Update: This article got a mention in today’s Wall Street Journal Energy Roundup.
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In my essay Cellulosic Ethanol Reality Check, I identified several big challenges that must be addressed before cellulosic ethanol is commercially feasible. One of these is the logistics problem, and a recent story in the Omaha World-Herald emphasizes the point:
The future is not now for biomass ethanol industry
The article describes the logistics challenges for a single ethanol plant:
The logistics of collecting and storing a million tons of corn stubble each year for an ethanol refinery are mind-numbing.
It would take 67,000 semitrailer loads to haul the baled stubble out of the field. That’s 187 truckloads a day, or one every eight minutes. To complicate matters, the need for trucks, machinery and manpower would come during harvest, already the busiest time of the year on the farm. And that’s where a massive federal initiative into cellulosic ethanol may find its biggest bottleneck – on the farm.
According to the article, a million tons would produce 80 million gallons of ethanol. This would be enough on a gross basis to displace 0.04% of our gasoline usage. So, if all the inputs were free, all we would need is 2,500 of these facilities, and we will have met all U.S. gasoline needs (but not diesel, fuel oil, or jet fuel). Ah, but we forgot about energy inputs. How many gallons of fossil fuels did it take to run all of those semi-trailer trucks to take the stubble to the plant? How much natural gas was required to distill off the ethanol? But we are told that these are “small problems.” Easily resolved.
The article also highlighted the cellulosic pilot plants that are being built:
Many of the questions surrounding cellulosic ethanol could be answered in the next 10 years as six pilot plants are built with the help of $385 million in grants from the Energy Department.
The list was interesting, because I have heard several of these described as full-fledged ethanol plants:
Pilot projects
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These are the six pilot projects awarded $385 million in grants by the Department of Energy to construct biomass ethanol plants:Emmetsburg, Iowa – ($80 million). Broin Companies of Sioux Falls, S.D. Using 842 tons per day of corn fiber, cobs and stalks.
Soperton, Ga. – ($76 million). Range Fuels of Broomfield, Colo. Using 1,200 tons a day of wood residues and wood-based energy crops.
Shelley, Idaho – ($80 million). Iogen Biorefinery Partners of Arlington, Va. Using 700 tons a day of wheat straw, barley straw, corn stover, switchgrass and rice straw.
Southern California – ($40 million). BlueFire Ethanol of Irvine, Calif. Using 700 tons per day of sorted green waste and wood waste from landfills.
Kansas (site undetermined) – ($76 million). Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Missouri. Using 700 tons a day of corn stover, wheat straw, milo stubble and switchgrass.
Hendry County, Fla. – ($33 million). ALICO Inc. Using 770 tons per day of yard, wood and vegetative wastes.
Again, according to the article 1 ton of biomass is going to produce 80 gallons of ethanol. The capital costs alone on some of these is in the $60,000 per daily barrel range. That puts capital costs at 2-3 times those of a conventional grain ethanol plant, and over 3 times those of an oil refinery. And I suspect that they are going to find that they have very high operating costs as well.
So, what are we going to find out in 10 years? I could tell you, but the ethanol proponents would tell me that I just lack vision.
Great article. I believe the main premise of cellulosic ethanol is that it uses feedstocks that are either very easy to grow with minimal care and environmental impact, or waste feedstock that would otherwise be thrown away. I wrote about how the biofuel issue should be addressed according to the local feedstock needs and demographic energy requirements earlier today. There are also many other posts on the business side of cellulosic ethanol and how it compares to corn/sugar-based ethanol. I maintain the blog, Energy Spin: Alternative Energy Blog For Investors-Served Daily.
Cheers,
Francesco DeParis
Thanks Robert – nobody is discussing logistics in the biofuels debate. Cellulose is not very energy dense, which makes transporting it a real problem.
There is a TV commercial for Total corn flakes that asks people to compare the volume of Total to the typical breakfast cereal. How many more bowls would you have to eat to get the same thing? Try that with crude oil and corn stover. Take a very large crude carrier (1.5 million barrels) and see what you get.
Robert,
As I said before, I don’t know why ETHANOL became the King of Alternative Fuels. The requirement for energy-intensive distillation should be enough to rule it out.
