Listen to Glenn and Helen’s interview with Set America Free Coalition member Bob Zubrin, author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil .
Archive for the ‘ethanol’ Category
The Glenn and Helen Show: Bob Zubrin on How to Break OPEC
Friday, January 11th, 2008Get flexible
Sunday, December 9th, 2007The newest Set America Free Coalition member, Admiral James Lyons, writes in the Washington Times:
Terrorist training camps and insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere are funded by Saudi and Iranian petrodollars. So are bounties for families of suicide bombers. It is incredible: by buying Saudi-controlled OPEC oil we finance a war against ourselves.
But the Saudis are not alone. Iran has used its vast accumulation of petrodollars to support terrorism throughout the Middle East as well as providing funds for their drive to develop a nuclear weapon. Oil has also given Iran, Venezuela and — in the past — Libya the flexibility to ignore economic sanctions by finding amoral partners such as China, Russia and some of the European countries who are willing to trade with them. Petro revenue has provided Vladimir Putin the means to centralize his power, bully his neighbors and steer Russia on an independent course that has been unhelpful to U.S. interests.
For all these reasons, as well as for our long-term economic and security concerns, we must break our addiction to oil…
We have technology that will underpin an energy strategy that will break our petro-addiction and OPEC’s hegemony. That strategy lies in something already available: mixed-fuel technology; vehicles that use a mixture of ethanol, methanol and gasoline.
Ethanol is produced from a variety of agricultural sources, primarily sugarcane and corn, at as low as $1.50 a gallon. In 2006, methanol, which can be made from coal, natural gas and agricultural waste, was being sold without any subsidies for 80 cents per gallon.
The engineering difference for a flex fuel car requires an additional sensor and computer chip that controls the fuel-air mixture. It also should have a corrosion resistant fuel system. The overall increase in costs for a flex fuel car will average about $100 per vehicle.
This year Detroit has offered two dozen models with a flex fuel option. To accelerate this program, Congress needs to put politics aside and enact legislation to require that 50 percent of all vehicles produced by our auto manufacturers must be flex fuel by 2012. This will not be easy. However, this is a figure the Big Three auto makers proposed to President Bush when they met last year.
Georgia’s Biofuels Refinery to Make 9 Million Gallons of Cellulosic Methanol a Year
Friday, November 16th, 2007The Methanol Institute(MI) reports:
On November 6th, the first commercial plant to turn trees and wood scraps into biofuels officially opened in Soperton, Georgia. According to the Department of Energy, the Range Fuels plant is expected to produce 40 million tons of cellulosic ethanol and 9 million tons of cellulosic methanol each year. The Department of Energy will fund more than $1.2 billion for this plant and five similar ones in the works. The groundbreaking ceremony was headlined by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who focused his speech on praising ethanol: “These six sites differ in their location and in the feed stocks that they will use, but they will all help us move toward the day when biofuels made from cellulosic ethanol can be made in near every part of the country.†In response, MI’s John Lynn wrote a letter to Bodman saying “As Range Fuels’ project advances, we encourage you to include methanol in the discussion. The methanol industry is seeing increased interest in renewable methanol and we expect to see new plants opening around the country over the next several years. Through its many applications, methanol can and should be a significant part of the solution.â€
Both methanol and ethanol are alcohol fuels that can power flexible fuel vehicles, cars that can run on any combination of alcohol and gasoline and cost an auto manufacturer less than $100 extra to make over the cost of a gasoline only car. There is no reason for the Department of Energy to pick one fuel as a winner and ignore others – let them all compete. For more on the potential of flexible fuel vehicles to break the stranglehold of oil producers, click here: The Alcohol Standard by Robert Zubrin. For an article by Ford Motor’s Roberta Nichols about gasoline-ethanol-methanol fuel flexibility, click here.
MI adds another bit of important news from China, which is moving aggressively towards fuel choice:
“At the 5th International Clean Vehicle Technology Exhibition in Beijing, Chang’an Automobile Company presented the Ben Ben methanol-fueled car, and Geely Automotive stated the Haifeng methanol vehicles have been put into large-scale production and might be launched at the end of this year.”
