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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America "The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt - Part 1. The Dirt on Dirt. Part 1. The Dirt on Dirt. Ethanol is an agribusiness get-rich-quick scheme that will bankrupt our topsoil. Nineteenth century western farmers converted their corn into whiskey to make a profit (Rorabaugh 1979). Archer Daniels Midland, a large grain processor, came up with the same scheme in the 20th century. But ethanol was a product in search of a market, so ADM spent three decades relentlessly lobbying for ethanol to be used in gasoline. Today ADM makes record profits from ethanol sales and government subsidies (Barrionuevo 2006). The Department of Energy hopes to have biomass supply 5% of the nation’s power, 20% of transportation fuels, and 25% of chemicals by 2030. These combined goals are 30% of the current petroleum consumption (DOE Biomass Plan, DOE Feedstock Roadmap). Fuels made from biomass are a lot like the nuclear powered airplanes the Air Force tried to build from 1946 to 1961, for billions of dollars. They never got off the ground. The idea was interesting -- atomic jets could fly for months without refueling. But the lead shielding to protect the crew and several months of food and water was too heavy for the plane to take off. The weight problem, the ease of shooting this behemoth down, and the consequences of a crash landing were so obvious, it’s amazing the project was ever funded, let alone kept going for 15 years. Biomass fuels have equally obvious and predictable reasons for failure. Odum says that time explains why renewable energy provides such low energy yields compared to non-renewable fossil fuels. The more work left to nature, the higher the energy yield, but the longer the time required. Although coal and oil took millions of years to form into dense, concentrated solar power, all we had to do was extract and transport them (Odum 1996) With every step required to transform a fuel into energy, there is less and less energy yield. For example, to make ethanol from corn grain, which is how all U.S. ethanol is made now, corn is first grown to develop hybrid seeds, which next season are planted, harvested, delivered, stored, and preprocessed to remove dirt. Dry-mill ethanol is milled, liquefied, heated, saccharified, fermented, evaporated, centrifuged, distilled, scrubbed, dried, stored, and transported to customers (McAloon 2000). Fertile soil will be destroyed if crops and other "wastes" are removed to make cellulosic ethanol. "We stand, in most places on earth, only six inches from desolation, for that is the thickness of the topsoil layer upon which the entire life of the planet depends" (Sampson 1981). Loss of topsoil has been a major factor in the fall of civilizations (Sundquist 2005 Chapter 3, Lowdermilk 1953, Perlin 1991, Ponting 1993). You end up with a country like Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, where 75% of the farm land became a salty desert. Fuels from biomass are not sustainable, are ecologically destructive, have a net energy loss, and there isn’t enough biomass in America to make significant amounts of energy because essential inputs like water, land, fossil fuels, and phosphate ores are limited. Soil Science 101 – There Is No "Waste" Biomass Long before there was "Peak Oil", there was "Peak Soil". Iowa has some of the best topsoil in the world. In the past century, half of it’s been lost, from an average of 18 to 10 inches deep (Pate 2004, Klee 1991). Productivity drops off sharply when topsoil reaches 6 inches or less, the average crop root zone depth (Sundquist 2005). Crop productivity continually declines as topsoil is lost and residues are removed. (Al-Kaisi May 2001, Ball 2005, Blanco-Canqui 2006, BOA 1986, Calviño 2003, Franzleubbers 2006, Grandy 2006, Johnson 2004, Johnson 2005, Miranowski 1984, Power 1998, Sadras 2001, Troeh 2005, Wilhelm 2004). On over half of America’s best crop land, the erosion rate is 27 times the natural rate, 11,000 pounds per acre (NCRS 2006). The natural, geological erosion rate is about 400 pounds of soil per acre per year (Troeh 2005). Some is due to farmers not being paid enough to conserve their land, but most is due to investors who farm for profit. Erosion control cuts into profits. Erosion is happening ten to twenty times faster than the rate topsoil can be formed by natural processes (Pimentel 2006). That might make the average person concerned. But not the USDA -- they’ve defined erosion as the average soil loss that could occur without