On a technicality, even the smallest of these plants (700 t/d) cannot be described as “pilot scale”. A more accurate critism would be: what kind of a fool build a 1,200 t/d plant using an unproven technology? Oh sorry, Uncle Sam… Your tax dollars at work.
KingofKaty, Peter Tertzakian’s book is centered on what he calls “global supply chains.” You might like it.
Vision? Maybe but what you really need is perspective. When hunter/gatherers settled down to farm there was a short-term drop in the health of societies but it was advantageous because it was more of a sure thing when there was less game on dwindling land.
Now we are in a comparable situation and the logistics of hunting for oil in far-flung and politically unstable parts of the world is less advantageous than ethanol.
As far as the cellulose plants, I calculate these will produce 143,430,400 gallons of ethanol a year in total–not a bad start. Many entrepreneurs are sitting on the sidelines wanting to be the first to be number 2, if you know what I mean. If these work, the others will jump in.
I liked your HL posting on the Oildrum by the way.
I had previously commented on the logistics of moving large amounts of biomass and compared it to the U.S. pulp and paper industry. (Compare it to something we already know.) The U.S. paper industry very large, and has years of experience in moving “biomass” – logs, chips, wastepaper bales, etc. Once again, comparing cellulosic ethanol biomass feedstock requirements to the ENTIRE U.S. pulp and paper idustry: “…approximately 200 million tons per year of feed stock are required to keep the ENTIRE U.S. pulp and paper industry running.” So if 1,000,000 TPY of biomass for ONE cellulosic ethanol plant displaces .04% of U.S gasoline comsumption, 200 million TPY would displace .04% x 200 = 8% of our annual gasoline consumption. AND this represents the construction of at least 200 cellulosic ethanol facilities as a “minor” detail. If anyone thinks that cellulosic ethanol is going to have a quick impact on our energy requirements they are kidding themselves. My point is to just think about building facilities and continually moving feedstocks on a scale that is 3-5 times the size of an existing industry (in order to meet the 30% replacement in the USDA/DOE “Billion Ton Annual Vision”) Wow!
Also, as a side note, I agree that 700 TPD facilities could hardly be considered “pilot” plant operations. A 700 TPD paper mill is considered quite large, but not huge. Certainly not a pilot plant.
Cheers,
Ray
Check out cattle-corn-ethanol plants, A large cattle herd is stationed near an ethanol plant. The cattle dung is collected and methane is produced from it. The methane runs the ethanol plants. The left over wet corn mash is fed to the cattle. Thes eplants are popping up in Iowa. The energy input is much lower than the energy gained. They are claiming 40-to-one, so say 20-to-one. I suspect pig-potato-ethanol plants would be even more productive.
If fossil oil stays above $60, look for ethanol in a big way.
What about methanol from woody waste or forestry? This has ahigh energy content , would require more engine conversion, but when there is less gasoline to mix in taking a bolder stpe might make sense.
Biogas from city food waste- creating methane to scrub and compress also sounds good too.
Cellulose is indeed not very energy dense, but what distances are we talking about when transporting them? Remember it is the ethanol, not the cellulose that will make the long trips to the gas depots and stations. Secondly, how many tons of cellulose can be produced in an acre? We have to make the assumption that plants will be built that will process cellulose from farms within a reasonable distance. Lastly, the beauty of ethanol is that it isn’t necessary to do it all overnight. Since it can be blended with gasoline, and since newer engines can easily adjust to the different blends, it isn’t critical that a complete changeover to ethanol be done in one shot.
On a technicality, even the smallest of these plants (700 t/d) cannot be described as “pilot scale”.
I guess it depends on exactly what kind of scale you are accustomed to thinking about. That works out to be a bit over 1,000 barrels per day. A 60,000 barrel a day oil refinery is considered to be very small, and most corn ethanol plants are 3-4 times the size of these cellulosic plants. So maybe “demonstration plant” would be a better descriptor.
Cheers, Robert
Cellulose is indeed not very energy dense, but what distances are we talking about when transporting them?