India’s missed opportunity
Sunday, July 8th, 2007An excellent opinion piece in the Hindustan Times points out that, inspired by Western fixation with ethanol and biodiesel, India is about to miss a huge opportunity to strengthen its energy security.
India intends to blend gasoline with 5 per cent of ethanol and to replace a large part of high speed diesel with bio-diesel from a plant called Jatropha.
“Since ethanol can only be mass produced at present from food crops, even the six-fold increase in production that the government’s modest programme envisages will require the diversion of a large portion of land that is currently feeding people to feeding machines.”
“While the technology for producing ethanol from non-food plant cellulose (e.g. wood, leaves, bagasse or straw) has still to be developed and proved economically viable, the technology for producing methanol from wood is more than two centuries old.”
India produces approximately 200 million tonnes of bagasse and an equal amount of paddy straw and rice husk (equivalent in energy terms to about 150 million tonnes of bagasse) every year. These agricultural and industrial wastes are capable of producing 750 to 800 million tonnes of a fuel that has so far only been used in racing cars. [methanol] In energy terms, this is equivalent to about 500 million tonnes of gasoline and slightly less of diesel. That is about three times the projected transport fuel needs of the country in 2030.”
“Often the strongest argument against doing something is that others are doing something different. But this is not applicable to the search for new sources of energy. Other countries are exploring other paths because they face a different set of constraints. The West, for instance, is placing its short-term bets on ethanol because it has a surplus of productive capacity in agriculture. It is placing its long-term bets on hydrogen fuel cells because it knows that it cannot grow enough biomass to meet the whole of its transport fuel needs when the oil runs out. We, however, will not get to that point for several decades. We also face the challenges of rural poverty and environmental degradation that they have largely overcome. We need to find our own path.”
Biomass gasification: let’s talk methanol
Friday, March 9th, 2007The Methanol Institute reports: “President Bush has set an aggressive goal of increasing alternative fuels use in the transportation sector to the equivalent of 35 billion gallons. However, the Energy Information Administration forecasts ethanol output to reach only 11.5 billion gallons in 2017. Only 2% of this projected ethanol supply will come from cellulosic ethanol. One way to fill this gap is through biomass gasification for methanol production. Cellulosic ethanol may someday be able to produce 60 gallons of ethanol from a ton of biomass material. Using technology available today and largely developed for coal gasification, methanol yields could achieve 165-185 gallons per ton of waste wood. Methanol biomass gasifiers are also highly energy efficient (50-60%), and can use a wide range of feedstocks from forest residue to municipal solid waste. Rather than completing with weather-dependent food crops for transportation fuel feedstock, it is estimated that 250 million tons of waste wood is generated in the U.S. each year. That’s enough wood to produce 41 to 46 billion gallons of methanol, or roughly one-third of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline consumed in the U.S. last year. North Shore Energy is looking at building a plant in Mississippi capable of producing 50 million gallons of methanol per year from 260 tons of wood per day. Air Products is looking at a dozen potential gasification projects around the world, nine of which involved biomass feedstocks.[...] this is a mature technology that is potentially decades ahead of producing ethanol or Fischer-Tropsch diesel from synthesis gas.”
This is yet another reminder of why automakers should make as many new cars as possible GEM flexible fuel vehicles, cars that can run on any combination of gasoline, ethanol, methanol (and other alcohols as well) and cost an auto manufacturer less than $100 extra to make – would be a huge step forward to reducing oil dependence and increasing energy security by opening up the transportation fuel market wide for competition.
This 2003 article from Ford Motor Company’s Roberta Nichols about GEM flexibility is a must read. Detroit has already committed to 50% flex fuel vehicles by 2012 – faster and bolder please!
Silva Raps U.S. Tariff on Brazil Ethanol
Monday, March 5th, 2007AP: “Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday that a [54 cent a gallon] U.S. tariff on Brazilian ethanol does not make sense and that he will complain about it to U.S. President George W. Bush when the American leader visits Brazil later this week.”
