SG Energy Crisis Discussion About Future Global Energy Crisis aka Peak Oil

Biofuel is NOT “Carbon-Neutral”

According to peakoil -> EcoWorld :

Biofuel today is produced, overwhelmingly, from oil palms and sugar cane, and overwhelmingly, these plantations stand where tropical rainforest recently stood.  Over a year ago, a well-documented essay entitled “Worse Than Fossil Fuel,” was published in the London Guardian by George Monbiot, an environmental activist and professor at Oxford-Brookes University in the U.K.  In this article, Monbiot states “Between 1985 and 2000 the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia. In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest has been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5m in Indonesia.”

One square mile is equivalent to 250 hectares.  So using these figures, in just two countries, deforestation for biofuel will result in the loss of at least 100,000 square miles of rainforest.  Along the West African coast and in the Congo basin, similar rates of deforestation are occuring in a mad rush to grow Cassava and Oil Palm.  In Brazil, deforestation for sugar cane continues to accelerate.

According to a study entitled “Biodiversity and Conservation” published by Peter J. Bryant, a professor at U.C. Irvine, by 1979, tropical rainforests had shrunk from 6.2 million square miles to 3.6 million square miles.  And about that time, beginning in the Amazon, deforestation for production of biofuel began to compete with deforestation for purposes of logging and ranching.  Today, tropical rainforests are reduced to 2.5 million square miles, and thanks to the biofuel bonanza, there is no end in sight.  Here’s another excerpt from Monbiot’s essay:

“Before oil palms, which are small and scrubby, are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are now moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they’ve cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria.”

It is well and good to consider biofuel farmed from algae grown in ponds in the desert, or within enclosed “bioreactors,” or, perhaps, from cellusosic fibers found in agricultural waste.  But none of these methods are yet financially viable, or even technically feasible.  Meanwhile, the burning season has begun again, this time fueled by biofuel mania, with results that spell tragedy not only for the biota in these precious places, but also in terms of intensified droughts and less CO2 uptake.  As we have argued before and will again, tropical deforestation may have more to do with whatever global warming we may be experiencing than burning of fossil fuel.  So where are the environmentalists and the skeptics when you need them?

Here is how Monbiot put it, when describing the reaction to his concerns about biofuel: ”The biodiesel missionaries, I discovered, are as vociferous in their denial as the executives of Exxon.”

- Hey!! Bio-diesel missionaries is are $$$ face profit driven mad son of the bitches...maybe they might be the richest now...but when the bubble burst....a simple balance of nature...a cause and effect... by creating a accelerating of global warming effect might also wipe out the whole plantation with floods...draught or forest fire...whichever suitable by nature.

Then the whole bubble burst like the last Internet bubble...with the last man standing will be begging for fresh water supply and electricity supply....from other sectors of renewable energy like solar, geothermal, hydro, wind, nuclear....which is much environmentally friendlier.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Portable ‘biorefinery’ converts trash to electricity

According to Jimmy's Comment -> ISA.org :

A portable refinery can now efficiently convert food, paper, and plastic trash into electricity.

Originally designed for the military, the machine allows soldiers in the field to convert waste into power. “This is a very promising technology,” said Michael Ladisch, the professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University who leads the project. “In a very short time, it should be ready for use in the military, and I think it could be used outside the military shortly thereafter.”

The “tactical biorefinery” processes several kinds of waste at once, which it converts into fuel via two parallel processes. The system then burns the different fuels in a diesel engine to power a generator. Ladisch said the machine’s ability to burn multiple fuels at once, along with its mobility, make the machine compelling.

The size of a small moving van, the biorefinery could alleviate the expense and potential danger associated with transporting waste and fuel. By eliminating garbage remnants—known in the military as a unit’s “signature”—it could protect the unit’s security by destroying clues the trash could provide to enemies.