Actually, the article that I cited got into that:
A three-year study in Chase County indicates that an 80-million-gallon ethanol plant would require corn stover from 500,000 acres of corn within a 50-mile radius of the plant and 500 acres to store it after harvest.
“That will give you an idea of the logistical nightmare this thing is,” said Lex Thompson, one of the Chase County coordinators.
Cheers, RR
How do the storage requirements (500 acres) compare to the footprint of an equivalent-output oil refinery? 500 acres seems like alot, but refinery operations are BIG, are they not?
How do the storage requirements (500 acres) compare to the footprint of an equivalent-output oil refinery? 500 acres seems like alot, but refinery operations are BIG, are they not?
No, it isn’t the 500 acre part that is a concern. Many, if not most, oil refineries have a larger footprint than that. But remember, we are only talking about the size of the area to store the feedstock. That is almost 1 square mile.
It’s the 500,000 acre part that is the problem. That amounts to 781 square miles, or an area of 28 miles x 28 miles. Throw in some roads, houses, other infrastructure, and the footprint expands. As you reach the outer limits of the area, you are moving all of this tonnage farther and farther to the plant, and this takes an ever increasing amount of fossil fuel. This is the real logistics issue.
Cheers, Robert
I was at the American Chemical Society conference yesterday and there were several speaker on the subject of cellulosic (and other) ethanol production. They were very optimistic on the feasibility of cellulosic ethanol as a major fuel replacement source. One speaker proposed an integrated system with small scale plants located close to the farmers to minimize the transportation distance.
No, it isn’t the 500 acre part that is a concern. Many, if not most, oil refineries have a larger footprint than that.
But don’t most refineries produce more than 80 Mgal/year? Or is that production scale equivalent to a typical oil refinery?
It’s the 500,000 acre part that is the problem. That amounts to 781 square miles, or an area of 28 miles x 28 miles.
781 square miles is alot of space, but 28 miles really isn’t a very long distance to truck even a large quantity of bulky material. And, though you’ll have roads, you don’t have alot else in corn country, from what I’ve seen in aerial photos. It’s mostly contiguous field, with as few breaks as possible.
I can easily see how they will have problems getting the farmers to “harvest” the stover for only $35/ton, especially if it interferes with other harvesting operations. But just getting the stuff to the plant doesn’t really seem like such an unreasonable problem.
An issue will arise with the sheer number of truck/trips required, since you’re transporting such a low-density material. Perhaps onsite shredding and compression into bricks, to densify the material. Or smaller-scale, onsite (or portable?) production plants?
I don’t disagree with your basic thesis (that we’re fooling ourselves if we think that any form of ethanol will allow us to maintain our “easy motoring” lifestyle). I’m just trying to play the devil’s advocate here, and address arguments that may look more compelling at first glance than they actually are.
But don’t most refineries produce more than 80 Mgal/year?
Yes. Even a small oil refinery will produce 10 times that much fuel (on even a straight volume basis; not accounting for the energy differences).
But just getting the stuff to the plant doesn’t really seem like such an unreasonable problem.
Given that one of the factors considered to be critical for the success of a corn ethanol plant is that it is within 50 miles of the corn supply, and the yields from cellulosic ethanol are quite a bit lower than from corn ethanol, I think it is going to be a bigger problem than you think. Fossil fuels are being burned every step of the way to move the stover from the farm to the plant. Fossil fuels are going to be required to move the waste products – which will be significant – away from the plant. And maybe it’s something you see in Iowa, but I have never seen anything like a 28 x 28 mile farmed area.
I need to do this calculation: How much fossil fuel to move a ton of biomass per mile? I did this once for railing ethanol, but it’s something we need to know here to understand the depths of the logistical issue.
Cheers, Robert
I keep finding transport energy in terms of cost, but not energy usage. I know I have seen that figure before. This reference says:
Hauling distance is one of the key barriers for biomass commercialization as an
energy feedstock. Transportation costs depend on the distance between the production site and the power plant and the road conditions. Noon et al estimated that average cost of transporting switchgrass in Alabama is $8.00/dry tonne for hauling distance of 25 miles
[Noon et al, 1996].
