Classic. They're nervous, as well they should be. The article focuses on ethanol, but biodiesel is certainly part of the "problem" too.
From the NPRA (National Petrochemical and Refiners Association):
For Immediate Release
July 31, 2007
Contact Information
Bill Holbrook 202-457-0480 bholbrook@npra.org
NPRA'S Drevna Warns of Unintended Consequences of Massive Biofuels Boost
NPRA’S DREVNA WARNS OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF MASSIVE BIOFUELS BOOST
“Creating artificial demand for biofuels also places unwarranted strain on other industries that compete for the same feedstocks, thus impacting food and other commodity prices. Projected ethanol demand is likely to further exacerbate the problem and create food and other commodity price increases across the economic spectrum.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – NPRA, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Executive Vice President Charles T. Drevna today testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Energy expressing the association’s concerns with proposals to expand the national biofuels mandate despite a deficient distribution system and increased costs.
“While ethanol is a valuable blendstock for gasoline and its use will undoubtedly continue to grow even without mandates, ethanol also carries a number of disadvantages, including a lower energy content and potential problems with ozone formation,” Drevna told subcommittee members. “Creating artificial demand for biofuels also places unwarranted strain on other industries that compete for the same feedstocks, thus impacting food and other commodity prices. Projected ethanol demand is likely to further exacerbate the problem and create food and other commodity price increases across the economic spectrum.”
Drevna also offered several recommendations in moving forward.
“First, all commercially available biofuels, regardless of feedstock, process, point of production or blending, or specific technology, should be treated equally when considering specifications, incentives or other requirements. Second, the Congressional Budget Office should conduct comprehensive economic and environmental impact analyses on the expansion of renewables. Congress should consider energy security, public health and the environment, transportation, infrastructure, job impacts, and impacts on overall economic development. Third, Congress should preempt state and local biofuels mandates. NPRA believes that new state biofuels mandates should be subject to EPA or DOE examination for their impact on air quality, fuel production and distribution. Fourth, Congress should further review and consider the five core strategies recommended in the recent National Petroleum Council report, which I have highlighted in my written statement. Fifth, prioritize the development and production of the nation’s supply of oil, oil products and natural gas to help meet increasing demand. And finally, resist tinkering with market forces, including imposition of ‘windfall profits’ taxes, LIFO repeal, elimination of domestic production and foreign tax provisions, or ‘price gouging’ legislation. These measures, if enacted, would only serve to further the nation’s dependence on foreign supplies of energy, not limit them.”
Fact Sheet
Press Release
NPRA (Drevna) Testimony 07/31/2007
# # #
NPRA members include more than 450 companies, including virtually all US refiners and petrochemical manufacturers. Our members supply consumers with a wide variety of products and services used daily in their homes and businesses. These products include gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil, jet fuel, lubricants and the chemicals that serve as "building blocks" in making everything from plastics to clothing to medicine to computers.
Scared? why would they be scared?
has the world stopped using petrol? has petrol consumption ever gone down y/y? has ethanol put a dent into US consumption? has the prices/barrel gone down?
flectere si nequeo superos, Achaeronta movebo! -Virgil
I don't think big oil is nervous. Part of that is obviously self-interested rhetoric (parts about taxes and pricing), but some are legitimate concerns. Here's what I see that's worth paying attention to:
Infrastructure: because of ethanol's propensity to absorb water, it must be transported by rail. The nation's rail lines are operating near capacity at current production levels, even though we've still displaced less than 2% (guess, max is 4% with current tech) of our gasoline demand. Ethanol distribution is clearly not scaleable.
Pollution: High percentage blends of ethanol do produce more low-level smog, even though it burns cleaner than gasoline. This is due to it's higher vapor pressure (tendency to evaporate). There are some places, like Iowa, where this is not a problem, since the air is clean and there aren't mountains to trap the smog. However, it may indeed be a bad thing to mandate the use of ethanol in LA, for example.
Market Distortion: I don't believe that "food v. fuel" is an appropriate way to think about biofuels, but there has clearly been some short term distortion in the price of corn. New technologies (i.e. cellulosic) will alleviate the pressure on our food supply, but the politically motivated push to build plants using current generation technology has driven corn prices up for the time being. It may be the case that this distortion is acceptable because current generation ethanol production is "priming the pump" (as Vinod Khosla would say) for future technology (i.e. cellulosic) by exciting investors and establishing infrastructure (many plants under construction are "cellulosic-ready"). On the other hand, maybe this money and effort has been wasted over the last several years, while there has only really been significant $$ behind cellulosic for the last year. The issue of distortion isn't clear, but it's worth paying more attention to. Consider this: what if corn prices go even higher? Does this have the potential to cause a public backlash against biofuels? Mightn't it be better to work primarily on developing more efficient technology, until it can be rolled out at a time when it will have a greater impact on petroleum consumption than it does on food prices?
