend up until the mid 20th c. should have been replaced by a cooling trend, but it wasn't — QED AGW!

    "How much carbon must the oceans have had to create those hundreds of feet of chalk? Where in the world is a similar geological process going on today? No-where, that's where! When marine organisms die, their skeletons dissolve."

    Your geologist story is very interesting. But at the risk of stating the obvious — CO2 is not CaCO3. It goes without saying that the oceans are not saturated with dissolved minerals. But CO2 solubility is a different matter. It is different for different temperatures, and therefore different for the surface and the deep ocean. The processes by which CO2 is transported to the depths and back are complicated, and since increasing temperature reduces not only solubility but stratification (stronger winds increase mixing), the rate of turnover can show strong non-linear effects. Upwelling deep water in equatorial latitudes strongly outgasses CO2, which puts paid to the idea that the oceans are starved of carbon. Meanwhile, increasing surface acidity affects the biological carbon pump as well because phytoplankton don't thrive.

    Them's the theories. And for evidence, a study in "Science" in 2007 by Corinne Le Quere et al. (how beautifully Francophone — has to be a Euro-wuss) indicates that measurements of carbon sink efficiency at the Antarctic does indeed show the expected decline.

  71. Well, you learn something new every day. Looks like your geologist didn't know his chemistry. It turns out that the solubility of calcium carbonate dramatically increases with increased CO2 levels. (I kinda knew this — limestone dissolves in rainwater after all — but I didn't put two and two together). Calcium dissolves much better in an acid than in plain water. Carbonic acid and calcium carbonate dissociate in water into a mixture of carbonate, bicarbonate, hydroxyl and calcium ions.

    So … increased CaCO3 solubility indicates more CO2, not less.

  72. I am a retired electronic engineer (yes you have to take chemistry to get a degree in EE) so I am neither a believer in AGW or a denier. Engineers are realists. AGW has been occurring for at least 1000 years (first due to the increase in agriculture). Natural temperature cycles also occur.

    So, the current variation in global temperature is due to a combination of AGW and natural climate cycles. How much of each is a difficult question. For the past few years since Al Gore's apocalyptic predictions, the Earth's temperature has changed very little; actually declined just a bit.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

    This makes it almost impossible to determine the extent of AGW using current data.

    However, we do know that the North polar ice and glaciers world wide are melting (while — very strange! — it has actually become colder at the South pole).

    Why? A recent publication in Nature Geosciences (April 2009) and cited in a news article in Science (17 April 2009) indicates that at least half of the cause of the melting is plain ordinary soot (carbon aerosols) and that if GHG are a part of the problem, it is Methane that should be the immediate focus of reduction efforts because this would have an almost immediate effect. Methane persists in the atmosphere for, at most, 15 years.

    Still, politicians seem to be focused on Carbon Dioxide which is estimated to be 77% of the GHG problem, but it persists in the atmosphere for thousands of years — reduction will have only long term effects. Proposed laws in the USA will use the 100 year average effect as the standard which will grossly underestimate the effects Methane has on AGW.

    So, perhaps we should not only ask how to get politics out of Ethanol (and all bio-fuels) but how do we get politics out of climate issues?

    These issues currently seem to be driven by the "Watermelon Greens" (Green on the outside and Pink on the inside). To me the answer would appear to be education of the public. The Greens appear to be ignorant, they do not know what they are talking about, and the majority of voters do not have sufficient education to know that what they are saying is simply wrong.

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