Cellulosic Ethanol and Jatropha, too much too soon

It would seem, despite the inability of the cellulosic ethanol industry to produce an economically viable product to date, that it remains this Administration’s answer to coming liquid fuel shortages. Last week President Obama announced that $510 million from the Government, would be invested in biofuels, with an equal amount of private funding.

The U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Navy will invest up to $510 million during the next three years, in partnership with the private sector, to produce advanced drop-in aviation and marine biofuels for military and commercial transportation, President Barack Obama announced today. . . . . . . To accelerate the production of bio-based jet and diesel fuel, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have developed a plan to jointly construct or retrofit several drop-in biofuel plants and refineries.

The investment will be aimed at increasing biodiesel production. The country has more than doubled the production of biodiesel in the last year, with monthly production rising to 81 million gallons in June. (That is 64,000 bd). Further, as the EIA TWIP noted this week, the USA has started exporting significant quantities of ethanol (from corn). Which is good since Brazil's ethanol production is not doing as well as might be thought, due to high sugar prices.

Current increase in exports of ethanol, relative to historic imports.

At the same time some funds will support scientific advances in the National Labs and help to move the results into production.

A team of researchers at the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center have pinpointed the exact, single gene that controls ethanol production capacity in the microorganism Clostridium thermocellum.

Scientists can now experiment with genetically altering biomass plants to produce higher concentrations of ethanol at lower costs, said Secretary Chu, announcing the discovery on Thursday.

Why the combination of departments? Well:

The Agriculture department will work on securing feedstocks while the Energy department will look for the right technologies. The Navy, which has a huge fleet of ships and planes, will be the customer.

Feedstocks are not necessarily the problem, depending on the technology that is going to generate the fuel. (The bacterium can turn cellulose into gasoline, with an estimate that it might be cheaper than getting ethanol from corn. Though IIRC we may have heard that argument before. )

The plan will first create an Executive Steering Group and that will then create a Plan of Action and Milestones. So this won't drop gas prices tomorrow.

I have a bit of a concern about this effort, which has the goal of replacing half the Navy’s consumption of petroleum-based fuels with domestically produced sustainable fuel alternatives by 2020. This is especially true as the objective is directed at creating or retrofitting existing biofuel plants and refineries to create military specification biofuels at a price competitive with petroleum.

We have seen, for example with Range Fuels, that the Government is quite willing to throw large sums of money into creating plants nominally capable of producing large quantities of fuel, before the enabling technology to make that fuel at that scale exists.

in March 2007 (Range Fuels) received a $76 million grant from the Department of Energy . . . . Range said it would build the nation's first commercial cellulosic plant, near Soperton, Georgia, using wood chips to produce 20 million gallons a year in 2008, with a goal of 100 million gallons. Estimated cost: $150 million.

By spring 2008, Range had also attracted $130 million of private funding. . . Investors included California's state pension fund, Calpers. The state of Georgia kicked in a $6 million grant, and all told Range raised $158 million in VC funding in 2008.

By the end of 2008 with no operational plant in sight, Range installed a new CEO, David Aldous. In early 2009, the company said production was not expected until 2010. Undeterred, President Obama's Department of Agriculture provided an $80 million loan. In May 2009, Range's former CEO, Mitch Mandich, explained that the problem was that nobody had figured out how to produce cellulosic ethanol in commercial quantities.

The plant closed in February, and it was only then, as Robert Rapier has noted that the media started paying attention to some of the downsides of cellulosic ethanol production.

So now we go through the whole thing again. The problem, however, if you look at the totality of the sums of money that were involved in the Range Fuels case, the $510 million that has not been proposed for this new effort could, at the same scale, be easily swallowed up by just one or two ventures. We seem to be getting too far ahead of ourselves and rushing to put large quantities of money into technologies before they have gone through the proper demonstration, scale-up, demonstration, scale-up process that stops a few folk wasting large amounts of a lot of other folks cash.