Environment: Biodiesel in particular, has the potential to be VERY environmentally damaging, especially if the amount mandated by renewable fuel standards exceeds the amount that can be produced from cheap domestically produced oils (i.e. excess soy oil, and waste oil). What will fill the gap? Certainly not rapeseed from europe, they have their own standards to meet. It would come from palm oil produced in places like Malaysia and the Philippines, on land that had been covered in rainforest until they were burned down to sell us oil, so that we can feel better about being "green".Don't get me wrong, biofuels can be a very good thing, but there are dangers that may not be adequately considered when politicians vote to require their use.
Welcome to the forum AMiller. Look forward to reading more of your comments. 2 I have seen have been interesting.
On this particular problem, oil from algae has to be a highly pursued alternative feed stock for both oil for BD and biomass for E or as some are advocating Butanol.
Whilst there is a high demand for traditional oils I cannot see the farmers complaining and it may be the saving grace for any number of farmers struggling to make ends meet.
Like you point out, I cannot see the push for bio fuels hurting big oils pockets just yet but given time and some planning, the world has, eventually, to become renewables reliant - maybe not in our generation, but come it will.
We are doing this to process crude from canadian oil sands ??
is anyone awake ?
I think it is possible to reduce polution from the to be upgraded BP Whiting, Indiana refinery.could I get some coment no this ?At low operating pressure and/or if the concentration of feed nitrogen is high it is not possible to convert the inhibiting nitrogen compounds to ammonia, and then it only possible to make ULSD using the direct route.I think there should be several ways to seperate the mercury.
BP plans to invest more than $3 billion to modernize its Whiting, Indiana refinery so it can process additional heavy crude oil from a secure and reliable source, Canada.This project will provide the Midwest with a supply of crude oil for the long term and will result in an estimated 15 percent increase in output of gasoline and diesel fuel. It also helps ensures the future viability of the Whiting refinery and the continuing supply of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for Midwest residents.Here are some facts:The BP Whiting Refinery does not and will not dump sludge or toxic waste into Lake Michigan.As part of this modernization and upgrading program we will invest $150 million in upgrades to our existing waste water treatment facilities.We will be using best available technology in our facility. The discharge into Lake Michigan will meet and in most cases exceed all federal and state standards. It is protective of human health, the environment and Lake Michigan.The water that BP returns to the lake is just that - water. It has been treated at BP's lakefront facility and is more than 99.9 percent pure.The Indiana Department of Environmental Management granted the permit after a careful, thorough, open and transparent review of our application. We requested increases in two parameters - both of these increases are within guidelines set by the EPA. These are Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and ammonia.These new limit levels of ammonia and TSS are needed because of the major changes at the refinery including the use of a totally different crude oil. The change in crude oil is being brought about by the decline in US produced crude oil from the Mid-Continent and Texas.Canadian Crude is heavier and harder to process. Unfortunately the supply of the type of crude oil from North America is declining and will continue to decline over the next decade. BP's is likely the first of several US refineries who will need to adjust their processing capability as we move to heavier crude oils available here in North America.Total Suspended Solids (TSS) are not sludge. The amount from this facility is comparable to that released by a small-sized city - as every waste water treatment plant has some emission of TSS. They can not be totally avoided. They are micron in size and no technology exists to totally remove them from treated waste water. We are using best available technology to remove TSS.The ammonia limits are one-half of the federal standards - designed to protect the nation's water - and have been reduced as far as possible using Best Available Technology.BP received no exceptions to state or federal water quality regulations when receiving this permit.BP followed the existing regulatory process established to pursue environmental permits.BP has already begun another sweep to determine if further measures can be taken.As a company with thousands of employees who live and work in and around Lake Michigan, we care about the Lake and about protecting aquatic and human life. As we have demonstrated in the past and will continue to do so, BP is committed to ongoing environmental stewardship.BP is fully compliant not only with the law but its efforts to protect Lake Michigan go beyond what is required.For more facts on BP and our U.S. activities, visit us at bp.com/us .How will you protect the Lake?We are investing about $150 million in a state of the art upgrade to further enhance our water treatment capability at Whiting.What about mercury?About 90 percent of the mercury found in the Great Lakes comes from the burning of coal, which is washed into the lakes by rain. Our project should not increase the level of mercury in the water we discharge.What is your plan for reducing mercury?Existing technology doesn't remove mercury to the current standard of 1.3 parts per trillion. We will continue to evaluate emerging technology and, like other industries and municipalities that discharge water into the lake and its tributaries, we will work with regulators to reduce the mercury level. Recognizing that some companies and municipalities may not be able to meet the current standard, regulators allow those who discharge to the lake to apply for a variance subject to public notice and comment.