Researchers tested the first tactical biorefinery prototype in November and found it produced 90% more energy than it consumed, said Jerry Warner, founder of Defense Life Sciences LLC, a private company working with Purdue researchers on the project. He said the results were better than expected. The U.S. Army subsequently commissioned the biorefinery upon completion of a functional prototype, and the machine is now under consideration for future Army development.

The tactical biorefinery separates organic food material from residual trash, such as paper, plastic, Styrofoam, and cardboard. The food waste goes to a bioreactor where industrial yeast ferments it into ethanol, a “green” fuel. Residual materials go to a gasifier where they get a heat treatment under low-oxygen conditions and eventually become low-grade propane gas and methane. The gas and ethanol are then combusted in a modified diesel engine that powers a generator to produce electricity.

Ladisch and Warner said the machine eventually could see use in disaster situations, similar to Hurricane Katrina, or at any crisis location where people do not have power. Emergency crews could then use the machine to turn debris such as woodchips into much-needed electricity, Warner said.

The refinery also could provide supplementary power for factories, restaurants or stores, Ladisch said.

“At any place with a fair amount of food and scrap waste the biorefinery could help reduce electricity costs, and you might even be able to produce some surplus energy to put back on the electrical grid,” he said.

Much of the fuel the system combusts is carbon-neutral, said Nathan Mosier, a Purdue professor of agricultural and biological engineering involved in the project. Carbon-neutral fuels like ethanol do not cause an appreciable net increase in atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

The biorefinery generator initially runs on diesel oil for several hours until the gasifier and the bioreactor begin to produce fuel, Warner said. In the initial commissioning test, researchers measured the amount of diesel oil burned and electricity produced to calculate its efficiency.

The machine produces a very small amount of its own waste, Warner said, mostly in the form of ash that the Environmental Protection Agency has designated as “benign,” or non-hazardous. Any leftover materials from the bioreactor go into the gasifier, which they have to empty every two to three days.

“It’s about enough to fill a regular sized trash bag, and it represents about a 30-to-1 volume reduction,” Warner said.

-This is a much better technology! very promising... sounds like the movie "Back to the Future" when Michale J Fox's professor came back from the future....with the same "bio-refinery" attached behind the car...that recycle the trash into fuel for the car!!

GREAT!! Let's get the system distributed here in SINGAPORE!!! LET"S GO !! Who want invest in this let me know!!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Once a Dream Fuel, Palm Oil May Be an Eco-Nightmare

According to Peakoil.com -> The New York Times :

AMSTERDAM, Jan. 25 — Just a few years ago, politicians and environmental groups in the Netherlands were thrilled by the early and rapid adoption of “sustainable energy,” achieved in part by coaxing electrical plants to use biofuel — in particular, palm oil from Southeast Asia.

Spurred by government subsidies, energy companies became so enthusiastic that they designed generators that ran exclusively on the oil, which in theory would be cleaner than fossil fuels like coal because it is derived from plants.

But last year, when scientists studied practices at palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, this green fairy tale began to look more like an environmental nightmare.

Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the clearing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rainforest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there.

Worse still, the scientists said, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peatland, which sent huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Considering these emissions, Indonesia had quickly become the world’s third-leading producer of carbon emissions that scientists believe are responsible for global warming, ranked after the United States and China, according to a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both in the Netherlands.

“It was shocking and totally smashed all the good reasons we initially went into palm oil,” said Alex Kaat, a spokesman for Wetlands, a conservation group.

The production of biofuels, long a cornerstone of the quest for greener energy, may sometimes create more harmful emissions than fossil fuels, scientific studies are finding.

As a result, politicians in many countries are rethinking the billions of dollars in subsidies that have indiscriminately supported the spread of all of these supposedly eco-friendly fuels for vehicles and factories. The 2003 European Union Biofuels Directive, which demands that all member states aim to have 5.75 percent of transportation run by biofuel in 2010, is now under review.

