How the Government Got in Your Backyard

by Jeff Gillman

  The Science

  Alternative energy possibilities are diverse but are generally categorized into one of two groups. The first group is transportation fuels, those that might be used to run an automobile. Not that these fuels couldn’t be used to run a power plant, they certainly could, and sometimes are—the first ethanol-based power plant was opened in Brazil in 2010, for example—but that is not currently seen as the primary use of these fuels. The second group of alternative energies includes those intended to produce electricity. While electricity certainly could be used to run a car, its primary purpose is to run such things as lights, television, and video games.

  Transportation Fuels: Ethanol and Biodiesel

  There was a time when using biofuels would have meant burning wood, which was a good way to warm a house, heat a boiler on a train, or cook a meal, but not a great way to fuel a car or bus. Today, the term biofuel generally refers to something just a little more sophisticated than a hunk of wood—but not quite as sophisticated as you might think. Energy from biofuels generally comes from either processing a crop to produce an oil (usually soybean or palm oil), which is called biodiesel, or, more commonly, fermenting the crop (usually corn in the United States) to produce easy-to-burn alcohol (usually ethanol, exactly the same type of alcohol that is in your evening glass of wine, beer, or scotch). The basics of fermenting harvested plants into alcohol are anything but new. We’ve had beer, wine, and whisky for a long, long time. There are a number of problems with using this source of energy though; the most important is the frequently ignored question, just how much fuel can we actually get from plants?

  A reasonable estimate is that even if the entire United States corn crop were dedicated to nothing but producing energy, it would only provide about 12 percent of our current demand for gasoline. While 12 percent is certainly quite significant, we need a lot of that corn for other purposes, such as feeding ourselves. Fortunately, biofuels can be derived from other crops, too. One popular option is using soybeans for biodiesel. Diesel fuel has been around for years, but biodiesel hasn’t really been used much, at least not in comparison to regular diesel. Biodiesel has its limitations, though. If all of the soybeans in the United States were converted to biodiesel, only 6 percent of the diesel fuel needed by this country would be generated. Still, every gallon counts, and, if we’re going to replace corn as the primary source of biofuel, then we will need to utilize many different sources.

  Almost any vegetable product that you can think of can be fermented to make alcohol, which can in turn be used as a fuel. Here in the United States, corn is king, though sugar beets, potatoes, wheat, or even blueberries could be used to produce ethanol. Across the world, there have been some remarkable success stories using biofuels. One of the best is the story of fermented sugarcane in Brazil. Brazil produces an abundance of this crop and uses it to produce ethanol, which supplements gasoline in cars driven in Brazil. In 2010, the world’s first power plant driven by ethanol was put into service in Brazil as well. The great thing about sugarcane ethanol is that it takes much less energy to produce it than it takes to produce alcohol from other sources, most notably corn. In fact, for every bit of energy used to produce alcohol from sugarcane, the resulting alcohol produces 3 bits of energy, while for every bit of energy used to produce corn ethanol, less than one bit of energy is returned, according to some analyses, and that’s a problem. David Pimentel, an emeritus professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, and other scientists claim that the corn we use for ethanol production should not be considered a renewable resource because of the fossil fuels used to create it, and because producing corn requires more pesticide use and causes more soil erosion than any other crop. Pimentel’s calculations actually show that corn requires 29 percent more energy to grow and make into ethanol than the energy that the ethanol itself can produce. Not everybody agrees with this number, though. Other estimates claim that corn ethanol can yield 25 percent or more energy than the energy used to produce it—still a long shot from the efficiency of sugarcane. Biodiesel has a much better rating, with estimates of a yield of almost 95 percent more energy than what is used to make it. Though this lags behind sugarcane and its three-to-one return, it is substantially better than corn ethanol.

  Almost any vegetable product that you can think of can be fermented to make alcohol, which can in turn be used as a fuel.

  Biofuels have an advantage over fossil fuels in that they burn cleaner than oil or gasoline. Burning biofuels, and ethanol in particular, releases water, carbon dioxide, and little else. Carbon dioxide is considered a pollutant, as we will find in the upcoming chapter on global warming, but the net result of burning biofuels should affect global carbon dioxide concentrations less than burning fossil fuels. It takes many millions of years to create crude oil, while ethanol and biodiesel can be produced much more quickly. While crude oil, or any other fossil fuel for that matter, is forming, it stores carbon. When these fuels are burned, the result is a net increase of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, derived from carbon that hasn’t seen the light of day in many millennia.

  Technically, biofuels are supposed to be carbon neutral, with the plants that they are made from taking up the same amount of carbon dioxide during photosynthesis as the amount given off when the biofuel is used. However, this balance doesn’t take into account such things as the fossil fuels needed for the production of fertilizers or the fuel used by farm tractors. More importantly, though, if we were to expand our use of biofuels, we would increase cropland at the expense of forestland. Since trees store carbon much more efficiently than annual crops, which are only in the ground for a year or less, we would have a large net increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Growing, harvesting, and converting corn to ethanol leaves an immense ecological footprint, and it becomes bigger as we turn more land over to corn in order to make ethanol a more significant fuel source. Exactly how much land would be needed to meet our fuel needs is not easy to nail down because no one knows exactly how much corn would be used for ethanol and how much ethanol we would end up using for fuel. No one suggests that greenhouse emissions would be worse if we used biofuels instead of fossil fuels, but don’t think for a minute that switching to biofuels would be a perfect solution to controlling greenhouse gasses.