Of course in 1996, gasoline was under $1/gal. I really need to find a reference on a BTU basis, and then we can understand if this really is a show-stopper.
Here is another reference in terms of cost to move the biomass: Life in a Grass House
On top of those costs, there will be transportation, which currently is about $0.25/ton per mile. How far will the switchgrass have to be transported? That’s a bit more involved. A reasonable sized bioreactor facility would be 10,000 bbl/d, as 200 such facilities in the US would produce about 15% of the daily gasoline usage. Such a facility would use roughly 2 million tons of biomass feedstock per year, which is the output of 250,000 acres at 8 tons/acre. That is an area of roughly 400 square miles, or about 20 miles on a side. Given that rural roads don’t run straight, that 20 miles is a fair figure for the average load to travel, leaving travel costs of $5/ton. So, we are talking something in the $60-70/ton range delivered to the bio-reactor. However, that is assuming 100% of the land around the bioreactor is switchgrass. If we instead only plant marginal land, the transportation distance would go up by a factor of 3 (due to the sparseness of the switchgrass fields) to $15/ton, leaving the total cost $70-80/ton. At 70 gallons of ethanol per ton of biomass, this suggests a minimum cost of $1/gallon ethanol simply to get the switchgrass to the facility. Yields less than 8 tons/acre will lead to proportionally higher costs.
If anyone has a good reference for BTUs per mile to move the stuff, let me know.
If anyone has a good reference for BTUs per mile to move the stuff, let me know.
Quite a bit would depend on the moisture and density and how it is “packaged”. You can get ~18 tonnes (20 ton) of hay on a 47′ flatdeck and expect no better than 5 mpg loaded and maybe 8 mpg empty return (USGAL).
Bailing and stacking on trucks probably wouldn’t be the best way to go. I would think cutting it loose like silage and then a compaction system on the trucks (like a garbage truck) would increase the density and be less handling (and strapping, etc).
Your 20 mile round trip would be 7-8 US gallons of diesel for 20 tons. The rest of the energy for equipment manufacture, road building, etc. is complicated to account for.
A question: From the chemistry point of view, isn’t there some way of pre-processing the biomass at source and moving a higher value energy product to the processing plant?
I was mucking around with this concept:
http://www.shpegs.org/energy_harvester.html
But I don’t know enough of the chemistry to carry the idea much farther.
OK, I finally found a good reference:
Freight Ton-Miles, Energy Consumption, and Energy Efficiency: 1992–2002
If I am reading that correctly, it takes 2020 BTUs (1/0.495)*1000 to move 1 ton 1 mile. I have seen a number of reference to this number. However, it is not clear if that is just per ton of freight, or the ton includes the weight of the truck. I think that must include the weight of the truck. The reason is that a gallon of gasoline has 120,000 BTUs, and this would suggest that you could move a ton of biomass 60 miles with a truck. Anyone know what a freight truck weighs? I have a reference here that says:
Average tare weight increased about 1,000 to 2,000 lbs., for trucks with 5-axles or more between 1987/1992 (e.g., 3-S2 Basic Enclosed Vans increased from 29,300 to 30,500 lbs.)
Average payload weight decreased, about 1,000 to 3,000 lbs., for trucks with 5-axles or more between 1987/1992 (e.g., 3-S2 Basic Enclosed Vans decreased from 37,500 to 36,200 lbs.)
So, 10-15 tons for a freight truck? If we can figure this out, we can put some numbers on this logistics problem. But I have worked on this enough tonight. I will pick it back up tomorrow.
Cheers, RR
There is a little bit on trucks here:
http://www.fev-now.com/index.php?page=trucks
http://www.fev-now.com/index.php?page=trucks
Is listing between 70-100 ton-mpg. My personal experience hauling grain and hay on the same type of from-the-field round trip came out to 100 ton-mpg for the loaded mile and the return trip puts it at about ~60 ton-mpg.
And maybe it’s something you see in Iowa, but I have never seen anything like a 28 x 28 mile farmed area.
Glance out the window next time you cross flyover country. This year Iowa will plant 65% of the entire state in corn and soybeans. It’s probably more like 90% near ethanol plant sites.