“If you make biofuels properly, you will reduce greenhouse emissions,” said Peder Jensen, of the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen. “But that depends very much on the types of plants and how they’re grown and processed. You can end up with a 90 percent reduction compared to fossil fuels — or a 20 percent increase.”

He added, “It’s important to take a life-cycle view,” and not to “just see what the effects are here in Europe.”

In the Netherlands, the data from Indonesia has provoked soul-searching, and helped prompt the government to suspend palm oil subsidies. The Netherlands, a leader in green energy, is now leading the effort to distinguish which biofuels are truly environmentally sound.

The government, environmental groups and some of the Netherlands’ “green energy” companies are trying to develop programs to trace the origins of imported palm oil, to certify which operations produce the oil in a responsible manner.

Krista van Velzen, a member of Parliament, said the Netherlands should pay compensation to Indonesia for the damage that palm oil has caused. “We can’t only think: does it pollute the Netherlands?”

In the United States and Brazil most biofuel is ethanol (made from corn in the United States and sugar in Brazil), used to power vehicles made to run on gasoline. In Europe it is mostly local rapeseed and sunflower oil, used to make diesel fuel.

In a small number of instances, plant oil is used in place of diesel fuel, without further refinement. But as many European countries push for more green energy, they are increasingly importing plant oils from the tropics, since there is simply not enough plant matter for fuel production at home.

On the surface, the environmental equation that supports biofuels is simple: Since they are derived from plants, biofuels absorb carbon while they are grown and release it when they are burned. In theory that neutralizes their emissions.

But the industry was promoted long before there was adequate research, said Reanne Creyghton, who runs Friends of the Earth’s campaign against palm oil here.

Biofuelswatch, an environment group in Britain, now says that “biofuels should not automatically be classed as renewable energy.” It supports a moratorium on subsidies until more research can determine whether various biofuels in different regions are produced in a nonpolluting manner.

Beyond that, the group suggests that all emissions arising from the production of a biofuel be counted as emissions in the country where the fuel is actually used, providing a clearer accounting of environmental costs.

The demand for palm oil in Europe has soared in the last two decades, first for use in food and cosmetics, and more recently for fuel. This versatile and cheap oil is used in about 10 percent of supermarket products, from chocolate to toothpaste, accounting for 21 percent of the global market for edible oils.

Palm oil produces the most energy of all vegetable oils for each unit of volume when burned. In much of Europe it is used as a substitute for diesel fuel, though in the Netherlands, the government has encouraged its use for electricity.

Supported by hundreds of millions of euros in national subsidies, the Netherlands rapidly became the leading importer of palm oil in Europe, taking in 1.7 million tons last year, nearly double the previous year.

The increasing demand has created damage far away. Friends of the Earth estimates that 87 percent of the deforestation in Malaysia from 1985 to 2000 was caused by new palm oil plantations. In Indonesia, the amount of land devoted to palm oil has increased 118 percent in the last eight years.

In December, scientists from Wetlands International released their calculations about the global emissions caused by palm farming on peatland.

Peat is an organic sponge that stores huge amounts of carbon, helping balance global emissions. Peatland is 90 percent water. But when it is drained, the Wetlands International scientists say, the stored carbon gases are released into the atmosphere.

To makes matters worse, once dried, peatland is often burned to clear ground for plantations. The Dutch study estimated that the draining of peatland in Indonesia releases 660 million ton of carbon a year into the atmosphere and that fires contributed 1.5 billion tons annually.

The total is equivalent to 8 percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, the researchers said. “These emissions generated by peat drainage in Indonesia were not counted before,” said Mr. Kaat. “It was a totally ignored problem.” For the moment Wetlands is backing the certification system for palm oil imports.

But some environmental groups say palm oil cannot be produced sustainably at reasonable prices. They say palm oil is now cheap because of poor environmental practices and labor abuses.