There is an unwillingness to do all the due diligence required to slowly and methodically build on small successes to ensure the value when larger investments are finally made. Money is being concentrated in the hands of a few groups, rather than issued as a broader funding to address potentially different and successful approaches outside of the one that has maneuvered to get the best media and government attention.

There is a similar sort of story, though with a possibly ultimately different conclusion, going on with the potential for getting fuel from the Jatropha plant. Initially when the potential viability of this plant was discovered (the nut produces an oil that can be used for fuel, yet it grows on very poor land) there was a rush of investment with Governments persuaded to spend millions of dollars in plantations in places such as India and China. Spurred on by promises that were not adequately checked at small and intermediate scale, plans were implemented to raise millions of acres of jatropha. By 2008 it was estimated that over 2 million acres had been planted, with plans to increase this to 25 million acres by 2015. It has been estimated, given that the plants take 3 years before producing a crop, that the crops would only be profitable at a yield of 7.5 tons per acre, but it has turned out that yield is only about half to two-thirds that.

Yields can be raised by more care in the selection of land, and with fertilization and watering ( up to 18.5 tons/acre) – but none of these were considered necessary in the initial rush to plant. So now there is a reaction to the poor result, with the suggestion that this was yet another blind alley.

Again the problem seems to be one of rushing to large scale investment without the necessary intermediate steps to ensure that scale-up works. In India there also appears to have been considerable manipulation in the market, so that farmers were not, among other things, waiting the three years for the first crop to develop but giving up before that point.

On the other hand it appears that the smaller experiments and plots in places such as Mali, with a Youtube here have been successful, and they are now seeking to expand the Mali project.

The objective of the Malian government is to achieve a 10% reduction of its diesel imports by 2013 and a 15% one by 2018 via the development of agrofuels such as bio-ethanol, bio diesel and Jatropha oil., If 25% of that objective is based on Jatropha oil production, Mali must produce 10 million liters of oil in 2013 (which will require to cultivate 21,000 ha of Jatropha plantations.) and 14 million liters in 2018 (which is the equivalent of 32,000 ha of village plantations)

Work is also progressing in Ghana though there are also protests.

But with a bit of patience, and a more methodical approach, this may still lead to some answer, perhaps only on the smaller scale in villages that previously did not have electricity and now might, rather than on a huge scale, but that will still be progress, and at much less cost.

Moving slowly and methodically does not carry the political credits that flashy large scale investments do, but on the other hand it is an approach that is more likely to lead to success without large wastes of money, which may well be the current consequence. If the technology is not yet in successful demonstration of viable economic pilot scale production, then it is highly unlikely that it will reach "drop in" capability by 2020 at a scale large enough to help the Navy out. And at the moment I don't see those technologies for cellulosic ethanol in that phase.

Jatropha, algae and camelina oils

If you had not gathered this before, then you should know that I have been favorably impressed with the potential of algae as a future source of biofuels. However I recognize that there is a considerable amount of research and business development and growth that will have to occur before such fuel makes a significant impact in the market place. Of the other alternative biofuel sources, I was also considerate of jatropha, which seemed to have some significant potential. The fuel comes from the nuts which the shrub produces, and since it can be grown on quite poor land, and in some countries is already in use a fencing plant I anticipated that its potential would be increasingly recognized. Well it has not quite turned out the way that I thought it would, at least not yet.

And so some comments on what has, and has not happened. Jatropha seems to have its own slogan “Soil to Oil” with a Center for Jatropha Promotion & Biodiesel located in Rajasthan in India. Jatropha curcus is a shrub or small tree that can grow on poor to marginal land in tropical parts of the world, growing to a height of perhaps 15 ft. It produces a nut in clusters of around 10, and the nuts contain seeds which are about 37% of an oil that will run a diesel engine without further refining.

Thr oil has been used in a 50:50 blend with jet fuel to power one engine of an Air New Zealand 747 on a 2-hr flight last December 30th. The oil has a lower freezing temperature than jet fuel, and has been estimated to cost around $43 per barrel. This flight was followed, on January 7th by a Continental Airlines flight which used a 737-800, and a mix of oil from jatropha and alga. The flight saw a 3% gain in fuel use by the engine using the biofuel. The algae oil came from Sapphire Energy the jatropha came from Terasol Energy. The biofuel was mixed 50:50 with jet fuel, and there were no modifications made to the engine.

