Biofuels, Solar and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems_Benefits and Risks Episode 1 Part 8 pdf

And in April 2007 ConocoPhillips, aftertesting their hydrocracking technology to make renewable diesel from rapeseed oil hy-in Whitegate, Ireland, announced a partnership with Tyson Food

very similar to petroleum diesel, and propane (Hodge 2006) The primary tages over first-generation biodiesel technology are: (1) The cold weather propertiesare superior; (2) The propane byproduct is preferable over glycerol byproduct; (3).The heating content is greater; (4) The cetane number is greater; and (5) Capitalcosts and operating costs are lower (Arena et al 2006).

advan-A number of companies have announced renewable diesel projects based on droprocessing technology In May 2007 Neste Oil Corporation in Finland inaugu-rated a plant that will produce 170,000 t/a of renewable diesel fuel from a mix ofvegetable oil and animal fat (Neste 2007) Italy’s Eni has announced plans for a fa-cility in Livorno, Italy that will hydrotreat vegetable oil for supplying European mar-kets Brazil’s Petrobras is currently producing renewable diesel via their patentedhydrocracking technology (NREL 2006) And in April 2007 ConocoPhillips, aftertesting their hydrocracking technology to make renewable diesel from rapeseed oil

hy-in Whitegate, Ireland, announced a partnership with Tyson Foods to convert wasteanimal fat into diesel (ConocoPhillips 2007)

Like biodiesel production, which normally utilizes fossil fuel-derived methanol,hydroprocessing requires fossil fuel-derived hydrogen.12 No definitive life cycleanalyses have been performed for diesel produced via hydroprocessing Therefore,the energy return and overall environmental impact have yet to be quantified

7.6.1.2 Biomass-to-Liquids

When an organic material is burned (e.g., natural gas, coal, biomass), it can becompletely oxidized (gasified) to carbon dioxide and water, or it can be partiallyoxidized to carbon monoxide and hydrogen The latter partial oxidation (POX), orgasification reaction, is accomplished by restricting the amount of oxygen duringthe combustion The resulting mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen is calledsynthesis gas (syngas) and can be used as the starting material for a wide variety oforganic compounds, including transportation fuels

Syngas may be used to produce long-chain hydrocarbons via the Fischer-Tropsch(FT) reaction The FT reaction, invented by German chemists Franz Fischer andHans Tropsch in the 1920s, was used by Germany during World War II to pro-duce synthetic fuels for their war effort The FT reaction has received a greatdeal of interest lately because of the potential for converting natural gas, coal, orbiomass into liquid transportation fuels These processes are respectively referred to

as gas-to-liquids (GTL), coal-to-liquids (CTL), and biomass-to-liquids (BTL), andthe resulting fuels are ‘synthetic fuels’ or ‘XTL fuels’ Of the XTL processes, BTLproduces the only renewable fuel, as it utilizes recently anthropogenic (atmospheric)carbon

Renewable diesel produced via BTL technology has one substantial advantageover biodiesel and hydrocracking technologies: Any source of biomass may beconverted via BTL Biodiesel and hydrocracking processes are limited to lipids

12 Hydrogen is produced almost exclusively from natural gas.

This restricts their application to a feedstock that is very small in the context of theworld’s available biomass BTL is the only renewable diesel technology with thepotential for converting a wide range of waste biomass.

Like GTL and CTL, development of BTL is presently hampered by high ital costs According to the Energy Information Administration’s Annual EnergyOutlook 2006, capital costs per daily barrel of production are $15,000–20,000for a petroleum refinery, $20,000–$30,000 for an ethanol plant, $30,000 for GTL,

cap-$60,000 for CTL, and $120,000–$140,000 for BTL (EIA 2006)

While a great deal of research, development, and commercial experience hasgone into FT technology in recent years,13biomass gasification technology is a rel-atively young field, which may partially explain the high capital costs Nevertheless,the technology is progressing Germany’s Choren is building a plant in Freiberg,Germany to produce 15,000 tons/yr of their SunDiesel product starting in 2008(Ledford 2006)

7.7 Feed Stocks

While renewable diesel may be produced from a wide variety of feed stocks, thissection will focus on those that are either in widespread use, or are frequently dis-cussed as feed stocks with very high potential for producing biofuels Feed stocksfor the BTL process will not be discussed, as any biomass source can be used for thisprocess The following feed stocks are specific to the lipid conversion technologiesdiscussed in this chapter

