Re: [Biofuel] A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel
Hey Jerry Perkins and All, That is a really lame attempt to frame the issue for your lobby. I could care less if coal is renewable or not. (and yes, I´m aware that the U.S. sits on 500 years worth of the stuff) The problems with coal are the polluting sulfur, poisonousmercury and glacier melting carbon dioxide it will produce when burned. You can forget about the small environmental damages like open pit mining, acid mine drainage, and mine worker health and safety. No one will much care about those when the foot of the Appalachian mountains is ocean front property. Tom Irwin From: Rexis Tree [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSent: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:28:43 -0300Subject: Re: [Biofuel] A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuelhttp://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060205/BUSINESS04/602050315/1033 Ethanol plant counts on coal for power The change will cost less than natural gas, but some complain that coal isn't renewable.JERRY PERKINSREGISTER FARM EDITOR___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33969/ A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel By Mark Clayton, Christian Science Monitor. Posted March 25, 2006. An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol. So just how green can it be? Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future. There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol -- the first US plant of its kind to use coal instead of cleaner natural gas. An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired ethanol plant is under construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other such refineries are being built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. The trend, which is expected to continue, has left even some ethanol boosters scratching their heads. Should coal become a standard for 30 to 40 ethanol plants under construction -- and 150 others on the drawing boards -- it would undermine the environmental reasoning for switching to ethanol in the first place, environmentalists say. If the biofuels industry is going to depend on coal, and these conversion plants release their CO2 to the air, it could undo the global warming benefits of using ethanol, says David Hawkins, climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. The reason for the shift is purely economic. Natural gas has long been the ethanol industry's fuel of choice. But with natural gas prices soaring, talk of coal power for new ethanol plants and retrofitting existing refineries for coal is growing, observers say. It just made great economic sense to use coal, says Brad Davis, general manager of the Gold-Eagle Cooperative that manages the Corn LP plant, which is farmer and investor owned. Clean coal technology, he adds, helps the Goldfield refinery easily meet pollution limits -- and coal power saves millions in fuel costs. Yet even the nearly clear vapor from the refinery contains as much as double the carbon emissions of a refinery using natural gas, climate experts say. So if coal-fired ethanol catches on, is it still the clean, renewable fuel the state's favorite son, Sen. Tom Harkin likes to call it? Such questions arrive amid boom times for America's ethanol industry. With 97 ethanol refineries pumping out some 4 billion gallons of ethanol, the industry expects to double over the next six years by adding another 4.4 billion gallons of capacity per year. Tax breaks as well as concerns about energy security, the environment, and higher gasoline prices are all driving ethanol forward. The Goldfield refinery, and the other four coal-fired ethanol plants under construction are called dry mill operations, because of the process they use. The industry has in the past used coal in a few much larger wet mill operations that produce ethanol and a raft of other products. But dry mills are the wave of the future, industry experts say. It's their shift to coal that's causing the concern. More plants slated for Midwest, West Scores of these new ethanol refineries are expected to be built across the Midwest and West by the end of the decade, and many could soon be burning coal in some form to turn corn into ethanol, industry analysts say. It's very likely that coal will be the fuel of choice for most of these new ethanol plants, says Robert McIlvaine, president of a Northfield, Ill., information services company that has compiled a database of nearly 200 ethanol plants now under construction or in planning and development. If all 190 plants on Mr. McIlvaine's list were built and used coal, motorists would not reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions, according to an in-depth analysis of the subject to date by scientists at University of California at Berkeley, published in Science magazine in January. Of course, many coal-fired ethanol plants on the drawing board will not be built, Mr. McIlvaine says. Others in planning for years may still choose natural gas as fuel to meet air pollution requirements in some states. Other variations on ethanol-coal are emerging in Goodland, Kan., and Underwood, N.D., where ethanol plants are being built next to coal-burning power plants to use waste heat. Efficient, but still coal. That could spell trouble for ethanol's renewable image. If your goal is to reduce costs, then coal is a good idea, says Robert Brown, director of Iowa State University's office of biorenewables. If the goal is a renewable fuel, coal is a bad idea. When greenhouse-gas emissions go up, environmentalists take note. Then you've got a problem. Ethanol industry officials say coal-power is just one possibility the industry is pursuing. I think some in the environmental community won't be all that warm and fuzzy about [coal-fired ethanol], says Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, the national trade