causing a decline in long term productivity. Troeh (2005) believes that the tolerable soil loss (T) value is set too high, because it's based only on the upper layers -- how long it takes subsoil to be converted into topsoil. T ought to be based on deeper layers – the time for subsoil to develop from parent material or parent material from rock. If he’s right, erosion is even worse than NCRS figures. Erosion removes the most fertile parts of the soil (USDA-ARS). When you feed the soil with fertilizer, you’re not feeding plants; you’re feeding the biota in the soil. Underground creatures and fungi break down fallen leaves and twigs into microscopic bits that plants can eat, and create tunnels air and water can infiltrate. In nature there are no elves feeding (fertilizing) the wild lands. When plants die, they’re recycled into basic elements and become a part of new plants. It’s a closed cycle. There is no bio-waste. Soil creatures and fungi act as an immune system for plants against diseases, weeds, and insects – when this living community is harmed by agricultural chemicals and fertilizers, even more chemicals are needed in an increasing vicious cycle (Wolfe 2001). There’s so much life in the soil, there can be 10 "biomass horses" underground for every horse grazing on an acre of pasture (Wardle 2004). If you dove into the soil and swam around, you’d be surrounded by miles of thin strands of mycorrhizal fungi that help plant roots absorb more nutrients and water, plus millions of creatures, most of them unknown. There’d be thousands of species in just a handful of earth –- springtails, bacteria, and worms digging airy subways. As you swam along, plant roots would tower above you like trees as you wove through underground skyscrapers. Plants and creatures underground need to drink, eat, and breathe just as we do. An ideal soil is half rock, and a quarter each water and air. When tractors plant and harvest, they crush the life out of the soil, as underground apartments collapse 9/11 style. The tracks left by tractors in the soil are the erosion route for half of the soil that washes or blows away (Wilhelm 2004). Corn Biofuel (i.e. butanol, ethanol, biodiesel) is especially harmful because: Row crops such as corn and soy cause 50 times more soil erosion than sod crops [e.g., hay] (Sullivan 2004) or more (Al-Kaisi 2000), because the soil between the rows can wash or blow away. If corn is planted with last year's corn stalks left on the ground (no-till), erosion is less of a problem, but only about 20% of corn is grown no-till. Soy is usually grown no-till, but insignificant residues to harvest for fuel. Corn uses more water, insecticide, and fertilizer than most crops (Pimentel 2003). Due to high corn prices, continuous corn (corn crop after corn crop) is increasing, rather than rotation of nitrogen fixing (fertilizer) and erosion control sod crops with corn. These practices lead to lower crop production and ultimately deserts. Growing plants for fuel will accelerate the already unacceptable levels of topsoil erosion, soil carbon and nutrient depletion, soil compaction, water retention, water depletion, water pollution, air pollution, eutrophication, destruction of fisheries, siltation of dams and waterways, salination, loss of biodiversity, and damage to human health (Tegtmeier 2004). Why are soil scientists absent from the biofuels debate? I asked 35 soil scientists why topsoil wasn’t part of the biofuels debate. These are just a few of the responses from the ten who replied to my off-the-record poll (no one wanted me to quote them, mostly due to fear of losing their jobs): "I have no idea why soil scientists aren't questioning corn and cellulosic ethanol plans. Quite frankly I’m not sure that our society has had any sort of reasonable debate about this with all the facts laid out. When you see that even if all of the corn was converted to ethanol and that would not provide more than 20% of our current liquid fuel use, it certainly makes me wonder, even before considering the conversion efficiency, soil loss, water contamination, food price problems, etc." This is not a new debate. Here’s what scientists had to say decades ago: Removing "crop residues…would rob organic matter that is vital to the maintenance of soil fertility and tilth, leading to disastrous soil erosion levels. Not considered is the importance of plant residues as a primary source of energy for soil microbial activity. The most prudent course, clearly, is to continue to recycle most crop residues back into the soil, where they are vital in keeping organic matter levels high