7.7.1 Soybeans

The United States is the world’s largest producer of soybean oil (Sheehan 1998),producing approximately 10 million metric tons in 2006 (USDA June 2007) World-wide production of soybean oil is 35 million metric tons (Rupilius and Ahmad 2007).Soybean oil is typically produced by cracking the soybeans and extracting the oilwith a solvent such as hexane Finished soybean oil is widely used as cooking oil,

in various processed foods, and for the production of biodiesel

Relative to other oil crops, productivity of oil from soybeans is low Soybeanyields in 2006 in the U.S amounted to 2871 kg/ha (USDA January 2007) At atypical soybean oil yield of 18%, this would have produced an average oil yield of0.52 tons/ha The average yield in Brazil, another major producer of soybean oil,

13 Companies actively involved in developing Fischer-Tropsch technology include Shell, operating

a GTL facility in Bintulu, Malaysia since 1993; Sasol, with CTL and GTL experience in South Africa; and ConocoPhillips and Syntroleum, both with GTL demonstration plants in Oklahoma.

has been reported at 0.40 tons/ha.14These oil yields are far below reported yields ofother oil crops such as rapeseed, palm oil, or coconut.

While the oil yields are low, soybean oil does have an advantage over manybio-oil crops Soybeans are capable of atmospheric nitrogen fixation, so they can begrown with little or no nitrogen fertilizer inputs (Pimentel and Patzek 2005) Be-cause nitrogen-based fertilizers are energy intensive to produce, the energy balancefor the agricultural step should be much more favorable than for crops requiringnitrogen fertilizer This also means that soybeans will contribute less water pollution

in the way of fertilizer runoff into waterways

The expansion of soybean cultivation is not without controversy In Brazil, criticshave charged that soybean cultivation is a major driver of deforestation in Amazo-nia, resulting in multiple negative impacts on biodiversity (Fearnside 2001) Someresearchers also argue that the potential for drought is increasing due to the in-creased reflectivity of the cleared land (Costa et al 2007) In the United States, use

of genetically-modified soybeans is common This has resulted in criticism fromvarious countries and environmental groups opposed to the practice

7.7.2 Rapeseed

Whereas biodiesel in the U.S is produced primarily from soybean oil, rapeseed oil,also sometimes called canola,15 is the feedstock of choice for European biodiesel(Thuijl et al 2003) Like soybean oil, rapeseed oil is edible Rapeseed oil yields areabout 1 ton/ha – double those of soybean oil Rapeseed is produced mainly in China,Canada, the Indian subcontinent, and Northern Europe (Downey 1990) Rapeseedoil was the first vegetable oil used for transesterification to biodiesel, and remainsthe most widely-utilized vegetable oil in the production of biodiesel (Puppan 2002).The most common biodiesel produced from rapeseed oil is called Rapeseed-Methyl-Ester, or RME RME has a slightly higher energy density than most biodiesels, andproduces lower NOx and CO emissions than biodiesel produced from soybean oil(EPA 2002)

The primary disadvantage of rapeseed relative to some oil crops is that it has highnitrogen fertilizer requirements Some life cycle analyses have shown a relativelysmall environmental benefit from RME relative to petroleum diesel, and a higherenergy input than soybean oil, primarily because of the fertilizer requirements(De Nocker et al 1998, Zemanek and Reinhardt 1999)

14 Unlike the U.S., Brazil does not utilize genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the tion of soybeans (Mattsson et al 2000).

produc-15 Rapeseed oil with less than 2% erucic acid content is trademarked as canola by the Canadian Canola Association.

7.7.3 Palm Oil

Palm oil is an edible oil extracted from the fruit of the African Oil Palm In 2006,worldwide palm oil production surpassed soybean oil to become the most widelyproduced vegetable oil in the world In 2006, palm oil production was 37 milliontons and accounted for just over 25% of all biological oil production (Rupilius andAhmad 2007) This is a substantial oil yield relative to other lipid crops For perspec-tive, total distillate usage (diesel and fuel oil) in the United States was approximately208.5 million tons16in 2006 (EIA 2007)

By far the most productive lipid crop, palm oil is the preferred oil crop in tropicalregions The yields of up to five tons of palm oil per hectare can be ten times theper hectare yield of soybean oil (Mattson et al 2000) Palm oil is a major source

of revenue in countries like Malaysia, where earnings from palm oil exports exceedearnings from petroleum products (Kalam and Masjuki 2002)