Earlier discussion of the issue, and a video clip you really do want to watch, here.
Hemispheric ethanol alliance
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007The Miami Herald reports:
In the coming months, Washington will roll out a strategic partnership with Brazil to expand ethanol and other biofuels usage in the hemisphere, hoping not only to bolster energy security and generate more rural jobs for poor countries but foster goodwill toward the United States, according to several people familiar with the issue.
There’s even talk that the Brazil deal could blunt the influence that Venezuela’s Bush-bashing President Hugo Chávez exerts in the region by fomenting alternate fuels to Venezuela’s oil wealth. U.S. officials, however, deny this, noting the arrangement would have happened regardless of Chávez.
”The United States and Brazil are the world’s two largest biofuels producers so cooperation is natural,” said Eric Watnik, a State Department spokesman. “Our goal is advance to global energy security by helping countries diversify their supply.’
Excellent. Now, if only that 54 cent a gallon tariff on ethanol imports were removed…
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UPDATE: Thanks Instapundit!
West’s energy security ever-more at the mercy of foreign governments
Friday, December 29th, 2006Set America Free Coalition member Frank Gaffney writes in the Washington Times:
As the Communist Chinese and fascistic Russian regimes move to forge close relations with energy-rich nations like Iran, Libya, Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia, and as the Kremlin consolidates its control over Russia’s own vast resources, America and her allies will find themselves increasingly imperiled by their dependency on such sources for oil products and/or natural gas.
As a result, President Bush needs to make increased U.S. energy security a central part of the overhauled war-fighting strategy that he is set to announce next month. To do so, he must clearly go beyond the lip service that he paid to our “addiction to oil” in last year’s State of the Union speech by taking steps that will make a difference.
Done properly, energy security could be one of the most promising areas for cooperation between the Bush Administration and Democrats in Congress. By concentrating on areas where considerable progress is possible (rather than on such neuralgic issues as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or increased CAFE fuel-efficiency standards), America — and in particular its gas-guzzling transportation sector — could be made significantly less reliant on oil supplied by unstable or hostile regimes.
Such a course of action has been laid out in a blueprint produced by the Set America Free Coalition — a group spanning the political spectrum — that forms the basis for the bipartisan, bicameral Vehicle & Fuel Choices for American Security Act (introduced in the last session of Congress as S.2025 in the Senate and H.R. 4409 in the House). It entails two principal steps: (1) ensuring all cars sold in America will be Flexible Fuel Vehicles, capable of burning not just gasoline but ethanol and methanol (or some combination thereof); and (2) assuring the availability of substantially increased quantities of such alternative fuels.
This legislation would also help make electricity a true transportation fuel, by promoting the manufacture of plug-in hybrid vehicles. Since scarcely any electricity is generated in America by burning oil, the widespread use of such vehicles could greatly reduce our dependence on foreign sources of petroleum. To realize the full potential of this option, however, President Bush and the Congress will need to join forces on one other important initiative: assuring large-scale U.S. production of advanced lithium ion batteries, an essential ingredient for our future energy — and national — security and the competitiveness of our auto industry.
Recent remarks by President Bush
Friday, December 22nd, 2006President Bush puts it bluntly:
In my judgment, we’re going to have to get off oil as much as possible to remain a competitive economy.
And I’m looking forward to working with Congress to do just that. I’m optimistic about some of the reports I’ve heard about new battery technologies that will be coming to the market that’ll enable, you know, people who — people to drive the first 20 miles, for example, on electricity. That’ll be the initial phase — and, then, up to 40 miles on battery technologies. That’ll be positive, particularly if you live in a big city. A lot of people don’t drive more than 20 miles or 40 miles a day. And, therefore, those urban dwellers who aren’t driving that much won’t be using any gasoline on a daily basis. And that will be helpful to the country.