The success of the test has encouraged Sapphire, who are now predicting that they will be able to produce 1 million gal/year (65 barrels/day) of diesel and jet fuel, rising to 10 million gallons (650 bd) by 2018 and 1 billion gallons (65 kbd) by 2025. Sapphire is based in San Diego.

Terasol supplies both oil and feedstocks, concentrating, at the moment, on jatropha and castor bean oil.

Japanese Airlines carried out their own test on January 30th. The Japanese flight, an hour-and-a-half long, used a mixture of 84% camelina, under 16% jatropha oil, and under 1% algal oil.

Camelina, (or wild flax) incidentally looks as though it deserves more investigation, since it grows on poor ground and has twice the yield of soy. Further it also has a low gell temperature.
The spent biomass is recognized as a good animal feed, and it grows in places like Kansas and Montana, perhaps alternating with wheat, in which combination it apparently increases the wheat yield by 15%, and gives 100 gallons/acre of oil.

Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina’s business model to Capital Press as: “At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would bring in $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would garner $230.”

Returning to jatropha, the President of Terasol recently answered some questions for Scientific American. He noted that the main problem the fuel now faces is one of scale.

the main obstacle is the lack of research and practice in large-scale commercial cultivation, as well as mechanized harvesting. Currently most jatropha and castor are grown on smaller, independent farms. The second obstacle is yield and unit of input. Research in plant breeding needs to continue in order to improve the quantity and quality of oils being produced.

They see commercial quantities of the jatropha being available in 3-5 years.

The optimistic view of jatropha’s future is becoming less common, even as it is projected as a fuel of the future. There in fact some doubts

Not only was the cultivation of jatropha supposed to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere than it released, but the miracle tree could also stabilize and restore degraded soils. That’s surely why Scientific American in 2007 called jatropha “green gold in a shrub,” a plant that “seems to offer all the benefits of biofuels without the pitfalls.”

Fast forward a couple of years. By 2009, governments from China to Brazil, along with several major biofuel companies, had planted — or vowed to plant — millions of acres of jatropha. In India alone, the government has announced plans to subsidize an intensive program to plant jatropha for biofuels on 27 million acres of “wastelands” — an area roughly the size of Switzerland.

The problem, again is one of scale. With the average farm being around 12 acres (at 2-300 gal/acre/year) the current gains come mainly from local use, rather than collection to meet larger national goals.

For example in Mali the nation has some 10,000 km of jatropha hedges that yield about 1 kg/meter/year. If all the nuts were collected and processed this would yield around 5 million liters per yr of oil (85.8 bd). Typical village hedge lies between 2 & 15 km, making oil generation very much a local enterprise. It is growing because there has been a move to provide local women with engine powered grain mills, to start small businesses. But the fuel cost was prohibitive. Collecting and processing the nuts can not only provide the needed fuel, but also inject about $3,800 on average, per village per year. As a result local hedges are growing in length, though somewhat slowly (from 5 – 15 km in 8 years.) The projects have also benefitted from development of a shelling machine for the nuts.

But while the growth is commendable, it is nowhere near working at the scale needed to have a significant market impact.

Rural Electric Systems

The world is in recession. And with the drop in demand for different fuels, it becomes a little harder to see when we will return to the teetering balance between available supply and demand. Certainly the price increases that happened last year have not totally dropped back and eased the discomfort in places such as India. The current price of gas remains high out of Russia, and the agreements that Eastern European countries will now pay prevailing prices for their gas, will be an increasing burden on their economies.

There is, however, an underlying desire by governments in the less well-developed countries to increase the availability of electricity to their rural regions. Whether it be in Africa or Asia, the arrival of power in a village can make a drastic difference in the quality of life. It has been suggested that the initial impact, however, relates more to female than male employment. And yet levels of penetration are not yet that great. For example, Botswana has about 12% connectivity, while Zambia is estimated to have only 2.2% connectivity. Many of these countries, with the aid of foreign governments, intend to radically improve these percentages.


