<div>Donovan, Jim et. al.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Cellulosic biofuel, as Jim points out (I was amazed to hear former Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan on C-Span lecturing members of the US Congress on cellulosic biofuels!), can be produced from forest industry waste (timber slash), or from fast growing trees (like Chris's example from Alaska), or from straw, the primary biomass for a proposed cellulosic biofuel plant Iogen is going to build in Southern Idaho. Several advantages of cellulosic biofuels is that they do not require using food crops, nor petroleum sourced fertilizers, as Jim mentioned. The biomass can be grown on land not suitable for food crops.
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<div>I was unaware that, according to Jim, there is a kind of biofuel that can run in existing gasoline engines with no modifications. Of course many of us already use a small percentage of biofuel (ethanol) mixed with the gas we use.
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<div>Most of the biofuel produced in the USA at this point in time is corn based ethanol, not the most efficient biomass for biofuels, produced using a lot of upstream fossil fuel, with government subsides, so this model is not going to solve the fossil fuel depletion/global warming problem, given the experts testimony that I have read on this subject.
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<div>Brazil already has a large percentage of their vehicles running on biofuel from sugar cane, so this is perhaps a good laboratory to study the realistic applications of biofuels in the long term.</div>
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<div>Donovan is correct, I think, to point out the ecological and food production impacts of massive biofuel production. The fuel would have to be sourced from sustainable biomass sources, that avoid turning food land over to biofuel land, and not destroy important ecosystems. These are some of the conditions that make biofuels problematic as a dominant solution, along with the efficiency problems of biofuel production.
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<div>But in an area such as the Palouse, with our limited (for now) population, and the forest and agricultural biomass potential in our area (straw, not food crops, for example), a biofuels plant might supply significant amounts of economcally and ecologically self sustaining CO2 neutral fuel. Maybe not enough for all vehicles in Moscow and Pullman, but enough to make a difference.
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<div>If Iogen ever gets that cellulosic plant going in Southern Idaho, this will reveal more about cellulosic biofuel as a realistic alternative.</div>
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<div>Donovan, the catch in your response on raising taxes on gasoline is "at a future date." If we wait till fossil fuel depletion and market forces push gas prices up up and away, we won't need to raise the gas tax to promote alternative fuels or energy sources. The question is, what can be done now to address these problems? Any politician advocating 5-10 dollar a gallon gas, due to a massive gas tax, would face massive opposition. I'm not saying raising gas taxes is not a good idea as a solution to encouraging alternative fuels and energy sources, but that given political realities, what are the chances to pass such a tax?
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<div>Even significantly raising the CAFE MPG standards, which should have been done a decade or more ago, has faced massive opposition. </div>
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>
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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/2/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Donovan Arnold</b> <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com" target="_blank">donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com
</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div>Ted and Jim,<br><br>The problem with switching to a plant or grown substance from gasoline is that change also impacts the environment because of the volume or whatever it is that you are growing. A billion new (insert plant here) is going to change the ecological system of the region. Also, if it replaces one crop, like say wheat, it messes with the wheat production which impacts world grain prices and could led to some nations not getting enough food, or a giant famine in some poorer parts of the world.
<br><br>I think that whatever we switch to needs to be sustainable, preferably produced entirely, or mostly, here in the United States, or a friendly nation, not one that wishes us harm. <br><br>Ted, I don't think fixing the price of gasoline at a future date in time is politically unachievable. $7.50 a gallon is likely to be the price of gas anyways by the year 2012. But setting a price now adds predictability to the market and that will encourage companies to put capital into creating alternative fuel sources. If investors know that they can beat gasoline at $7.50 a gallon, then they know they have a marketable product. As it sits now, they don't know if gasoline will be $1 or $100 in 2012. So they are less likely to invest in researching and developing an alternative to fossil fuels.
