Carbon cloud over a green fuel (coal 4 ethanol)

[jpak]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0323/p01s01-sten.html

Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future.

There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol - the first US plant of its kind to use coal instead of cleaner natural gas.

An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired ethanol plant is under construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other such refineries are being built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

The trend, which is expected to continue, has left even some ethanol boosters scratching their heads. Should coal become a standard for 30 to 40 ethanol plants under construction - and 150 others on the drawing boards - it would undermine the environmental reasoning for switching to ethanol in the first place, environmentalists say.

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[tritsofme]

1. Its something that needs to be weighed

The environmental impact of coal, which we have an almost unlimited domestic supply, and goal in itself of freedom from Middle Eastern oil.

[4dsc]

4. Misnomer: almost unlimited domestic supply

Sorry to say but coal supplies are not unlimited!! Given the current usage rate, we use most of our known coal reserves in about 100- 200 years. Given the exponential rate of increase in the use of coal, we have about an 80 year supply.. Coal will peak too..

[NNadir]

5. I think the question should be reframed: How much atmosphere do we have

left?

Not much, I think.

[dipsydoodle]

2. It's what's more commonly known as

CATCH 22

[JohnWxy]

3. Good Post. Here is some more from the article -

The reason for the shift is purely economic. Natural gas has long been the ethanol industry's fuel of choice. But with natural gas prices soaring, talk of coal power for new ethanol plants and retrofitting existing refineries for coal is growing, observers say.

"It just made great economic sense to use coal," says Brad Davis, general manager of the Gold-Eagle Cooperative that manages the Corn LP plant, which is farmer and investor owned. "Clean coal" technology, he adds, helps the Goldfield refinery easily meet pollution limits - and coal power saves millions in fuel costs.

Yet even the nearly clear vapor from the refinery contains as much as double the carbon emissions of a refinery using natural gas, climate experts say.


Ethanol industry officials say coal-power is just one possibility the industry is pursuing.

"I think some in the environmental community won't be all that warm and fuzzy about ," says Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, the national trade association for the US fuel-ethanol industry. "It's fair to say there's a trend away from natural gas, but coal is just one approach. Other technologies are part of the mix, too. (there better be. __JW)"

He cites, for instance, a new ethanol plant in Nebraska strategically located by a feed lot, using methane from cattle waste to fire ethanol boilers. Another new plant in Minnesota uses biomass gasification, using plant material as its fuel.

Coal for now, wood in the future

Coal may end up being merely a transitional fuel in the run-up to cellulosic ethanol, including switch grass and wood, says another RFA spokesman. While ethanol production today primarily uses only the corn kernel, cellulosic will use the whole plant.

Cellulosic ethanol, mentioned by President Bush in his State of the Union speech, could turn the tide on coal, too, by burning plant dregs in the boiler with no need for coal at all.

"It's a fact that ethanol is a renewable fuel today and it will stay that way," says Matt Hartwig, an RFA spokesman. "Any greenhouse-gas emissions that come out the tailpipe are recycled by the corn plant. I don't expect the limited number of coal-fired plants out there to change that."

Still, Hawkins insists that if ethanol is made using coal, the carbon dioxide should be captured and injected into the ground.

"We favor getting ethanol production up," Hawkins says. "But we obviously favor a cleaner process. We need large cuts in global warming emissions from transportation. It's not good enough for ethanol to simply be no worse than gasoline."

There are two reasons to go to ethanol -

1) reduce GHG emmissions

2) reduce imports of oil - very imposrtant for our economic security and growth. Also, recognize that we will experience a short term oil supply crunch of 5% to 10% sometime in the next 1 to 5 yrs (terrorist attack, IRan, political posturing in Venezuela, political instability in Nigeria, more Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes - Gulf oil production is still not back to where it was pre-Katrina) and we need to get ethanol up to 5 - 10% of the gasoline demand as quickly as we can just for economic security reasons.

While using Coal vs Nat Gas does contribute to no. 2, it really compromises objective 1. This deserves attention. Personally, I would say clean coal or not we should be using Natural Gas until they can get other bio-fuels in place (keep in mind you can't just decide to use bio-fuels to provide the heat and snap your fingers to make it happen. You have to have an adequate and reliable supply lined up as well. You can't have your ethanol plant shut down for a month because your supply of bio-fuels slipped. But I would rather they stick to Natural Gas until they get the bio-fuels set-up (I would be willing to pay the difference. Anyway, gasoline will soon be hitting 3.00 a gallon again, so the price differential between ethanol and gas would still be maintained - if that is important to anyone). The Global Warming issue is just too horrendous to worry about the cost (Natural gas has really shot up in the last couple of years. All the more reason to get moving faster on all bio-fuels).