“Yes, there have been bad examples in the palm oil industry,” said Arjen Brinkman, a company official at Biox, a young company that plans to build three palm oil electrical plants in Holland, using oil from palms grown on its own plantations in a manner that it says is responsible.

“But it is now clear,” he said, “that to serve Europe’s markets for biofuel and bioenergy, you will have to prove that you produce it sustainably — that you are producing less, not more CO2.”

- Let's just say that bio-fuel may be bad for Environment...

Popularity: unranked [?]

Ethanol from Brazil and the USA

According to Energy Bulletin :

Since the beginning of the present boom of corn ethanol production in the United States, Brazilian success with its ethanol from sugar cane has been cited as an example of how the USA could get free from its oil imports (mainly from Middle East) by substituting ethanol for gasoline. This would be corn ethanol.

There are two points to consider: First, the immense difference between the two economies and their respective rates of consumption. And, second, the yield and ERoEI differences (net energy, or Energy Returned on Energy Invested) between tropical sugar cane and temperate corn. Let’s first consider Table 1.

Table 1 – Size and consumption differences

	Brazil	United States	Unit
Population	184	300	Million inhabitants
Total fleet of vehicles	28	230	Million vehicles
Vehicles per inhabitant	0.15	0.77	Vehicles/inhabitant
Gasoline consumption	4.0 (thanks to ethanol)	140	Billion gallons/year
Gasoline production	5.24 (exports exceeding)	119.5 (needs imports)	Billion barrels/year
Oil consumption	1.8	21	Million bbl/day
Oil production	1.84	8.6	Million bbl/day
Oil imports	0 (imports 2% as diesel)	12.4	Million bbl/day
Ethanol consumption	4.00	5.86 (fuel)	Billion gallons/yr
Ethanol production	4.80	4.85	Billion gallons/yr
Ethanol exports	0.80	0	Billion gallons/yr
Gasoline replaced	50%	< 4%	(by ethanol)

Having a population that is 61% of the USA’s population, Brazil has a fleet of vehicles that is only 12% of the total American fleet. And a gasoline consumption that is only 2.9% (yes, this is really less than 3%!) of USA’s gasoline consumption.

This very large difference arises from seven factors:

First, being the richest country in the world, the USA has a number of cars that far exceeds the total number of licensed drivers, with almost 0.8 vehicles per person. Brazil, a much more modest country, has only 20% of that impressive rate.

Second, the average American vehicle is larger, heavier and less efficient (21 miles/gallon), with a large number of SUV’s and light trucks being preferred by families. The average car produced in Brazil (at 17 factories) is smaller, with predominant European and Asian influence in car design, a large number of cars being compact and obtaining 40 miles/gallon (gasoline).

Third, by the end of 2006 ethanol will supply 50% of all otherwise needed gasoline. Without fuel ethanol, Brazil would need now 8 billion gallons/year of gasoline, still a bargain when compared to the USA’s 140 billion gallons/year.

Four: there’s no suburban commuting in Brazil. Urban development did not give rise to an affluent class living in distant suburbia and commuting, for working and shopping, tens of miles a day. In Brazil, suburbia is synonymous to poverty; people commute by train, bus and subway to their working places.

Five: 80% of all new cars are now flex-fuel, running on pure gasoline, pure ethanol or any mix of them.

Six: Brazil started to produce and distribute fuel ethanol, for replacing gasoline, in 1975. That’s more than 30 years experience, so 100% of all gas stations, in cities or roads, have ethanol pumps and tanks.

Seven: Brazilian ethanol, produced from sugar cane, is much cheaper that Brazilian gasoline distillated from locally extracted oil. Most of the year, its price is around 55% of gasoline price. In order to be economic, the ethanol price must be at least 70% lower than the price for gasoline.

Self sufficiency in Brazil

To reach a point where all gasoline is replaced with ethanol would be very easy for Brazil and not so desirable for Petrobras, its State-controlled major gasoline producer and exporter. The present sugar cane cultivated area, dedicated to ethanol production and permitting a 50% replacement of gasoline, is 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres).

