GoodFuels

RFA CEO blogs again

Bob Dinneen, CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, has blogged again over at the Huffington Post.

Coinciding with Dinneen’s trip to Brazil for the Ethanol Summit 2009, the theme of this column is the global ethanol industry.

In discussing ethanol, we need to remember that in a world economy dominated by oil, no country has been able to get an ethanol industry going without significant government assistance. The United States and Brazil are case studies in point.

Renewable fuels have only taken hold in countries such as the U.S. and Brazil that have created and sustained programs to encourage its production. These incentives have included tax advantages, tariffs, export enhancement, debt forgiveness, infrastructure development and outright subsidies. It is important that countries be allowed to create similar programs, and grow their own biofuels industries, using whatever indigenous raw materials are available to them.

Dinneen stressed the fact that global agriculture has the capacity to feed AND fuel the world at the same time.

Ethanol production from grains yields a nutrient-rich livestock feed that when fed to cattle can actually help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Together with the growth potential of crop yields around the world, agriculture can continue to feed the world and help provide energy solutions. The enemy of policymakers and environmental advocates ought not be industries trying to replace imported oil with its heavy carbon footprint. Our collective enemy is the status quo. The global biofuels community is committed to tackling the economic, environmental and energy challenges facing all of us.

An interesting, timely topic.

Click here to read the whole article.

Climate Change Bill Critics

They say that politics makes strange bedfellows and that is definitely the case with the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” passed last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Both agricultural and environmental groups, Democrats and Republicans, have all lined up to criticize the legislation that claims it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 83 percent over the next 40 years.

A coalition of environmental groups that includes Greenpeace USA and Friends of the Earth, issued a statement that reads, in part, “the decision-making process was co-opted by oil and coal lobbyists determined to sustain our addiction to dirty fossil fuels, even as the country stands ready to rebuild our economy and clean up the environment with real clean energy. The resulting bill reflects the triumph of politics over science, and the triumph of industry influence over the public interest.”

Agricultural groups voicing opposition include the American Farm Bureau, National Corn Growers, National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation, United Egg Producers and the Fertilizer Institute.

House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson (D-MN) has voiced his strong opposition to the bill and indicated last week that he has enough votes, both Democrat and Republican, to defeat the legislation. Republican lawmakers are also opposed to the bill. Congressman Joe Barton of Texas, top Republican on the House committee, threatened to have the 1000-plus page bill read in full to slow action on the legislation. He backed down on that threat, but committee chairman Henry Waxman - the bill’s co-author - hired a speed reader just in case. (Funny video of that on YouTube is worth watching.)

So, the question is, does anyone besides the bill’s authors actually like this piece of legislation?

Forbes: chemistry vs biology

Forbes has an interesting opinion article up today on their website.

The author talks about corn-based ethanol vs second generation cellulosic ethanol, and how best to produce both.

The race is starting to shape up.

The contest: Take some type of agricultural waste, easy-to-grow non-food crop or just sunshine; add water and carbon dioxide and turn it into some type of fuel, like ethanol, butanol, gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

The entrants: enzymes, algae, yeast, bacteria and plain old chemistry.

The winners will be the methods that use the least amount of energy to produce a fuel that stores the most amount of energy, at the best cost. Since the beginning of 2007, $1.8 billion has been invested worldwide in the race to these so-called next generation biofuels, according to Ethan Zindler, an analyst at New Energy Finance.

He goes on to discuss how each method goes about actually making the fuel, and includes a pretty in-depth discussion of algae-based biofuels as well as fuel made from cellulosic feedstocks.

Current generation biofuels work because yeast likes the same food we do. Yeast thrives on the loads of sugar found in corn kernels and sugar cane, and they happily turn out lots of ethanol as a waste product.

But the hope is that the parts of plants that aren’t so easy to digest can be turned into fuel. Cellulose, which comprises cell walls; hemicellulose, polymers found in plant walls; and lignin, the stiff stuff in cell walls that gives plants, such as trees, their support.

All in all, a very concise article. Check it out here.

Stop Them Before They Kill Again

Great commentary in the Detroit News this week reminds us that the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, was implicated in the murder of the electric car a few years ago.

“CARB — the same agency that only five years ago gained notoriety for its role in “killing” the electric car — could be in a position to deliver another crippling blow to the United States’ effort to achieve energy independence,” writes Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and co-founder of the Set America Free Coalition, referring to CARB’s proposed low-carbon fuel standard, or LCFS.

At a time when the U.S. is charting its way out of its debilitating — and growing — oil dependence, CARB’s plan puts biofuels at a comparative disadvantage against petroleum. It does so by requiring that indirect greenhouse gas-emitting activities, such as deforestation and plowing up grasslands — which are often associated with increased use of biofuels — be considered, while failing to account for indirect carbon-emitting activities related to petroleum production.

Luft notes that “implementing the fuel standard as proposed would only cement oil’s virtual monopoly in the transportation sector.” CARB’s accomplices in killing the electric car, according to the 2006 documentary film, included the auto and oil industries. Some questions have been raised about conflicts of interest on the part of board members, and even CARB’s director Mary Nichols, who reportedly owns significant stock in oil companies through a blind trust that was created after she was appointed to the board - and is married to an attorney that represents oil companies. No doubt that oil will be a big winner if the LCFS is passed by the board.

Since many other states will follow California’s lead, the final outcome could be life threatening to biofuels. The verdict will be handed down on Thursday but there is still time to file comments with CARB. The deadline is noon Pacific time on Earth Day.

RFA’s president blog on HuffPo

Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, has posted on the Huffington Post again. This time around, Dinneen writes about the anti-ethanol campaign championed by food producers, and new advances in the ethanol industry, including the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratory’s new report and Ricardo’s ethanol engine development.

At the same time that a major new report concluding that the United States could produce 90 billion gallons of renewable ethanol a year was released, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister attacked biofuels for undermining oil development and fringe U.S. environmental groups announced their preference for continued gasoline consumption over the use of ethanol. Who would have thought it?

Dinneen also addresses Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi’s comments that investment in renewable fuels would put the oil industry out of business.

Minister Ali Naimi’s fear of renewable fuels is understandable. He is trying to protect the economic interests of his nation’s oil industry and those of other OPEC nations by whatever means necessary. For environmental activists to side with OPEC to protect the oil status quo is downright illogical and raises questions as to the real motives of such groups and the credibility and legitimacy of their arguments.

Go here for the whole article.