Palm oil presents an excellent case illustrating both the promise and the peril ofbiofuels Driven by demand from the U.S and the European Union (EU) due to man-dated biofuel requirements, palm oil has provided a valuable cash crop for farmers

in tropical regions like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand The high productivity

of palm oil has led to a dramatic expansion in most tropical countries around theequator (Rupilius and Ahmad 2007) This has the potential for alleviating poverty

in these regions

But in certain locations, expansion of palm oil cultivation has resulted in seriousenvironmental damage as rain forest has been cleared to make room for new palmoil plantations Deforestation in some countries has been severe, which negativelyimpacts sustainability criteria, because these tropical forests absorb carbon diox-ide and help mitigate global warming (Schmidt 2007) Destruction of peat land inIndonesia for palm oil plantations has reportedly caused the country to become theworld’s third highest emitter of greenhouse gases (Silvius et al 2006)

As a result of the potential environmental dangers posed by the expansion ofbiofuels, the Dutch government is developing sustainability criteria for biomass thatwill be incorporated into relevant policy decisions (Cramer 2006) The intention isemploy life cycle analyses (LCAs) to measure the overall impact from using variousbiomass sources For instance, if the developed world mandates large amounts ofbiofuels, but this come at the price of massive deforestation of tropical rainforests,the LCA will attempt to incorporate those negatives into the overall assessment.The categories that the Dutch group intends to evaluate are (1) Greenhouse gasbalance; (2) Competition with food, local energy supply, medicines and buildingmaterials; (3) Biodiversity; (4) Economic prosperity; (5) Social well-being; and(6) Environment

In addition to the Dutch initiative, some other countries are evaluating thesustainability of biofuels (Rollefson et al 2004) Yet such efforts may be ulti-mately futile unless a binding, worldwide agreement can be implemented While

16 See Calculation 3.

slash-and-burn growers may find that the Dutch will not buy their products, theymay easily find other buyers for their product in the global marketplace.

7.7.4 Jatropha

Jatropha curcas is a non-edible shrub native to tropical America, but now found

throughout tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia (Augustus et al 2002).Jatropha is well-suited for growing in arid conditions, has low moisture require-ments (Sirisomboon et al 2007), and may be used to reclaim marginal, desert, ordegraded land (Wood 2005) The oil content of the seeds ranges from 30% to 50%,and the unmodified oil has been shown to perform adequately as a 50/50 blend withpetroleum diesel (Pramanik 2003) However, as is the case with other bio-oils, theviscosity of the unmodified oil is much higher than for petroleum diesel The heatingvalue and cetane number for jatropha oil are also lower than for petroleum diesel.This means it is preferable to process the raw oil into biodiesel or green diesel.Jatropha appears to have several advantages as a renewable diesel feedstock Be-cause it is both non-edible and can be grown on marginal lands, it is potentially asustainable biofuel that will not compete with food crops This is not the case withbiofuels derived from soybeans, rapeseed, or palm

Jatropha seed yields can vary over a very large range – from 0.5 tons per hectareunder arid conditions to 12 tons per hectare under optimum conditions (Francis

et al 2005) However, if marginal land is to be used, then yields in the lower rangewill probably by typical Makkar et al determined that the kernel represents 61.3%

of the seed weight, and that the lipid concentration represented 53.0% of the kernelweight (Makkar et al 1997) Therefore, one might conservatively estimate that theaverage oil yield per hectare of jatropha on marginal, non-irrigated land may be 0.5tons times 61.3% times 53.0%, or 0.162 tons of oil per hectare Jatropha oil containsabout 90% of the energy density of petroleum diesel, so the energy equivalent yield

is reduced by an additional 10% to 0.146 tons per hectare While this is substantiallyless than the oil production of soybeans, rapeseed, or palm oil, the potential forproduction on marginal land may give jatropha a distinct advantage over the higher-producing oil crops

A commercial venture was announced in June 2007 between BP and D1 Oils

to develop jatropha biodiesel (BP 2007) The companies announced that they willinvest $160 million with the stated intent of becoming the largest jatropha biodieselproducer in the world The venture intends to produce volumes of up to 2 milliontons of biodiesel per year

Jatropha has one significant downside Jatropha seeds and leaves are toxic tohumans and livestock This led the Australian government to ban the plant in 2006

It was declared an invasive species, and ‘too risky for Western Australian agricultureand the environment here’ (DAFWA 2006)

While jatropha has intriguing potential, a number of research challenges remain.Because of the toxicity issues, the potential for detoxification should be studied(Heller 1996) Furthermore, a systematic study of the factors influencing oil yields

should be undertaken, because higher yields are probably needed before jatrophacan contribute significantly to world distillate supplies.17 Finally, it may be worth-while to study the potential for jatropha varieties that thrive in more temperate cli-mates, as jatropha is presently limited to tropical climates.