Re: [Biofuel] A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel
I am not surprised at all, that coal is going to be a preferred choice for ethanol distillation. It is a very logical choice for US sustainability, but maybe not for the environment sustainability. The reasons are, 1. US have around a third of the worlds coal reserves. 2. US is running out of Natural Gas, wether it is from US, Canada or Mexico. 3. US have little resources of NG ships or terminals. 4. It is probably the easiest process to liquidize the coal reserves. 5. Using oil to distill ethanol is not efficient nor sustainable. The interest of using ethanol is probably not based on environmental aspects, but rather to lessen the oil dependence. To use the supporters of ethanol as clean fuel, is rater a marketing byproduct than a goal. Maybe you could call this ethanol, distilled with coal, dirty ethanol. It will however lessen the oil dependence, based on an abundant domestic energy resource. Hakan At 11:07 27/03/2006, you wrote: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33969/ A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel By Mark Clayton, Christian Science Monitor. Posted March 25, 2006. An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol. So just how green can it be? Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future. There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol -- the first US plant of its kind to use coal instead of cleaner natural gas. An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired ethanol plant is under construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other such refineries are being built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. The trend, which is expected to continue, has left even some ethanol boosters scratching their heads. Should coal become a standard for 30 to 40 ethanol plants under construction -- and 150 others on the drawing boards -- it would undermine the environmental reasoning for switching to ethanol in the first place, environmentalists say. If the biofuels industry is going to depend on coal, and these conversion plants release their CO2 to the air, it could undo the global warming benefits of using ethanol, says David Hawkins, climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. The reason for the shift is purely economic. Natural gas has long been the ethanol industry's fuel of choice. But with natural gas prices soaring, talk of coal power for new ethanol plants and retrofitting existing refineries for coal is growing, observers say. It just made great economic sense to use coal, says Brad Davis, general manager of the Gold-Eagle Cooperative that manages the Corn LP plant, which is farmer and investor owned. Clean coal technology, he adds, helps the Goldfield refinery easily meet pollution limits -- and coal power saves millions in fuel costs. Yet even the nearly clear vapor from the refinery contains as much as double the carbon emissions of a refinery using natural gas, climate experts say. So if coal-fired ethanol catches on, is it still the clean, renewable fuel the state's favorite son, Sen. Tom Harkin likes to call it? Such questions arrive amid boom times for America's ethanol industry. With 97 ethanol refineries pumping out some 4 billion gallons of ethanol, the industry expects to double over the next six years by adding another 4.4 billion gallons of capacity per year. Tax breaks as well as concerns about energy security, the environment, and higher gasoline prices are all driving ethanol forward. The Goldfield refinery, and the other four coal-fired ethanol plants under construction are called dry mill operations, because of the process they use. The industry has in the past used coal in a few much larger wet mill operations that produce ethanol and a raft of other products. But dry mills are the wave of the future, industry experts say. It's their shift to coal that's causing the concern. More plants slated for Midwest, West Scores of these new ethanol refineries are expected to be built across the Midwest and West by the end of the decade, and many could soon be burning coal in some form to turn corn into ethanol, industry analysts say. It's very likely that coal will be the fuel of choice for most of these new ethanol plants, says Robert McIlvaine, president of a Northfield, Ill., information services company that has compiled a database of nearly 200 ethanol plants now under construction or in planning and development. If all 190 plants on Mr. McIlvaine's list were built and used coal, motorists would not reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions, according to an in-depth analysis of the subject to date by scientists at University of California at Berkeley, published in Science magazine in January. Of course, many coal-fired ethanol plants on the drawing board will not be built, Mr. McIlvaine says. Others in planning for years may still choose