That is less than 1% of our total arable land. In order to double ethanol production, there is no need to exactly double the planted area, as a steady increase of 3% in yield has been achieved every year in agricultural plus industrial operations, over the last few decades. In 1975, ethanol yield was 375 gallons/acre/year. In 2006 it is reaching a new mark of 870 gallons/acre/year. And organic sugar cane has an even higher yield.

Available land for sugar cane expansion (considering only areas no longer needed for pasture land in Southeast and Center regions, best suited for sugar cane): 18 million ha (44.5 million acres). So it is really very easy for Brazil to replace gasoline with ethanol. But this is not the same for the United States.

USA

To replace all its gasoline (140 bln gal/yr) with ethanol from corn, the USA would need, at present yields of 400 gallons/acre/year, almost 350 million acres of dedicated corn, not including any corn for humans or animal feed. But all the present USA area cultivated with corn is only 75 million acres (FAO, Faostat, 2005)

It would require 297.5 million acres for E 85. Or 35 million acres for E10.

At present moment, USA needs almost 400 000 bbl/day of ethanol but produces 300 000+ bbl/day. This is just to replace MTBE, as required by law. So, imports and new plants are supposed to fill the gap.

But corn and sugar cane are very different

Sugar cane is a semi-perennial culture (6-7 years cycle) that needs far fewer nutrients (fixing nitrogen from air through Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus, for example) than corn. It is the less soil-eroding large crop in Brazil because soil remains covered most of the year or all year round. Sugar cane in Brazil is not irrigated.

All energy for the industrial process comes from bagasse burned in high pressure boilers, providing all thermal, mechanical and electrical energy needed, with at least 10% surplus electrical energy sold to the grid. Corn needs natural gas or fuel oil and electricity from the grid to supply its process-energy demands in the factory.

Ethanol yield (gallons/acre) for sugar cane under good tropical conditions is double that for corn. For all those reasons, sugar cane ethanol is seven times more energy efficient; its net energy, expressed as ERoEI, is 9:1 while corn ethanol has an ERoEI of only 1.3:1.

Conclusions

So, apart from considering whether USA corn ethanol is an energy efficient product or not (what I’m not doing here), one thing must be stressed: sugar cane ethanol from Brazil is NOT a realistic target or a comparable model for USA ethanol from corn. It is very easy to replace all gasoline when you would only need 8 billion gallons per year and you have a generous plant that thrives rain-fed under tropical conditions, occupying less than 1% of a country’s arable land, to produce alcohol to replace 50% of all that gasoline. However, this cannot be extrapolated for USA’s conditions, neither for corn, not even for sugar cane in Southern states. So, realistically, let’s understand that sugar cane ethanol in Brazil is mangoes and corn ethanol in USA is apples.
Well, I’m an organic sugar cane farmer and ethanol expert in Brazil. And I think it is my duty to tell my American readers and friends that this comparison is not so simple or straightforward. This would be, indeed, comparing mangoes and apples.

- Bravo! Really well written article! That goes to how much hope we have of ethanol in our land scarced Singapore! Next!

Popularity: unranked [?]

A “reality check” on plug-in hybrids

According to Yahoo!News :

There are hybrid vehicles, whose gasoline/electric engines get great mileage. And then there are "plug-in" hybrids, only about a dozen of them in the US, which have been modified to store more electricity in beefier batteries by plugging in at night to the electricity grid.

Felix Kramer's "plug-in" Toyota Prius gets about double the mileage of a conventional Prius - about 100 miles per gallon. To him, it is the holy grail of cars, zapping pollution, oil imports, and high pump prices all at once.

So, should the whole country jump on the band wagon?

A groundbreaking study released last week sounds a cautionary note to the consumer. Plug-ins do burn less gasoline than regular hybrids - and gobs less than gasoline-only vehicles - but the high cost of their bigger battery packs will probably neutralize even significant savings at the pump, according to a report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient America (ACEEE).

