Fort Madison Daily Democrat, IA
03-08-07
Some warn against putting all our eggs (or ears of corn) in one biofuel basket
Chris Faulkner/Staff writer
Washington Redskins football coach George Allen wrote a book called The
Future is Now.
In looking to corn-based ethanol and other biofuels, its future may not be now,
but it may have to be in just a few years.
Jill Euken is one of many people involved in studying and promoting the use of
alternative resources.
Euken is the Industrial Specialist/Biobased Products for Iowa State
University Extension. That's a long title, but she's got a lot of ground to cover.
Euken is looking for ways that ethanol and other biofuels become a regular part
of our society. She also promotes the different products - and the jobs created to
develop and manufacture those products - that branch off from ethanol.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush called for a fivefold increase in
the use of renewable fuels in the next 10 years. That mandate has prompted
concerns by some in the industry that the goal is not feasible. In one recent news
article, Gordon Ommen, chief executive officer of US BioEnergy Corp., said the
rising corn prices have actually cut ethanol-production profits.
Euken agrees, to a point. Corn will not be enough. The use of cellulose (see
sidebar) must be a key in producing alternative fuels.
“If we develop and commercialize cellulose technology,” Euken said, “experts
estimate that we can produce over 60 percent of our energy from renewable
sources. But that's a big IF. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to
commercialize it.
“What we know we can do and have done is starch processing. The cellulose
technology is being developed by both public and private sources, but are just
starting to be commercialized. They will have to be commercialized at a very
large scale in order for us to reach the 60 percent figure.”
In other words, in an attempt to wean our country off of foreign oil, President
Bush may have been asking for too much in this stage of the biofuel
development process.
Euken, however, still remains positive about the future of biofuels despite the
naysayers at other universities.
David Pimental, a Cornell University professor, released a study recently that, in
essence, said ethanol wasn't the gold at the end of the rainbow it has been made
out to be. That study showed, among other things, that it costs more than a
dollar's worth of energy to produce a dollar's worth of ethanol.
Euken said the study had many flaws in it. The Pimental study prompted David
Swenson and Liesl Eathington of the Department of Economics, College of
Agriculture at ISU to come out with a rebuttal study.
According to that report, “Much of the research that is relied on by policymakers
and advocates is based on poorly specified industrial accounts in modeling
systems that were not designed to accommodate the modern and rapidly
expanding ethanol industry.
In the follow-up study, “We surveyed four different plants with different levels of
local ownership,” Euken said. The study showed that plants have a great
economic impact, especially with complete local ownership.
Euken also pointed to many products that can and will come out of a new federal
program called Bio Preferred: biobased adhesive, carpet, paint and industrial
supplies, to name a few.
Center on cellulose
The cover story of the Jan. 2007 issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine is “Center
on Cellulose: the partnerships, research, technologies and feedstocks of
tomorrow's ethanol industry.”
Just looking through this one issue alone shows how widespread the industry is
branching out.
John Deere & Co. has developed an Energy Wood Harvester, also known as the
Slash Bundler. It's a large piece of forestry equipment that gathers and
compresses debris from logging operations. It's been in place in Europe for
decades, the article states. The Slasher helps turn the wood waste into bundles
of biomass that can be easily transported, the article said.
In an article by Nicholas Zeman called “The Discoverer's Game,” he starts out,
“The world of enzyme technology is filled with explorers scouring the ends of the
Earth for new strains of fungi.”
And to think most Iowans are content to just hunt for mushrooms for food or to
show off.
In another article, the DuPont company is listed along with Chevron as
companies that will be joining in research to commercialize cellulosic ethanol
production.
This will not, however, include the Fort Madison DuPont plant.
There's also a report by Holly Jesson on two cellulosic ethanol conferences. The
U.S. Department of Energy's Larry Russo warned of a “gold-rush mentality.”
“We're on a fast train forward, but that train could very easily derail. We need to
maintain the balance, and we need to maintain that momentum.”
That seems to be the consensus of many of the articles in newspapers and
magazines: Ethanol from corn and cellulose will definitely be a part of our future
and a key to reducing dependence on foreign oil. The trick is...can those involved
with its progress keep up with the government mandates and increasing demand
without hurting the economy in other ways?