WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

Biomass Fuel Not Worth It

 
 
In our previous dispatches concerning your Cap&Trade op-ed, we mentioned the work of David Pimental, at Cornell University.
 
Herein is more documentation of his, and his UCal-Berkely collaborators', findings that most biofuel concepts, such as ethanol from corn, are neither economically sound, nor sustainable.
 
There might be a few worthwhile exceptions, one of which we'll note in our comment, following.
 
Some excerpts:

"ITHACA, N.Y. -- Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study."

"There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. "These strategies are not sustainable."

"Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley, conducted a detailed analysis of the energy input-yield ratios of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from soybean and sunflower plants. Their report is published in Natural Resources Research (Vol. 14:1, 65-76)."

"In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:

  • corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; (much of it from coal - JtM)
  • switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
  • wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced."
Our one qualifying comment relates to "wood biomass". We have provided documentation that cellulose - i.e., wood pulp - can be processed, perhaps as a co-feed with coal, in an appropriately-selected and designed coal-to-liquid facility, with Methanol as the end product. Methanol can be used itself as a liquid fuel, a much more potent and effective one than ethanol, and can be converted rather directly into gasoline (i.e., ExxonMobil's "MTG" technology).
 
When it comes to coal versus corn ethanol, and it's ilk, Coal is the King of the ring.