When will this project be completed?We are in the design phase and expect to complete the project by 2011 at a cost of more than $3 billion. The upgrade will increase the refinery's capability to supply gasoline and diesel fuel by about 1.7 million gallons a day for Midwest consumers.Protecting the integrity of the Lake is important to us. A secure energy supply is also important for all of us in the Midwest. We believe it's possible to successfully achieve both
Zed-
It might help to be more concise in your posts (is some of this a copy/paste from a BP PR piece?). I'm not sure how you're connecting this to biodiesel, but I'll take a stab at it. You seem to be implying that we ought not bother with biodiesel since we can get diesel from the canadian oil sands without polluting, that this is a politically stable source, and that it will create American jobs. These are indeed similar claims to those made by advocates of biodiesel, but here's what you're missing:Carbon Dioxide emissions - which are a known cause of global warming, and I would wager that this is a primary concern of most biodiesel supporters. Biodiesel is "Carbon Neutral", meaning that all carbon released is carbon that was first removed from the atmosphere (recently!) so that there are no net emissions. Petroleum derived from oil sands will actually end up emitting more carbon than current oil sources, since a great deal more energy (from fossil sources) must be expended to extract the oil.Sustainability - Even if there were truly zero emissions, fossil fuels aren't sustainable. Even the vast oil sands will eventually run out, and we'll do a lot of damage to the environment along the way. The sustainability of producing biodiesel from various sources, and on various scales is disputed, but nearly any form is much closer to sustainability than oil sands.
Tailpipe Emissions - No matter how clean the refining process is (I don't know much about this personally), the tailpipe emissions of engines burning petro-diesel are much worse than biodiesel. More particulates, more sulfur oxides, and more carbon monoxide. (Nitrogen oxide emissions vary from slightly less to slightly more)
"Big Oil" has reasons to be nervous, but it isn't due to biofuel.
Petroleum is a irreplaceable (at least using any scale of less than multiple millions of years) resource that we are using 6-8x as fast as we can find new supplies of it.
We =WILL= run out of petroleum.
Long before that, the supply vs demand situation will make petroleum expensive and scarce enough that people will die because of it. Either due to economic based shortages or due to violence as we fight over it.
We need a replacement for petroluem.
That replacement is not ethanol. Ethanol requires more energy to make than the energy it supplies.
Ultimately, that replacement is not biodiesel based on traditional crops either. No crop, not even Chinese Tallow, produces oil efficiently enough to be a long term solution.
The 3 most efficient alternative energy sources we know of are nuclear, solar, and algal biodiesel. In that order.
Nuclear has an unsolved waste problem. We are probably going to have to use it to some extent, but the waste problem implies we should keep its use to the absolutely needed minimum.
Solar is a great solution once PV's and electrical storage technology become efficient enough and cheap enough. But there are applications where this is not likely to ever occur.
Which brings us to algal biodiesel. Our problem here is simply that we don't know enough about how to make it. Research can fix this.
Frankly, "Big Oil" should be dumping $billions into algal biodiesel and solar since those are probably the areas they will have to transition to if they want to stay in business.
Learn and live. Or don't.
It's just as true for societies and companies as it is for individuals.
Voltaire: Petroleum is a irreplaceable (at least using any scale of less than multiple millions of years) resource That replacement is not ethanol. Ethanol requires more energy to make than the energy it supplies. The 3 most efficient alternative energy sources we know of are nuclear, solar, and algal biodiesel. In that order.
Petroleum is a irreplaceable (at least using any scale of less than multiple millions of years) resource
I would dispute at least these 3 statements.
The first statement isnt true due to the fact that we can make fuels that are virtually 100% simular to petroleum from plants grown today and chemistry and have been for quite a few years now. So the idea that we have to let the earth do all of our conversion from plants to oil over millions of years is in-valid. Also...I happen to work on technologies that speed that time frame up from millions to hours and Im not the only one.