I’m pleased with the fact that we’ve gone from about a billion gallons of ethanol to over five billion gallons of ethanol in a very quick period of time — mainly derived from corn here in the United States. But there’s been great progress and we need to continue to spend money on cellulosic ethanol.
That means new technologies that will enable us to use wood chips, for example, or switch grass as the fuel stocks for the development of new types of fuels that will enable American drivers to diversify away from gasoline.
China isn’t waiting for us to move
Friday, November 24th, 2006Some very exciting news that should also serve as a dire warning to US policymakers: China sees the writing on the wall and is rapidly moving to reduce its need for oil in the transportation sector, which accounts for the bulk of the growth in Chinese oil consumption, by diversifying its transportation fuel supply. China is not waiting for the US to move on fuel choice, it is taking action to harness its own domestic resources to produce transportation fuel and most assuredly is making a shift toward true flexible fuel vehicles that can use gasoline, ethanol, AND methanol. This is exactly the sort of tranformation that the Fuel Choices for American Security Act based on the Set America Free blueprint would achieve, and Congress had better recognize that fuel choice is China’s Sputnik, and if we do not act now, its rumbling engines will leave us in the dust.
Here is the latest news:
Beijing has settled on a national standard for methanol as an automotive fuel, a decision which will legitimise and bolster a market that has been growing rapidly without central government approval.
The standard, which has yet to be officially announced, was reported in a trade magazine and confirmed yesterday by an official attached to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the economic planning body responsible for the standards.
Local companies have under construction, or are awaiting approval to build, plants to produce methanol equivalent to about 20 per cent of China’s present oil consumption, according to Jim Brock, a Beijing-based energy consultant.
By the time the plants, which convert coal to liquids, start producing in 2011 to 2013, China’s oil demand will have doubled, allowing methanol to supply about 10 per cent of the market.
“It will be a major alternative fuel which does not exist in any other country in the world,” said Mr Brock.
Methanol, a chemical usually derived from coal, can be added to petrol to create a cleaner-burning fuel. When oil prices are high, it is also cheaper.
China has abundant coal but declining reserves of oil and is expected to become ever more reliant on imports. Imports now account for about 40 per cent of Chinese oil consumption.
Several of China’s coal-rich provinces, impatient with the NDRC’s long deliberations over thestandard, have issued interim standards for methanol over the last year.
Shaanxi, in north-central China, which produces about 600m tonnes a year of coal – just over a quarter of national production – has issued stickers allowing cars using pure methanol free passage on the province’s toll roads.
“Shaanxi is doing the best job in China in promoting the use of methanol as fuel,” said Peng Zhigui, head of the provincial methanol office, in Taiyuan.
“Our aim is to solve the problem of China’s oil shortage. We are creating a new kind of energy.”
Shaanxi officials had complained that the NDRC had been holding back the development of methanol in favour of ethanol, which is mainly made using corn in China.
The complaint largely reflects provincial rivalries. Ethanol is produced using corn grown in the country’s north-east – China’s poor rustbelt – an area that has been given priority by the central government.
The two methanol standards issued by Shaanxi use fuel with 15 per cent and 85 per cent of methanol respectively.
Mr Peng said the province already had 100 buses using the “M85″ fuel and is in discussions with Chery, a local car company, to build a fleet of taxis designed to run on the fuel.
Production of ethanol is also soaring in China, partly driven by the high prices available for exporters on the world market.
Critics of ethanol say it is inappropriate to use corn to make fuel at a time when China is struggling to keep precious agricultural land in production to ensure “food security” for the country.
Methanol and ethanol are different alcohol fuels that can both be used in flexible fuel vehicles, cars that look and perform just like gasoline only cars but can be powered with a variety of fuels and cost less than $150 extra to manufacture. Ethanol in the US is primarily made from corn. In Brazil it is much more efficiently made from sugarcane, and that are many countries with a suitable climate for growing sugarcane that could also produce ethanol and export to the US should we decide to remove the protectionist 54 cent a gallon tariff on ethanol imports. Methanol can be made from biomass, natural gas, and coal.
Additional information: