Des Moines Register
02/03/06
Bush's ethanol target faces hurdles
Making plant-fiber ethanol competitive in price to gasoline is
ambitious, experts say.
By PHILIP BRASHER
REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU
Washington, D.C. — President Bush's push for a new form of ethanol offers
promise for curbing America's appetite for oil, but it also faces many challenges,
scientists and supporters say.
Scientists have dreamed of making ethanol from things much cheaper and more
plentiful than Iowa corn, including the plant fiber found in cornstalks and wheat
straw.
Without this new form of ethanol, experts say there's no way that conventional
grain alcohol can significantly reduce America's use of gasoline - now running at
140 billion gallons a year.
The administration estimates that as much as 60 billion gallons of fuel could be
made from cornstalks and other sources of plant fiber, compared with the 4.3
billion gallons of ethanol now distilled from corn.
Bush set a goal this week of making the production of cellulosic ethanol
competitive in price with gasoline within six years. That goal is ambitious - with
current technology, cellulosic ethanol can cost twice as much as conventional
ethanol to manufacture. Even the industry's biggest enthusiasts say it will take an
infusion of government cash to get the industry off the ground.
"It's important that we get some form of risk-sharing," said Brian Foody, chief
executive of Iogen Corp., which operates a pilot plant in Canada that makes less
than 100,000 gallons of ethanol a year out of wheat straw. "The president's
statements are very encouraging."
Iogen uses genetically engineered fungi to produce special enzymes needed to
break the wheat straw into the sugars needed for making alcohol.
In Iowa, a business-backed group called the BIOWA Development Association
hopes to get federal funding this year to build a demonstration facility for making
ethanol from cornstalks.
"There's so much opportunity to add wealth by utilizing what we do well, which is
growing things. This would truly revolutionize economic development," said
George Anderl, BIOWA's president and an official with enzyme-maker Genencor
International.
The $150 million in ethanol research funding that Bush has proposed for 2007, a
$60 million increase over the 2006 budget, would still be only a fraction of what is
needed, said Nathaniel Greene of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The energy bill passed last year authorized up to $400 million in research and
development, but the money still must be appropriated each year by Congress.
Many other hurdles exist: A cellulosic ethanol plant costs far more to build than a
conventional ethanol facility because of the processes for turning cellulose into
sugar.
Iowa farmers also would need special equipment to harvest and transport crop
waste to the nearest ethanol plant. Wheat straw can be baled easily with existing
equipment, but cornstalks are another matter. They are bulky, heavy and can't be
transported long distances.
Cars and filling stations also must be specially equipped to handle the ethanol
fuel envisioned by Bush - a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline,
known as E85. Ethanol is currently used primarily as an additive in gasoline. Only
about 25 stations in Iowa carry E85.
Of the 200 million vehicles now on the road, about 4.5 million can use E85.
Several lawmakers, including Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., and Richard Lugar, RInd., have introduced legislation to force automakers to speed the introduction of
flex-fuel vehicles. The lawmakers also are urging oil companies to make E85
more widely available.
"By expanding driver access to ethanol, we can significantly decrease our
reliance on foreign oil while stimulating demand for homegrown ethanol," Harkin
said.
Some critics have questioned whether it makes sense to make fuel from crops,
because of the petroleum that is needed to grow and process the crops.
Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the
government shouldn't be wasting money subsidizing new energy sources,
including ethanol. "If those technologies have economic merit, no subsidy is
necessary," he said.
But even oil companies, which have long been critics of the conventional ethanol
industry, have shown some interest in the cellulose business.
Royal Dutch Shell invested $60 million in Iogen, which is planning a commercial
plant in Idaho.
Steven Koonin, chief scientist for the British oil giant BP, recently wrote in the
journal Science that biofuels could provide a significant part of the world's energy
needs. He called for a coordinated public and private research effort to overcome
the remaining technological problems.
The BIOWA project would include Genencor, which has an enzyme plant in
Cedar Rapids, and ICM Inc., a Kansas-based designer of conventional plants.
The Iowa Energy Center, an offshoot of Iowa State University, also has a
research facility at Nevada that is working on converting plant material to ethanol
and chemicals for a wide range of industrial uses.
Some corn growers have had mixed feelings about the potential competition from
this new form of ethanol. Ethanol production has become a key use of corn more than one in every 10 bushels goes to ethanol production.
But there's a limit in how much ethanol can be made from corn. Estimates range
from 10 billion to 14 billion gallons a year. Production already exceeds 4 billion
gallons a year.
The National Corn Growers Association welcomed Bush's push for increased
research on cellulose. One of the first uses of the technology could be in making
existing ethanol plants more efficient.
Iowa's economy stands to gain from the production of cellulosic ethanol, even if
the alcohol is made in other states, said Bruce Babcock, an economist at Iowa
State University. That's because the land needed for ethanol production won't
be used to grow food and feed crops, he said.
"I don't see how it's ever a minus" for Iowa, Babcock said.