Ethanol does not take more energy to make than the energy it supplies, period. Over and over again we hear this and its frankly just not true. There are now many many studies that offer number well over 1.
As to the 3rd statement...Im not even sure where to start. Algal biod really isnt a source, its a conversion technique of turning the true source of the energy, solar, into oil. And Im not sure how you can say that Nukes are more efficient energy source than solar energy. Solar is consistantly dosing the planet with ~ 15000x the solar energy we would need at present burn rate. This sort of calculation makes the amount of energy in all the fissile material on the planet insignificant. Plus there is no way you can convince me that its harder to harvest this huge load of energy vs trying to harvest the energy in something that we need to dig up/refine/build vast reaction vessels, cool and secure these beasts. I think you will need to re-vamp that theory of 1,2,3 in that order.
1= Petroleum is an irreplacable resource. Petroleum is used in all sorts of applications. Some of which we do !not! have equivalent non petroleum replacements for. This website notwithstanding, there is far more to the petro-chemical industry than fuel.
If you have research proving that we know how to make a 100% equivalent replacement for petroleum at anywhere close to reasonable cost, point me to it.
2= Ethanol is not energy efficient once the entire production and use cycle is taken into account.
Bring your sources to the table and we'll dissect them.
3= Nuclear is the most efficient energy source. Then solar. Then algal biodiesel.
Yes, the use of "energy source" is a bit in the layman vein here. To be completely precise in the technical sense we would have to say that nuclear is an energy source, solar is an energy transport mechnism, and algal biodiesel is an energy storage mechanism.
However, the point about the relative energy efficiency of the three is dead on.
The sun uses nuclear fusion to produce the photons we call "solar energy" when it gets to earth. Algae uses solar energy to make oil. We process that oil to make algal biodiesel.
Since each step means lost energy (The laws of Thermodynamics), the order must be nuclear most efficient, then solar, then algal biodiesel.
Nuclear fission is less energetic than fusion, but not by enough to change the fundamental order I gave.
We presently know how to build photovoltaics that are 40+% efficient at turning the solar radiation they receive into electricity. This beats the average 3-6% efficiency of photosynthesis easily (or even the 27% theoretical efficiency of algae);
...and that doesn't even take into account the energy losses (making methoxide, heating the m+o mix, agitating the m+o mix, methoxide recovery, waste disposal, etc) from processing said oil into biodiesel.
What I said was that 3 billion dolars will be spent up grading one refinery so canadian oil sand crude can create more polution in lake michigan in indiana.
No consideration what so ever is made of what an investment of 3 billion dolars in biodiesel would produce, because we don't want any more agricultural production then we now have.
zed: No consideration what so ever is made of what an investment of 3 billion dolars in biodiesel would produce, because we don't want any more agricultural production then we now have.
Why is that?
"I don't have all the answers. I don't need all the answers right now. All I have to do is solve the problems one at a time. More importantly, I won't be doing it by myself."-- Sean O'Hanlon
Voltaire:1= Petroleum is an irreplacable resource. Petroleum is used in all sorts of applications. Some of which we do !not! have equivalent non petroleum replacements for. This website notwithstanding, there is far more to the petro-chemical industry than fuel. If you have research proving that we know how to make a 100% equivalent replacement for petroleum at anywhere close to reasonable cost, point me to it.
Yes, fossil petroleum is irreplacable. There are several companies and researchers working on replacements though. Here are some links.
http://engineer.tamu.edu/research/magazine/2006/nonstop/ - Article about the MixAlco process at Texas A&M
http://txspace.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/4865 - A paper from 1978 discussing retrofitting of refineries to operate as "bio-refineries" (probably not the earliest use of the term, but illustrative of the fact that you're far from the first to consider this)
http://www.genomatica.com/index.shtml - Genomatica, a company using metabolic engineering for chemical manufacturing
http://www.ls9.com/ - LS9, a company using "synthetic biology" to make a petroleum replacement
This list is not exhaustive, just off the top of my head and a quick google search. You might also want to look at the journal "Microbial Cell Factories" which is dedicated to this sort of research. http://www.microbialcellfactories.com/
No, these processes aren't fully operational and cost-competitive yet, but they will be ready when the cost of crude starts to climb much higher.
Voltaire: 2= Ethanol is not energy efficient once the entire production and use cycle is taken into account. Bring your sources to the table and we'll dissect them.