7.7.5 Algae

Certain species of algae are capable of producing lipids, which can be pressed outand then converted to renewable diesel Algae-based renewable diesel is an appeal-ing prospect, as this could potentially open up biofuel production to areas unsuitablefor farming Furthermore, the estimates of the oil production potential from algaehave been as high as 160 tons/ha – 30 times that of palm oil

From 1978 to 1996, the U.S Department of Energy funded a study by theNational Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on the feasibility of producingrenewable fuels from algae (Sheehan et al 1998) The study examined a number

of strains of algae for potential lipid production, as well as those that could growunder conditions of extreme temperature, pH, and salinity Researchers examinedthe molecular biology and genetics of algae, and identified important metabolicpathways for the production of lipids

While the production of biofuels from a raw material like algae has obvious peal, the NREL close-out report concluded that there are many technical challenges

ap-to be overcome A major challenge was encountered in the attempts ap-to increase oilyields Oil concentrations could be increased by stressing the algae and causing it

to shift from a growth mode into a lipid production mode, but this resulted in loweroverall oil yields because algal growth slowed The researchers also discovered thatcontamination was often a problem upon moving from the laboratory into open pondsystems

The close-out report suggested that algae could potentially supply the lent of a large fraction of U.S demand, but costs must come down, and technicalchallenges must be solved On the subject of costs, the report noted ‘Even withaggressive assumptions about biological productivity, we project costs for biodieselwhich are two times higher than current petroleum diesel fuel costs.’ Furthermore,because of lack of data on continuous lipid production from algae, the energy return

equiva-on the process is unknown

7.7.6 Animal Fats

Total production of animal fats in the U.S was approximately 4.5 million tons in

2006 (U.S Census Bureau 2007) This is just under half the mass of soybean oil

17 See Calculation 4.

produced each year in the U.S It is also the energy equivalent of around 1.5 days ofU.S petroleum demand.

Animal fats contain fewer double bonds than do most vegetable oils son 1986) This has an influence on the properties of the renewable diesel product.For example, biodiesel properties have been shown to vary depending on whetherthe biodiesel was produced from animal or plant lipids In 2002, the EPA com-pared plant-based biodiesels derived from soybean, rapeseed, and canola oils, toanimal-based biodiesels derived from tallow, grease, and lard (EPA 2002) The studyfound that animal-based biodiesels had a slightly lower energy density, but highercetane numbers than plant-based biodiesels The study also found that animal-basedbiodiesel produced substantially fewer NOx and particulate matter emissions.Animal fats also respond differently to the hydrotreating process than do veg-etable oils Animal fats are more amenable to the hydrotreating process becausedouble bonds are saturated in the hydrotreating process Feed stocks like animal fats,with fewer double bonds than vegetable oils, will require less hydrogen to convertthe oil to green diesel

(Peter-While animal fats are a byproduct of meat processing, there are significant vironmental costs associated with industrial animal agriculture The production ofmeat is a highly inefficient process The production of beef requires relatively largeinputs of water, grain, forage, and fossil fuels Production of 1 kilocalorie of beefprotein requires a fossil fuel input of 40 kilocalories (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003).This suggests that animal-based biofuels may be legitimately considered recycledfossil fuels

en-7.7.7 Waste Biomass

North America and Western Europe combine to produce an estimated 500 milliontons of municipal waste (UNEP 2004a) The main contributors to municipal wastethroughout the developed world are organic materials such as food waste, grass clip-pings, waste cooking oils, and paper (UNEP 2004b) Waste biomass that is presentlydestined for landfills has great appeal as a feedstock for biofuels production, as it is

an available biomass source that does not compete with food Of this waste biomass,the BTL process can potentially convert any of it to liquid fuels The lipid conversiontechnologies are however limited to the waste cooking oil fraction

Waste cooking oils can either be converted to biodiesel via transesterification, or

to green diesel via hydrotreating For the hobbyist, the waste oil feedstock can often

be acquired from restaurants at little or no cost The conversion to biodiesel may becarried out without expending a great deal of capital, meaning that biodiesel can beproduced from waste cooking oil at a very low cost

Businesses are beginning to realize the opportunity in recycling waste cookingoil into transportation fuel In July 2007, McDonald’s UK restaurants announcedtheir intention to run their delivery fleet on the waste cooking oil generated by 900

of their restaurants (McDonald’s 2007) A program under way in New York City is

on pace to recycle 450 tons of used cooking oil to biodiesel in 2007 (RWA 2007)