Re: [Biofuel] A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel
Just one question on the environmental sustainability of these plants. How much ethanol do they produce for your 300 tonnes of coal? Bob - Original Message - From: Hakan Falk [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 11:31 AM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel I am not surprised at all, that coal is going to be a preferred choice for ethanol distillation. It is a very logical choice for US sustainability, but maybe not for the environment sustainability. The reasons are, 1. US have around a third of the worlds coal reserves. 2. US is running out of Natural Gas, wether it is from US, Canada or Mexico. 3. US have little resources of NG ships or terminals. 4. It is probably the easiest process to liquidize the coal reserves. 5. Using oil to distill ethanol is not efficient nor sustainable. The interest of using ethanol is probably not based on environmental aspects, but rather to lessen the oil dependence. To use the supporters of ethanol as clean fuel, is rater a marketing byproduct than a goal. Maybe you could call this ethanol, distilled with coal, dirty ethanol. It will however lessen the oil dependence, based on an abundant domestic energy resource. Hakan At 11:07 27/03/2006, you wrote: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33969/ A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel By Mark Clayton, Christian Science Monitor. Posted March 25, 2006. An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol. So just how green can it be? Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future. There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol -- the first US plant of its kind to use coal instead of cleaner natural gas. An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired ethanol plant is under construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other such refineries are being built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. The trend, which is expected to continue, has left even some ethanol boosters scratching their heads. Should coal become a standard for 30 to 40 ethanol plants under construction -- and 150 others on the drawing boards -- it would undermine the environmental reasoning for switching to ethanol in the first place, environmentalists say. If the biofuels industry is going to depend on coal, and these conversion plants release their CO2 to the air, it could undo the global warming benefits of using ethanol, says David Hawkins, climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. The reason for the shift is purely economic. Natural gas has long been the ethanol industry's fuel of choice. But with natural gas prices soaring, talk of coal power for new ethanol plants and retrofitting existing refineries for coal is growing, observers say. It just made great economic sense to use coal, says Brad Davis, general manager of the Gold-Eagle Cooperative that manages the Corn LP plant, which is farmer and investor owned. Clean coal technology, he adds, helps the Goldfield refinery easily meet pollution limits -- and coal power saves millions in fuel costs. Yet even the nearly clear vapor from the refinery contains as much as double the carbon emissions of a refinery using natural gas, climate experts say. So if coal-fired ethanol catches on, is it still the clean, renewable fuel the state's favorite son, Sen. Tom Harkin likes to call it? Such questions arrive amid boom times for America's ethanol industry. With 97 ethanol refineries pumping out some 4 billion gallons of ethanol, the industry expects to double over the next six years by adding another 4.4 billion gallons of capacity per year. Tax breaks as well as concerns about energy security, the environment, and higher gasoline prices are all driving ethanol forward. The Goldfield refinery, and the other four coal-fired ethanol plants under construction are called dry mill operations, because of the process they use. The industry has in the past used coal in a few much larger wet mill operations that produce ethanol and a raft of other products. But dry mills are the wave of the future, industry experts say. It's their shift to coal that's causing the concern. More plants slated for Midwest, West Scores of these new ethanol refineries are expected to be built across the Midwest and West by the end of the decade, and many could soon be burning coal in some form to turn corn into ethanol, industry analysts say. It's very likely that coal will be the fuel of choice for most of these new ethanol plants, says Robert McIlvaine, president of a Northfield, Ill., information services company that has compiled a database of nearly 200 ethanol plants now under construction or in planning and development. If all 190 plants on Mr. McIlvaine's list were built and used coal, motorists would
