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ASTM International Offers New Interlaboratory Crosscheck Program for Fuel-grade Ethanol |
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Come join us at these upcoming events: June 3-6 June 3-6 June 3 - 6 June 18-21 July 22-25 July 22-26 |
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The Biofuel Dilemma
One of those has to do with the feedstocks used to produce ethanol. In the United States, most ethanol is produced from corn, which Aaron Brady, a director on the Global Oil research team for CERA, an IHS company, describes as an energy-intensive crop. “It also takes a lot of fertilizer, which tends to leach into the ground,” he says. Soil erosion and nutrient run-off are a big concern with corn, particularly as farmers react to increasing demand for the crop by engaging in continuous corn production processes. The concern is so great that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has been issuing press releases warning farmers about the dangers associated with such practices. To alleviate the problems associated with corn, many in the industry are actively investigating the possibility of using more environmentally friendly feedstocks such as switchgrass and other non-food crops to produce ethanol. Referred to as cellulosic materials, these plants don’t contain a grain or sugar content, but can be broken down into sugars that can then be fermented into alcohol. While not economic to produce on a commercial scale today, says Brady, “there’s hope that this could be a viable way of making ethanol in the next decade. But there are no commercial cellulosic ethanol plants in existence today. That’s not to say that some won’t try to be built over the next year or two. But those will be the first-generation industrial-size cellulosic refineries, and they’ll probably be more expensive than the conventional ethanol plants. At least until the industry can reduce costs.” To help improve the industry’s ability to cost-effectively produce cellulosic ethanol, in March the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it would be spending more than $23 million on five projects focused on developing highly efficient fermentative organisms that can speed the production of ethanol by converting lignocellulosic biomass material—cellulosic ethanol feedstocks—to ethanol. According to the DOE, the commercialization of fermentative organisms will be crucial to achieving commercial scale in cellulosic ethanol refining. The five applicants selected to have their projects funded were:
Of course, use of corn is only one issue. As the number of ethanol plants increase—according to CERA 116 plants in the United States are operational, with another 81 plants under construction or expanding—Brady says questions are arising about their environmental impact. “A lot of people are starting to wonder how clean those things actually are.” Ethanol is not the only biofuel that is facing problems. Biodiesel, which is designed to be an alternative to diesel, may not be used as widely as ethanol in the United States, but is the subject of growing interest. And while it can be produced from products such as leftover restaurant grease, it also can be produced from vegetable oil crops such as palm, soybeans and rapeseed—which some critics claim are causing the destruction of old-growth forests as the crops are planted in ever greater amounts in response to growing demand for biodiesel. In addition, studies have shown that biodiesel can lead to an increase in nitrogen oxide emissions, a significant air pollutant. Despite the issues, people are far from abandoning biofuels. “On the positive side, there’s a lot of R&D into developing next-generation biofuels that would be an improvement on biodiesel and ethanol,” says Brady. “There may be surprises there over the next few years.” One fuel under development is biobutanol. Similar to ethanol, the fuel offers better properties such as a higher energy content. (Ethanol provides about 70 percent of the energy of gasoline.) “You can make it out of a sugar plant or corn, but essentially instead of using yeast to ferment the sugars, you’re using some sort of bacteria that ferments it differently, so it creates a different alcohol molecule,” Brady says. Researchers are also looking into a process called Fischer-Tropsch. “It involves taking a carbon-based material like natural gas or coal or biomass [biological materials used to create fuel] and gasifying it under high temps. You basically create a synthesis gas and you can recombine the molecules into liquid fuel,” says Brady. “The technology has been around for a while but now people are talking about using it with biomass.”
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Inverness Way East • Englewood, CO 80112-5776 • USA |
Is ethanol an ideal alternative fuel after all? That’s the question being raised as increased use of the biofuel puts it in the spotlight. Once promoted as a way to avoid problems associated with gasoline, such as energy security and environmental concerns, it looks like ethanol has some unique issues of its own.