  Growing, harvesting, and converting corn to ethanol leaves an immense ecological footprint.

  A final concern about ethanol production is that it comes at the expense of farmland used for producing food. While there are many contrasting opinions about how much food is actually sacrificed in the use of corn for ethanol, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have calculated that, in 2007, if we were not using ethanol in our gasoline, gas prices would have been 1.4 to 2.4 percent higher. The use of crops for biofuels, however, resulted in the price of soy increasing somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, and the price of corn increasing between 15 and 28 percent. Using crops for fuel instead of food has a significant impact on the cost of food.

  One promising solution for biofuel production is cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol comes from parts of the plant that normally aren’t converted into alcohol. In corn, sugarcane, grapes, or any other fruit or vegetable, the sugars contained in the plant are converted into alcohol during the fermenting process. Unfortunately, the structural part of the plant—the cellulose—is not digested into alcohol. Cellulose is made of complex sugars that aren’t easily broken down by the microbes normally used to make ethanol; as a result, many of the sugars present in plants are wasted. There is a method to process this structural material, but it is more complex, and researchers are still working to make it more efficient. Currently, the preferred crops for this process are switchgrass and other grasses that produce a lot of structural biomass quickly (in other words they grow fast). This method promises to make ethanol production much more efficient. The U.S. Department of Energy says that cellulosic ethanol produces 80 percent more energy than is needed to manufacture it, compared to their estimat
e of a 20 percent return for corn.

  Another type of biofuel that is starting to receive some attention is biodiesel derived from algae. Algae can be converted into diesel fuel just like other oil-producing plants, including soybeans and palms. Diesel fuel from algae is attractive because it is produced in areas where crops aren’t grown. Ideally, vertically oriented clear sheets of light-transmitting materials such as plastic or glass are built to hold and grow algae. The algae are then harvested and the oil is extracted. This form of production is much closer to carbon neutral than the production of ethanol, and it can produce much more fuel per unit of land than any other system. Soybeans produce less than 100 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year, while an acre of algae could produce as much as 10,000 gallons of biodiesel in that amount of time. This much oil production is possible because of the vertical orientation of the algal colonies, and because many generations of algae can be grown each year. Right now, the biggest hurdles for this technology have to do with finding the best ways to harvest the algae, and figuring out ways to get carbon dioxide to the algae more efficiently. Pumping gas through this system takes a lot of power, so without technological advances, this system will not be economically efficient for some time.

  Alternative Energies for Producing Electricity

  Considering the problems associated with ethanol and biodiesel, we should consider spending our research dollars on a number of other technologies as well. Technologies exist that provide energy for more than just transportation. The sun, tides, wind, and geothermal energy are all sources of power that should last about as long as the earth as we know it. Tidal and geothermal power can be efficient, but they have high startup costs, and they are only useful near where these resources naturally occur, limiting their usefulness. Energy needs usually peak at night, making solar energy a bit of a pain. The wind doesn’t always blow, which is a problem with wind power. Because solar or wind power is only realized when the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing, a method needs to be in place to store the energy from these sources. Unfortunately, methods for saving this power are far less than 100 percent efficient. Think of your car battery, which is charged by the car’s alternator every time you run your car. Sure, it lasts five or six years, but eventually this battery will lose its ability to hold a charge and you’ll be stranded somewhere. Obviously this is an even bigger problem with larger energy sources: that’s a lot of batteries to change when they go bad.

  The cost of energy from alternative sources is decreasing and the cost from fossil fuels is increasing. In 2005, it cost between 3.1 and 4.3 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for geothermal energy, 11 to 15 cents for solar, between 18.8 and 31 cents for photovoltaic cells (another form of solar), and between 4.3 and 5.5 cents for wind power. Energy from fossil fuels cost 1.2 cents for coal and 3.5 cents for natural gas. But these numbers aren’t the end of the story. As you might expect, some of these alternative energy sources are likely to become more cost efficient, especially as the technology advances, though others may have already reached a plateau. When solar energy was first introduced, it might take as long as ten or fifteen years to recoup the power that went into making the solar cell. In other words, making solar cells was very expensive and didn’t yield much in return. Today, it might only take a year or two for a solar cell to return the energy that was expended to make it—and the cost of solar cells is decreasing. Research by Melissa Schilling and Melissa Esmundo at New York University concluded that there are two technologies poised to outperform fossil fuels in terms of cost: geothermal and wind. Furthermore, their work examining research dollars invested as compared to how cheap the energy will become reveals that these two technologies are underfunded, especially relative to funding for solar power, and that greater funding may well lead to prices that will make these technologies even cheaper than fossil fuels.