The original target for Zambia was to have 50% access by 2010 and the country is concluding an agreement with Japan for $550 million with a grant from Sweden for $30 million also in the works. And yet current power outages make even the existing network insufficient to meet the need, with health centers being reduced to working by candle light. However, in contrast to Zimbabwe and Botswana, Zambia generates most of its power from hydro-electric sources, and the failure of one of the turbines has exacerbated the current problem.

The shortage highlights, however, the problems in creating a new set of power sources to meet the needs for the rural program. It is not sufficient to provide the connections to the grid, if the grid is not itself sufficient to meet the needs it will face. For Zambia the immediate solution is the construction of the Itezhi-Tezhi 120 MW power station. and increasing the capacity of existing hydro-electric schemes. In these efforts the partnerships are being formed with Indian and Chinese contractors.

Boosting hydro-electric production is also seen as helping in Bhutan, where the Asian Development Bank is funding the Green Power Development Project which will not only provide power to rural Bhutan, but will also provide export power to India, reducing their need for fossil fuels.

In Mali Jatropha has been used to produce power in a pilot plant at Garalo . At present the plantation has been formed, but it will take a couple of years to generate the seeds (one gets around 2 kg/tree/year) in sufficient volume for the plant. A ton of seeds produces 250 kg of oil, and 750 kg of filtercake, which can be used as a fertilizer. The oil has to be pre-heated and filtered before it can be fed into the generators, of which the village has 3 at 100 kV.

Jatropha is not, however, as productive as was once thought, with collection being more labor intensive and yields being relatively low at around 2 tons per hectare. Thus originally optimistic projections for its use are now being qualified. Yet just today a relatively large (180 million gallon/year) refinery has been announced. A market for the fuel has been helped by the passage of the Biofuels act in the Philippines that requires that 1% biodiesel shall be blended into fuel in 3 months, rising to 2% in 2 years. The only alternative to jatropha in country at the moment is a plant that produces coconut oil, and that is meeting 55% of the current demand for biodiesel.

While biodiesel has, therefore some advocates moving forward, as a fuel supplement, and can be used for power generation, quite often the funding initiatives have been oriented towards solar electricity. Schedules are provided, for example, that show that 5 sq m of solar cells will supply a school with 16 lights, power for a projector, and a socket for a small electrical device. Solar also has the benefit of being installable in areas that are remote from the grid, and where running power lines would be expensive.

The Green Power Development project in Bhutan is one such, and supplies for 100 communities are planned in that endeavor. As I mentioned recently, the initial trials of the technology have gone over well with the nomadic yak herders, reducing their need for firewood and kerosene.

Herders from Nubri and Soie Yaksa said alternative energy technologies like solar lighting and the one- and two-holed metallic solar cooker were very useful and convenient. “The small portable solar light is the best. We can take it along with us whereever we go,” said Tobgay from Nubri.

Nado from Soie Yaksa said that use of solar had reduced the danger of burns, cooking time, and saved firewood. Norza Gem from Soie Yaksa said that she could cook faster, churn milk and round up cattle at night.

A report from CORRB states that the use of kerosene has been reduced by 90% in these areas.

. One of the recognized problems is that of maintenance and repair. This can be partially overcome by having the lamps etc rented, and recharging them at a central facility. Such an operation in Laos has grown into a small business. In Bhutan, however, they recruited local women to learn how to deal with the problems. The Barefoot Solar Engineers had to walk 5 hours to a local road and then on to India’s Barefoot College in order to learn how to do the repair, and one of the engineers now maintains systems in 30 villages – not bad for someone whose formal education stopped at grade 5.

There are many such encouraging stories of such a nature at the local level, and from them one can anticipate that electricity demand will grow steadily. But the next question will come as demand rises above that needed at this scale. But then that is a topic for another day.