The study is the first to compare the performance - and the costs - of two hybrid technologies: the conventional versus the plug-in. It comes even as

President Bush, energy-security hawks, and many environmentalists are talking up plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs). Dozens of cities, too, have signed on to promote a new Plug-in Partners program, and Toyota and other automakers say they're working on the technology.

"We want government policy based on reality, not overstating what [plug-in technology] can achieve and when," says report coauthor Therese Langer, ACEEE's transportation program director. "We don't want what happened with the hydrogen hype to happen with plug-in hybrids, too," she adds, referring to optimistic assessments of a timetable for shifting to a hydrogen-powered vehicle fleet.

Environmental impacts of PHEV technology, for instance, would vary dramatically by region - benefiting some areas but not others, the report found.

For a plug-in owner in California, where most electricity on the grid is generated by low-pollution facilities, driving a PHEV might cut emissions of carbon dioxide by one-third compared with driving a regular hybrid.

But if the same PHEV were charged in the Midwest, where coal-fired power plants supply the electricity, reduction of CO2 emissions would be nil. Nitrous-oxide emissions (which form smog) would fall slightly, but sulfur-dioxide emissions (which contribute to acid rain) would quadruple.

Still, environmental gains are possible.

Plug-ins would chop CO2 emissions by 15 percent on a national average, compared with conventional hybrid cars, the ACEEE report found. At the same time, the plug-in would emit 157 percent more sulfur-dioxide pollution. The need, plug-in proponents say, is for policies that would clean up the electricity grid so that PHEV technology supplies cleaner skies along with energy independence.

Pricey batteries
The cost of nickel-metal hybrid batteries may also limit the appeal of plug-in hybrids - at least in the short run.

Today's conventional hybrids command a premium price - $2,000 to $4,000 more than their nonhybrid counterparts - and their owners will recover that extra cost in about three years, assuming $3-a-gallon gasoline and 12,000 miles a year of driving, the report found.

For the plug-in, the payback period is longer - 6.4 years for a vehicle that can travel 40 miles exclusively on stored electricity - even under the more optimistic scenario in which battery prices fall sharply, the ACEEE report estimates.

Others, however, say that PHEV technology is crucial for America's energy security and that mass production will bring battery prices down.

"This is an important technology from an energy-security standpoint," says Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington-based energy-security think tank.

Even so, he agrees that expectations have become a bit overheated. "It's true this technology isn't going to be suitable for everyone," he says,

Felix Kramer's souped-up Prius
As for Mr. Kramer, who is apparently the first of about a dozen people nationwide to have acquired a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius, the ACEEE report gives him not a moment's pause. Cofounder of CalCars.org, a group promoting plug-in technology, he keeps close track of his mileage and now commutes to work powered almost solely by stored electricity. On a recent 450-mile run, at mixed speeds and terrain, he got 125 miles to the gallon.

Now he's installed solar panels on his car's roof to charge the battery and lower his costs even further.

"In the real world, battery reliability [will improve] and costs are going to come down fast," he says. "My real-world experience tells me they're understating the benefit. I'm doing a lot better than the report."

- the 3 dollar a gallon will not stay that way after the OPEC decided to cut production or world oil eventually dwindle....pushing it higher. This means plug-in hybrid cars will be the future transportation for the world.

After watching the full documentary on "WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR" that had shown trailers at google video shows that the Major oil cartel, Government, Car Manufacturer and ill-informed consumer had basically killed the electric car in California.

The plug-in Hybrid will be a combination of gasoline car with electric motors that can also run on batteries that you can plug in and charged at night. This effectively should satisfy the Oil man on profits, car manufacturer for future car maintenance, environmentally friendly and eventually with better solar technologies like the solar film technology that you can stick on your car....our transportation future will be still salvageable.

Popularity: unranked [?]