  Government Policy

  Ethanol is not a new fuel. It was first used in 1823, along with turpentine, to run New Hampshire mill owner Samuel Morey’s internal combustion engine, and it was popular with pre-Civil War farmers who could turn crop waste into fuel using their own stills. Its popularity, however, has risen and fallen based on government policy. During the Civil War, the Union slapped a tax of 2 per gallon on ethanol to fund the war. Our ancestors didn’t like taxes any more than we do, so they switched to kerosene fuel. In 1906, Congress lifted the tax on ethanol just in time for it to compete with other explosive liquids as the fuel of choice for the newly mass-produced automobile. Henry Ford’s Model T could run on ethanol, gasoline, or a combination of the two, so removing the tax allowed the two fuels to compete on their own merits. The use of ethanol peaked during World War I at 50 to 60 million gallons per year, as demand for all fuels was high. Then in 1919 the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment—better known as Prohibition—made the distillation and transportation of grain alcohol for fuel difficult. By the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, gasoline dominated the market, and, since gas prices stayed low until the 1970s, ethanol fuel was commercially unavailable. Biodiesel was invented in 1893, but never became popular because of its high cost.

  The oil crisis of the 1970s led Congress and the Carter administration to promote energy conservation and research into alternative fuels. Amoco, followed by other oil companies, started to sell alcohol-blended fuels to reduce the cost and extend how far a gallon of petroleum would go. Congress provided tax breaks for ethanol producers starting in 1980 and protected domestic producers by placing tariffs on imported ethanol. Consumers never really took to ethanol, though. As oil and gasoline prices fell in the late 1980s and 1990s, there was little in the way of financial pressure driving consumers to demand the change, or the government to require the use of ethanol. There was, however, some pressure from environmental groups that appreciated ethanol as a cleaner-burning fuel. Congress did enact ethanol-friendly policies in several energy and farm bills and in amendments to the Clean Air Act during the 1990s. These pieces of legislation continued to provide tax credits for the production of ethanol, required alternative-fuel vehicles in government car fleets, mandated wintertime use of oxygenated fuels to minimize carbon monoxide, exempted alternative fuels from certain excise taxes, and imposed tariffs on imported ethanol to keep ethanol production within the United States. In addition, as state governments began to ban the use of the rival fuel additive MTBE because it contaminated groundwater, ethanol emerged as the dominant alternative fuel additive.

  The 1992 Energy Policy Act encouraged state governments to restructure their electricity markets and to promote alternatives to fossil fuels. Many states responded by deregulating electricity to allow consumers a greater choice of providers, including green options. States also developed and implemented Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) to require utilities to offer a specific percentage of power from renewable sources.

  After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, energy issues reemerged as a high priority. This wasn’t an energy issue as much as a national security issue: we needed options to make us less dependent on oil from the Middle East. Meanwhile, consumers were reacting negatively to gasoline prices of more than 3 per gallon and to the subsequent volatility of oil prices over the next several years. Ethanol’s status as the only renewable fuel produced in any quantity, due in part to government assistance and the abundance of corn in the United States, as well as ethanol’s claim to be carbon neutral, made it a natural alternative to oil.

  Unfortunately, ethanol’s preeminent status as the top renewable vehicle fuel is something like winning the largest shrimp award in an ocean full of whales. As of 2003, it accounted for just 1 percent of U.S. fuel consumption; by 2007, it had only risen to 2.6 percent.

  In addition to the low prices of oil and coal, there are other barriers that have limited ethanol’s market penetration. In the United States, ethanol is not available to any great degree outside the Midwest (except in whisky bottles and beer cans) because it corrodes pipelines and therefore must be shipped in small quantitie
s by train, truck, or barge. One of the ethanol industry’s major priorities is lobbying Congress to help pay for special pipelines to transport ethanol. Its usage is also limited by the fact that, while it can be used as a gasoline additive, ordinary vehicles cannot run on it alone. Without the wide availability of ethanol-powered cars, there’s little incentive for gas station owners to invest in pumps and storage tanks to distribute it. The most likely scenario for an increased availability of ethanol at gas stations nationwide is for automakers to produce more flexible-fuel vehicles as an alternative to hybrid vehicles. Flex-fuel vehicles are cheaper to produce than hybrids because all they need is a slightly modified engine rather than a complete redesign of the vehicle to accommodate both electric and gasoline engines.

  As scientific research raised questions about whether the amount of energy consumed in producing ethanol was worth the energy obtained from burning it, whether it raised food prices, and whether it could be transported out of the Midwest in sufficient quantities, Congress invested more federal funds into research, development, production, and distribution of other alternative fuels including solar, hydrogen, geothermal, wind, biofuels, and cellulosic ethanol, in a series of energy and farm bills in 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009. Congress also set and expanded a federal Renewable Fuel Standard to mandate that utilities increase their use of renewable fuels.