<br><br>Best,<br><br>_DJA</div>
<div><span><br><br><br><br><b><i>Jim Meyer <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:m1e2y3e4@moscow.com" target="_blank">m1e2y3e4@moscow.com</a>></i></b> wrote:</span></div>
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<div><span>Ted and all,<br>Cellulosic alcohol is great idea. Alan Greenspan thinks it is a good <br>idea. I hadn't really known it had come of age before hearing Mr. <br>Greenspan talking about it. The big idea with cellulosic alcohol is that
<br>it can be produced from plants that require very little oil based <br>fertilizer input. As I recall, and I might be wrong, corn requires about <br>300 pounds of nitrogen/acre. Even with the best legume crop rotation you
<br>could never produce corn without external fertilizer. Cellulose on the <br>hand, can grow without external nitrogen sources. Furthermore, we do <br>have plenty of timber slash and marginal lands that can grow sturdy, low
<br>input cellulosic crops. So I second your suggestion even to the point of <br>wanting to start my own plant, if that were even remotely possible. <br>Secondly, I would produce cellulosic butanol, not ethanol. See <br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.butanol.com/" target="_blank">
http://www.butanol.com/</a>. Supposedly it can replace gasoline directly <br>without any engine modifications. What could be better? Currently, if <br>you want to run an E85 vehicle, either you have to buy a vehicle so <br>
designed or you have to do considerable retrofitting. Without the <br>necessity of retrofiting, butanol appears to have it all over ethanol, <br>not to mention generally better fuel characteristics than ethanol.<br><br>Jim Meyer
<br><br>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>><br>> Message: 1<br>> Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:00:14 -0700<br>> From: "Ted Moffett" <br></span></div>
<div><span>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Inconvenient Truth -- What WE REALLY HAVE TO<br>> DO: " Apollo Project"<br></span></div>
<div>> To: "Chris Storhok" , "Vision 2020"<br>> <br>> Message-ID:</div>
<div><span><br>> <br>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<br>><br>> Chris et. al.<br>><br>> Yes, that was Donovan's idea about high gas taxes, and of course many think <br>> gas taxes should be raised, though some call it a "carbon tax" that could be
<br>> used to develop the infrastructure and technology to transition away from<br>> fossil fuels. It's hard to see how addressing fossil fuel depletion and <br>> global warming can be economically pain free... However, raising gas taxes a
<br>> lot is almost politically impossible.<br>><br>> Thanks for the detailed info on the biofuels project you are working on. I <br>> agree there is good evidence that biofuels can be practical and efficient<br>
> enough in some applications, as your discussion of the biofuels projects in<br>> Alaska indicate. Wait for the final implementation, though. As they say, <br>> the devil is in the details. Brazil, it appears, has a self supporting
<br>> biofuels program based on sugar cane, much better than corn for biofuels,<br>> that supplies a lot of their fuel. From the analyses I have read, however, <br>> biofuels are not a dominant solution to supplying the USA, not to mention
<br>> India and China, with the fuel we/they need, given current and expected<br>> future consumption levels, at least not with internal combustion engines. <br>><br>> I would like to hear more about this wood based biofuels program in Alaska.
<br>> It must be based on what is called "cellulosic" biofuels. I posted to<br>> Vision2020 the suggestion that the Moscow/Pullman area could have its own <br>> biofuels plant to produce fuel locally from the forest/agriculture biomass
<br>> resources available in our greater area. I did not get a single response to<br>> this suggestion, but what the heck, it's only Vision2020. <br>><br>> I don't think Vision2020 readers should need a "Warning" about your
<br>> discussion of the biofuels projects in Alaska being boring. The same ideas<br>> might be applied here for affordable renewable biofuels at a local biofuels <br>> plant... If that's boring, I suppose Vision2020 readers will find 10 dollar
<br>> a gallon fossil fuel gas to be very exciting!<br>><br>> Ted Moffett<br>> -------------- next part --------------<br>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... <br>> URL: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20060831/9182d490/attachment-0001.htm" target="_blank">
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