Here is a 2006 meta study published in Science, one of the most respected peer-reviewed journals in existence.
http://www.scienceonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5760/506
Here's a similar study published in 2006 by the NRDC:
http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/ethanol/ethanol.asp
Both come to similar conclusions, that you gain about 20% over the energy spent, and that carbon emissions are more dramatically reduced due to the use of natural gas in fertilizer production (a major input energy for corn ethanol, but one which emits less CO2 per BTU than petroleum). Pimentel and Patzek are unqualified to even publish in this field, they know very little about the actual process (their first paper in the area wasn't much more than a back-of-the-envelope calculation), and they haven't updated their assumptions to account for improved technology for many years. No one in the field takes them seriously, and for good reason.
No, 20% isn't great, but it's not negative, and it is laying the groundwork for cellulosic technologies which are much more efficient.
I read _Science_ reasonably regularly. I also agree with your assessment of the various journals and authors you mention.
There are 2 problems with even the 1.2x efficiency number.
1= It's close enough to parity that if any of the assumptions made to derive the number are wrong there is a very real chance that the whole process goes negative. That means any distribution disaster, a failed crop, etc, etc. Ethanol production is simply too close to the edge even if you accept the _Science_ article.
2= In contrast, even biodiesel from soy produces 3x more energy than it requires. Agal biodiesel could easily have a considerably better than that energy ROI.
The difference in energy efficiency in the production cycle has a very real impact on the ultimate attainable relative costs of the two technologies. The numbers support biodiesel. Not ethanol.
Ethanol is evidently a bad idea being used to give corn farmers another subsidy. Let's at least get them to make more energy efficient biodiesel with it.
A chance of going negative in a given year is not the same as being negative on average. If you wanted to make a fair comparison including these factors, you'd need to include the risk of tanker spills, refinery accidents, and middle-east wars. This would likely push oil EROI down far enough that a .9 for corn ethanol would look good. Biodiesel from soy is not scaleable, and therefore not relevant to discussions about displacing significant portions of our fuel supply. As far as algae goes, I'm not aware of anyone who's done a comprehensive EROI analysis on algae biodiesel, and I've looked pretty well. If you have this, please post a reference or link. As I've explained elsewhere, high productivity per acre doesn't guarantee an efficient process, due to the large amounts of energy required for processing. Maybe someone will do this study, and maybe the data will favor algal biodiesel, but right now the data favors cellulosic ethanol whether your accounting is based on dollars or on energy.
Also, are you discounting the assertion that corn ethanol has helped to "prime the pump" for adoption of other biofuels? We now have a community of investors, politicians, and workers who are ready to adopt new and improved technologies, as well as a (small) start on the infrastructure needed.
Minor point: Farmers aren't getting subsidized for growing corn for ethanol, subsidies are going mostly to fermentation and blending. The benefit they get is from higher corn prices. (there are a few farmer-owned ethanol plants, but this is not the norm in most places)
I think you missed my main point. 1.2x is too close to 1 for me to be comfortable with the margins of error involved. Especially when we have choices that are ~3x (soy biodiesel) and ~7.9x more efficient (rapeseed biodiesel) to produce as a reality now.
The numbers for more space efficient oil producing flora like palm trees or Chinese Tallow are going to be even better (TBF, the end product here has significant drawbacks with regards to cold weather characteristics. That might be solvable by breeding or modification or even by chemistry on the end product.).
Nor does any of this take into account that we might be able to take a decent producer of low gel point and pour point biodiesel such as rapeseed and breed / modify it to be a more specialized oil producer (at the obvious expense of it becoming more environmentally fragile and producing less proteins and carbohydrates; thus reducing the value of the waste left after oil harvest.)
and =none= of this involves the "holy grail" of algal.
Yes, the present methods for making algal biodiesel involve some steps like drying that look silly from an energy efficiency POV. But
a= at 1000's of gals/acre yields for algal, there's considerably more margin of error than there is for any other biofuel.
b= there's no reason to think that the presently proposed methods are the only methods or even the best methods for processing algae to make biodiesel.
(For instance, I want to see a serious analysis of filtering =without= drying followed by ultrasonification and separation by centrifuge as a harvesting method compared to drying and/or dewatering.)
The numbers simply do not favor ethanol being the winner here. Even =if= you think ethanol production is energy positive. Which the best numbers make a questionable proposition given how small the margin of error is.