Grow-able Biofuel Just Like Gasoline
by James Buchanan
Of all the biofuels being discussed, a gasoline equivalent fuel called butanol sounds like the most practical breakthrough so far. A new production process that uses a bacteria to increase the amount of fuel per crop is the key. One website notes “ButylFuel, LLC’s patent changes everything. We are now able to produce yields of 2.5 gallons of butanol per bushel of corn. ButylFuel, LLC’s patented discovery and the economics did not exist to pursue Butanol versus Ethanol as a viable alternative to gasoline until now.”
Most biofuel work in the US has focused on diesel since this is the easiest to make. In one episode of the MythBusters, an old Mercedes diesel was successfully run on kitchen grease that was run through a paper filter. While it’s good to see kitchen grease being recycled into fuel, we need to replace millions of barrels of oil per day to meet our energy needs. A deliberate effort is needed to grow biofuel crops on a truly massive scale.
There has been much talk about ethanol, but only a small percentage of cars in the US are equipped to run on ethanol at this time. Brazil was able to switch over to ethanol fuel, proving that biofuels can be made to work, especially if the government supports such efforts. Most Americans are reluctant to switch to a new fuel type. The “Holy Grail” of biofuels would be a gasoline-equivalent fuel that could be made just as easily as ethanol or bio-diesel. Since a major breakthrough has just been made along this line, and since Americans would be most receptive to a bio-fuel that doesn’t require modifications to their car, it seems that a butanol biofuel produced with this new bacteria is the best course.
There are a variety of crops that can be grown for biofuel, one of the best crops by a large margin is the rapeseed plant. For every gallon of fuel used to produce and harvest rapeseed, 12.5 gallons of biofuel are produced. One source notes “rapeseed derived biodiesel cost more to produce than standard diesel fuel… Rapeseed oil is the preferred oil stock for biodiesel production in most of Europe, partly because rapeseed produces more oil per unit of land area compared to other oil sources, such as soy beans.”
The cost of production of rapeseed diesel should drop as mass production techniques improve. One article notes that the Ukraine has “1.1 million hectares of land” growing rapeseed crops.
Even more promising than rapeseed is algae. An article entitled “First Algae Biodiesel Plant Goes Online: April 1, 2008″ reports “The facility, located in Rio Hondo Texas, will produce an estimated 4.4 million gallons of algal oil and 110 million lbs. of biomass per year off a series of saltwater ponds spanning 1,100 acres. Twenty of those acres will be reserved for the experimental production of a renewable JP8 jet-fuel.”
While rapeseed produces slightly more than 100 gallons of fuel per acre per year, algae can produce 15,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year. One great advantage of algae is that it can be grown in saltwater and that production could be done in saltwater ponds on desert land, not suitable for normal crops.
Rapeseed biofuels are the best short term solution for our energy needs. Perhaps 10 to 30 percent of our arable farmland could be converted to produce rapeseed biofuel, which would take care of 10 to 30 percent of our fuel needs. To make ourselves one hundred percent self-sufficient on biofuels, the production of algae seems like the best long term solution. The cost of producing algae biodiesel is high at this time and certain problems need to be worked out, but the first experimental plant has been built on 1,100 acres in Texas so some serious work is being done now.
If we had a responsible government, these problems would have been foreseen a long time ago and we would not be paying $4 per gallon for gas.