7.8 Conclusions

Biofuels can contribute to our energy portfolio, and many different options are able But some options pose high environmental risks, some compete with food, andsome are far more sustainable than others Each option should be carefully weighedagainst the overall impact on the environment and society as a whole Sustainableenergy solutions must be pursued, and rigorous life cycle analyses should be under-taken for all of our energy choices

avail-We live in a world with limited resources, and a declining endowment of fossilfuel reserves Much of the world aspires to a higher standard of living The energypolicies that we pursue should attempt to balance the needs of all citizens, world-wide These policies must carefully consider the ecology of the planet, so futuregenerations are not denied opportunities because of the choices we make today

7.9 Conversion Factors and Calculations

While SI units are used in this chapter, Imperial/UK units are commonly used

in the UK and in the U.S Therefore, a number of common conversion factorsare listed here which should enable to reader to convert between SI and Impe-rial units A number of measures in the text have been converted from Imperialunits, but the conversion factors listed should enable the reader to reproduce allfigures

Also, because different assumptions of physical properties (density, energy tent, etc.) will lead to slightly different results, certain assumptions and calculationsused in this chapter are provided in this section

con-7.9.1 Conversion Factors

1 barrel of oil= 42 gallons = 158.984 liters = 0.137 metric tons

1 barrel of oil= 5.8 million BTUs of energy = 6.1 gigajoules (GJ)

1.0 hectare= 10,000 m2= 2.47 acres

The specific gravity of crude oil is 0.88

The specific gravity of diesel oils is 0.84

The specific gravity of biodiesel is 0.88

The specific gravity of ethanol is 0.79

Lower Heating Values

The lower heating value (LHV) is the heat released by combusting a substancewithout recovering the heat lost from vaporized water The LHV is a more accuraterepresentation of actual heat utilized during combustion, as vaporized water is rarelyrecovered

The LHV for crude oil is 138,100 Btu/gallon= 38.5 MJ/liter = 45.3 GJ/tThe LHV for distillates is 130,500 Btu/gallon= 36.4 MJ/liter = 42.8 GJ/tThe LHV for biodiesel is 117,000 Btu/gallon= 32.6 MJ/liter = 37.8 GJ/tThe LHV for ethanol is 75,700 Btu/gallon= 21.1 MJ/liter = 26.7 GJ/t

7.9.2 Calculations

In this section, several of the calculations referenced in the text are reproduced.Calculation 1: Current oil usage in the United States is approximately 21 millionbarrels per day The energy value of 1 barrel of oil is approximately 5.8 millionBTUs Ethanol production of 7 billion barrels per year is equivalent to 457,000barrels per day This is 2.2% of daily oil usage on a volumetric basis, but ethanolhas approximately 76,000 BTUs/bbl, versus 138,000 BTUs/bbl for oil Therefore,

7 billion gallons of ethanol per year is worth 1.2% of U.S daily oil consumption.Backing out the energy inputs required to produce the ethanol (fossil fuels for trac-tors, trucking, fertilizer, pesticides, etc.) drops the net offset to well less than 1% ofU.S daily oil consumption

Calculation 2: If the energy input is 0.382, then the net energy is (1-0.382)∗ 3.3billion tons of rapeseed oil The balance of 1.26 billion tons would be equivalent tothe energy required to produce, process, and distribute the final product

Calculation 3: In the United States, distillate demand in 2006 was 4.17 millionbarrels per day One barrel of oil is equivalent to 0.137 metric tons; therefore distil-late demand in 2006 was 0.57 tons per day, or 208.5 tons per year

Calculation 4: Consider the potential for displacing 10% of the world’s distillatedemand of 1.1 billion tons per year – 110 million tons - with jatropha oil Jatropha,with about 10% less energy than petroleum distillates, will require 122 million tons(110 million/0.9) on a gross replacement basis (i.e., not considering energy inputs)

On marginal, un-irrigated land the yields will likely be at the bottom of the range ofobserved yields At a yield of 0.146 tons per hectare, this would require 836 millionhectares, which is greater than the 700 million hectares currently occupied by per-manent crops An estimated 2 billion acres is considered to be degraded and perhapssuitable for jatropha cultivation (Oldeman et al 1991) There are also an estimated1.66 billion hectares in Africa that are deemed suitable for jatropha production(Parsons 2005) This could provide a valuable cash crop for African farmers But,until an estimate is made of the energy inputs required to process and distribute thejatropha-derived fuel on a widespread basis – especially on marginal land – the realpotential for adding to the world’s net distillate supply is unknown

Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the patience and support displayed by my family

as I completed this chapter I also want to acknowledge the helpful suggestions submitted by ers of The Oil Drum and my blog, R-Squared, regarding specific renewable diesel topics they wanted to see covered A special thanks goes to David Henson and Ilya Martinalbo from Choren Industries, who provided very useful input on BTL technology Finally, I would like to thank Professor Pimentel for the opportunity to make this contribution.

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