enough to make the soil more open to air and water, more resistant to soil erosion, and more productive" (Sampson 1981). "…Massive alcohol production from our farms is an immoral use of our soils since it rapidly promotes their wasting away. We must save these soils for an oil-less future" (Jackson 1980). Natural Gas in Agriculture When you take out more nutrients and organic matter from the soil than you put back in, you are "mining" the topsoil. The organic matter is especially important, since that’s what prevents erosion, improves soil structure, health, water retention, and gives the next crop its nutrition. Modern agriculture only addresses the nutritional component by adding fossil-fuel based fertilizers, and because the soil is unhealthy from a lack of organic matter, copes with insects and disease with oil-based pesticides. "Fertilizer energy" is 28% of the energy used in agriculture (Heller, 2000). Fertilizer uses natural gas both as a feedstock and the source of energy to create the high temperatures and pressures necessary to coax inert nitrogen out of the air (nitrogen is often the limiting factor in crop production). This is known as the Haber-Bosch process, and it’s a big part of the green revolution that made it possible for the world’s population to grow from half a billion to 6.5 billion today (Smil 2000, Fisher 2001). Our national security is at risk as we become dependent on unstable foreign states to provide us with increasingly expensive fertilizer. Between 1995 and 2005 we increased our fertilizer imports by more than 148% for Anhydrous Ammonia, 93% for Urea (solid), and 349 % of other nitrogen fertilizers (USDA ERS). Removing crop residues will require large amounts of imported fertilizer from potential cartels, potentially so expensive farmers won’t sell crops and residues for biofuels. Improve national security and topsoil by returning residues to the land as fertilizer. We are vulnerable to high-priced fertilizer imports or "food for oil", which would greatly increase the cost of food for Americans. Agriculture competes with homes and industry for fast depleting North American natural gas. Natural gas price increases have already caused over 280,000 job losses (Gerard 2006). Natural gas is also used for heating and cooking in over half our homes, generates 15% of electricity, and is a feedstock for thousands of products. Return crop residues to the soil to provide organic fertilizer, don’t increase the need for natural gas fertilizers by removing crop residues to make cellulosic biofuels. Editor's note: There are many serious problems with biofuels, especially on a massive scale, and it appears from this report that they cannot be surmounted. So let the truth of Alice Friedemann’s meticulous and incisive diligence wash over you and rid you of any confusion or false hopes. The absurdity and destructiveness of large scale biofuels are a chance for people to eventually even reject the internal combustion engine and energy waste in general. One can also hazard from this report that bioplastics, as well, cannot make it in a big way. The author looks ahead to post-petroleum living with considered conclusions: "Biofuels have yet to be proven viable, and mechanization may not be a great strategy in a world of declining energy." And, "…only a small amount of biomass (is) unspoken for" by today’s essential economic and ecological activities. To top it off, she points out, "Crop production is reduced when residues are removed from the soil. Why would farmers want to sell their residues?" Here’s an Oh- god-she-nailed-it zinger: "As prices of fertilizer inexorably rise due to natural gas depletion, it will be cheaper to return residues to the soil than to buy fertilizer." Looking further along than most of us, Alice has among her conclusions: "It’s time to start increasing horse and oxen numbers, which will leave even less biomass for biorefineries." - JL
Poster Comment: I only posted part 1 because of the whole article's length, but you can read it here, and it is a very good article... This whole ethanol/biofuels thing is a horrid idea. I have posted about the problems with ethanol a couple of times (not the least of which is the cost of production), but this article really explains why this is such a bad idea in great referenced detail...
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#1. To: innieway (#0)
(Edited)
Proof positive that ethanol is a bad idea is the fact that the government supports it. If that's not enough to make everyone run away screaming, then they couldn't get any dumber if you cut off their heads.