Re: [Biofuel] A Carbon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060205/BUSINESS04/602050315/1033 Ethanol plant counts on coal for power The change will cost less than natural gas, but some complain that coal isn't renewable. JERRY PERKINS REGISTER FARM EDITOR February 5, 2006 Goldfield, Ia. — Central Iowa Renewable Energy's new ethanol dry mill plant is the first one using coal as its source of power.Substituting cheap coal for more expensive natural gas will save the ethanol plant about $1 million a month based on the current difference between the price of coal and that of natural gas, said Brad Davis, general manager of Gold Eagle Cooperative, which was instrumental in building the plant.After corn, energy is the second-largest expense of running an ethanol plant.New technology has taken much of the pollution out of burning coal, said Valerie Reed of the U.S. Department of Energy.But using biomass energy sources like switchgrass or corn stalks would be a much better way to produce ethanol, said Robert Brown, director of Iowa State University's office of biorenewables programs. Using coal could alienate environmentalists who now support ethanol as an oxygen-enhancing fuel that helps fight global warming, he said.If a significant amount of energy used to make ethanol is not renewable, then ethanol is not a truly renewable fuel, Brown said. When we use coal, we're moving in the wrong direction.Ethanol plants are popping up like mushrooms in Iowa, the No. 1 state in ethanol production.There are 21 plants in Iowa making ethanol, and another five are scheduled to come online this year, said Lucy Norton of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.Demand for the gasoline additive and substitute is growing rapidly. The reasons: The national energy policy aims to replace foreign petroleum with domestically produced fuel. Air-quality concerns can be eased by ethanol, and tax breaks make the corn-based fuel cost-competitive.President Bush said in the State of the Union speech that the United States needs to find a way to replace foreign petroleum with domestically produced ethanol.With promise like that, there is a danger that ethanol plants will be overbuilt and excessive supplies will drag the industry down.Using coal to cut costs, said Davis, might mean the difference between success and failure for the Goldfield ethanol plant.We want to have the lowest cost of production so we can be the last man standing, Davis said. Reed, who works in the biomass program at the U.S. Energy Department in Washington, D.C., said the technology to use biomass crops for energy will be ready in about a decade.If Goldfield and the other ethanol plants using clean coal technology prove it can work, then we can integrate coal and biomass, Reed said. Our goal is to produce ethanol so it is cost-effective with petroleum.Reid Detchon of the Energy Future Coalition — which seeks to bridge differences between business, labor and environmental groups on energy policy — said coal can serve as a temporary energy source until other, more renewable and environmentally benign sources are developed.Biomass crops, methane from livestock manure or wood chips all are being explored by the ethanol industry as possible power sources, he said.The use of coal could just be a temporary step, Detchon said.Reed said advances in clean coal technology have significantly cut air emissions. With the current cost of natural gas, coal now stacks up very well, she said. The challenge of adopting the new clean coal technology was cost. With higher natural gas prices, clean coal technology is now competitive.Brown said the same thing could happen when technological breakthroughs make burning biomass crops more competitive economically.The Goldfield plant has met all air emission requirements in its first month of operation, said David Vander Griend of ICM Inc., the Wichita, Kan., engineering company that designed the coal-fired system.You're burning 12 semi-truckloads of coal a day and you're getting four semi-truck loads of emissions a year, Vander Griend said.Davis said after a month of operation, the coal-burning system is still being massaged, but air monitoring equipment at the plant shows that emissions are less than projected.I'm amazed, he said. Nothing comes out of the stacks except a vapor cloud.Vander Griend said another advantage of a coal-fired ethanol plant is that it uses domestically produced coal instead of imported natural gas. That helps cut the U.S. dependence on foreign energy, he said, just like ethanol made in the United States replaces petroleum from abroad.The coal that powers the Goldfield ethanol plant comes from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and is purchased from Alliant Energy. Davis declined to say what Central Iowa Renewable Energy is paying for its coal, but I can easily say that coal is four to six times cheaper than natural gas.Central Iowa Renewable Energy uses 300 tons of coal a day to