Rohar1’s numbers look pretty close to me. 7-8 gallons of diesel for 160 gallons of ethanol (20 tons biomass) is not a showstopper. As for distillation energy, Broin claims their new cellulosic plant in Emmettsburg, Iowa will use 83% less energy than a traditional plant.
Right now it’s all back of the envelope. We need real plants to get real data. That’s what the DOE program is for. I’m not against spending a days worth of Iraq occupation money to get closer to the truth with cellulosic.
–doggydogworld
You experts need to talk to a farmer, he can clear things up for you. Reading this blog it is apparent that not the first person understands anything, but how to turn on a computer and type.
Shame so much effort is wasted.
You experts need to talk to a farmer, he can clear things up for you. Reading this blog it is apparent that not the first person understands anything, but how to turn on a computer and type.
Shame so much effort is wasted.
In fact, I grew up on a farm, and my family still farms. I also graduated from an ag college. Was there something in particular that YOU needed to have cleared up? After all, I note that you didn’t offer a single rebuttal.
Cheers, RR
http://www.senternovem.nl/mmfiles/115827_tcm24-124332.pdf
Hi Robert,
the above is a very good PhD thesis, it consists of five papers dealing with:
1 Biomass Logistics
2 Methanol and Hydrogen from Biomass
3 and 4 Fischer Tropsch
5 Cellulosic ethanol
Together with this NREL report:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/34929.pdf
and the report by Wang mentioned in an earlier thread by doggydogworld
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/10/cellulosic-ethanol-vs-biomass.html
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/344.pdf
there’s a lot of information there to judge the relative merits of the different options for converting ligno-cellulosic biomass.
Incidentally, I’ve thought of an easy way to critique the concept of net energy as applied to ethanol:
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Let’s consider a few simple examples of conversion plants.
Process A takes 1 J of natural gas and 1 J of biomass and turns it into 1 J of ethanol.
Process B takes 2 J of natural gas and turns them into 1 J of ethanol.
Process C takes 2 J of biomass and turns them into 1 J of ethanol.
How do we calculate net energy here?
Usually, we’d look at the net energy of the inputs, say 10:1 for both natural gas and biomass, and then get 0.2 (2 J of natural gas or biomass divided by 10) J of inputs to 1 J of outputs and a net energy of 5:1.
That’s how it would usually be done for process B and process C.
For process A, it’s, however, customary to also count the natural gas input, we then get 0.2+1=1.2 as the input for net energy, and 1 as the output (or a ratio of 1/1.2 or 0.83).
But, aren’t processes A, B and C entirely equivalent to each other?
“So, 10-15 tons for a freight truck? If we can figure this out, we can put some numbers on this logistics problem. But I have worked on this enough tonight. I will pick it back up tomorrow. by RR”
Just my estimates:
Day Cab tractor with tandem axle – about 17,000 lbs.
Flatbed 48′ trailer tandem axle with 10’1” spacing – about 12,000 lbs.
Assuming 81,000 lb gross weight max, this leaves about 52,000 lbs for freight.
If you like, leave a little room for additional equipment and variations in weight, and you are looking at 24 tons for freight.
One current problem I see is for example using square bales with density approximately 10 lbs/ft^3, you can only fit about 18 tons of switchgrass on a 48′ trailer…short 6 tons of max…
Of course, higher densities may be possible, this is simply the highest one I have found for switchgrass.
Some other estimates from my research for a 50 million gallon a year facility using switchgrass:
about 39,000 trailer loads required per year.
an area of of approximately 1100 square miles would be required based on 5 ton per acre yield, and 20% of land in the area is used for switchgrass production.
A comment on chopping and compressing whether pelletizing or module building. Pelletizing can help increase density, but in my opinion it is not worth the cost. The equipment is not cheap or common (my opinion) and you only gain maybe 6 tons per load…plus you have energy costs to run the pelletizer. My numbers lead me to believe the payback period for the investment to be to long. Though, the larger the farm the more reasonable it could be….
Some are considering using cotton module builders, based on my estimates you are looking at almost twice as many loads required for the plant. This problem could be improved with higher densities or larger modules…