The ethanol swindle is another government funded (subsidized) boondoggle which favors only the corporate bottom line. Everyone else out here is being screwed as is evident by the sudden increase in feed prices (corn) which in the end not only affects farmers, but the consumers as well. BUTANOL Processing corn byproducts to create hydrogen and butanol fuels benefits the environment, reduces petrochemical dependence, and provides a potential new market for farmers. What Is Butanol? Butanol is a four carbon alcohol. It has double the amount of carbon of ethanol, which equates to a 25 percent increase in harvestable energy (Btu's). Butanol is produced by fermentation, from corn, grass, leaves, agricultural waste and other biomass. Butanol is safer to handle with a Reid Value of 0.33 psi, which is a measure of a fluid's rate of evaporation when compared to gasoline at 4.5 and ethanol at 2.0 psi. Butanol is an alcohol that can be but does not have to be blended with fossil fuels. Butanol when consumed in an internal combustion engine yields no SOX, NOX or carbon monoxide all environmentally harmful byproducts of combustion. CO2 is the combustion byproduct of butanol, and is considered environmentally 'green'. Butanol is far less corrosive than ethanol and can be shipped and distributed through existing pipelines and filling stations. Butanol solves the safety problems associated with the infrastructure of the hydrogen supply. Reformed butanol has four more hydrogen atoms than ethanol, resulting in a higher energy output and is used as a fuel cell fuel. Butanol is an industrial commodity, with a 370 million gallons per year market with a selling price of $3.75 per gallon. Hydrogen generated during the butanol fermentation process is easily recovered, increasing the energy yield of a bushel of corn by an additional 18 percent over the energy yield of ethanol produced from the same quantity of corn. Alternative Energy & New Markets for Farmers By David Ramey There is abundant biomass present in low value agricultural commodities or processing wastes requiring proper disposal to avoid our pollution problem, for example, the corn refinery industry generates more than 10 million metric tonnes of corn byproducts that are currently of limited use and pose significant environmental problems. Similarly, there are 60 billion pounds of cheese whey generated annually in the dairy industry much of this byproduct has no economical use at the present time and requires costly disposal because of its high biological oxygen demand. These various forms of biomass are inexpensive feedstocks for hydrogen, chemicals and power grade alcohol fuel (butanol) production. Production of industrial butanol and acetone via fermentation, using Clostridia acetobutylicum, started in 1916, during World War I. Chime Wizemann, a student of Louis Pasture, isolated the microbe that made acetone. England approached the young microbiologist and asked for the rights to make acetone for cordite. Up until the 1920s acetone was the product sought, but for every pound of acetone fermented, two pounds of butanol were formed. A growing automotive paint industry turned the market around, and by 1927 butanol was primary and acetone became the byproduct. The production of butanol by fermentation declined from the 1940s through the 1950s, mainly because the price of petrochemicals dropped below that of starch and sugar substrates such as corn and molasses. The labor intensive batch fermentation system's overhead combined with the low yields contributed to the situation. Fermentation-derived acetone and butanol production ceased in the late 1950s. In the 1970s the primary focus for alternative fuels was on ethanol -- people were familiar with its production and did not realize that dehydration (a very energy-consuming step) was necessary in order to blend it with fossil fuels. Nor did we realize the difficulty of distribution, since ethanol cannot be transferred through the existing pipeline infrastructure. The selection of ethanol, a lower-grade, corrosive, hard-to-purify, dangerously explosive, and very evaporative alcohol is the result. Ethanol is still subsidized by the government, since it is not profitable enough to compete with gasoline. Over the past 30 years, however, the very energy-intensive ethanol process has not solved our fuel, power or clean-air requirements. ABE FERMENTATION Acetone butanol ethanol (ABE) fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum is one of the oldest known industrial fermentations. It was ranked second only to ethanol fermentation by yeast in its scale of production, and is one of the largest biotechnological processes ever known. The actual fermentation, however, has been quite complicated and difficult to control. ABE fermentation has declined continuously since the 1950s, and almost all butanol is now produced via petrochemical routes . Butanol is an important industrial solvent and potentially a better fuel extender than ethanol. Current butanol prices as a chemical are at $3.75 per gallon, with a worldwide market of 370 million gallons per year. The market demand is expected to increase dramatically if green butanol can be produced economically from low cost biomass. In a typical ABE fermentation, butyric, propionic, lactic and acetic acids are first produced by C. acetobutylicum, the culture pH drops and undergoes a metabolic “butterfly” shift, and butanol, acetone, isopropanol and ethanol are formed. In conventional ABE fermentations, the butanol yield from glucose is low, typically around 15 percent and rarely exceeding 25 percent. The production of butanol was limited by severe product inhibition. Butanol at a concentration of 1 percent can significantly inhibit cell growth and the fermentation process. Consequently, butanol concentration in conventional ABE fermentations is usually lower than 1.3 percent. In the past 20+ years, there have been numerous engineering attempts to improve butanol production in ABE fermentation, including cell recycling and cell immobilization to increase cell density and reactor productivity and using extractive fermentation to minimize product inhibition. Despite many efforts, the best results ever obtained for ABE fermentations to date are still less than 2 percent in butanol concentration, 4.46 g/L/h productivity, and a yield of less than 25 percent from glucose. Optimizing the ABE fermentation process has long been a goal of the industry. With that in mind, a new process has been developed using continuous immobilized cultures of Clostridium tyrobutyricum and Clostridium acetobutylicum to produce an optimal butanol productivity of 4.64 g/L/h and yield of 42 percent. In simple terms, one microbe maximizes the production of hydrogen and butyric acid, while the other converts butyric acid to butanol. Compared to conventional ABE fermentation, this new process eliminates acetic, lactic and propionic acids, acetone, isopropanol and ethanol production. The fermentation only produces hydrogen, butyric acid, butanol and carbon dioxide, and doubles the yield of butanol from a bushel of corn from 1.3 to 2.5 gallons per bushel. That matches ethanol's track record -- and ethanol fermentations do not yield hydrogen. Commercialization of this new technology has the potential to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil, protect our fuel generation grid from sudden disruption while developing our agricultural base and reduce global warming. FUTURE Butanol is a pure alcohol with an energy content similar to that of gasoline. It does not have to be stored in high pressure vessels like natural gas, and can be but does not have to be blended (10 to 100 percent) with any fossil fuel. Butanol can also be transported through existing pipelines for distribution. Butanol can help solve the hydrogen distribution infrastructure problems faced with fuel cell development. The employment of fuel-cell technology is held up by the safety issues associated with hydrogen distribution, but butanol can be very easily reformed for its hydrogen content and can be distributed through existing gas stations in the purity required for either fuel cells or vehicles. Growing consumer acceptance and name recognition for butanol, incentives to agriculture and industry, falling production costs, increasing prices and taxes for fossil fuels, and the desire for cleaner- burning sources of energy should drive an increase in butanol production. Building new, smaller, turnkey biorefineries of 5 to 30 million gallons per year for small municipalities and surrounding farming communities could introduce state of the art technologies at a faster rate than has been adopted in the past. These local biorefineries would address many overwhelming problems associated with the environment, such as regional landfill burdens, and by disseminating fuel generation throughout the Corn and Bio-Belt, any prospective disruption by terrorism is made more difficult, thus improving “Homeland Security.” Cooperatively owned facilities would allow the agricultural sector to employ more people and retain profits within the local economy, bringing the resulting sevenfold multiplication. The production of butanol (15,500 BTU/lb. or 104,800 BTU/gallon) and hydrogen (61,000 BTU/lb.) from biomass is not constrained by technological difficulties as is the manufacturing of ethanol (12,800 BTU/lb or 84,250 BTU/gal). New higher-value uses for co products of fermentation are an even more likely source of new revenues and could reduce the cost of butanol and hydrogen. Recent advances in the fields of biotechnology and bioprocessing have resulted in a renewed interest in the fermentation production of chemicals and fuels, including n butanol. With continuous fermentation technology, butanol can be produced at higher yields, concentrations and production rates. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Ramey can be contacted at Thanks to Acres USA November 2004 "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
Like all tax-incentive driven schemes, ethanol is a bad idea.
back to the drawing board
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Mathusians and "overpopulation" folks are going to have a field day. This is red meat for them.
Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.
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