Jim Gardner’s Energy Tech Talk

Somewhere back in time, an observant individual discovered a goatskin of grape juice setting in the corner of the hut began to swell. Curious about the contents in the goatskin, the observer opened it and smelled the gas that escaped…and it was…different. The soon-to-be vintner put the stopper back into the neck of the goatskin because this was the last of the grape juice collected that season. A few days later the skin swelled again…and the stopper popped off the bag.

Not wanting to lose any of the grape juice, the observer took swig and WOW, ethanol was discovered to be a mood-changing liquid. Wine became a very sociable drink and a new way to preserve fruit juices, as well as a way forget the problems of a bad day if one were to drink enough.

Modern humans, wanting to get more bang per swallow, learned to distill the ethanol out of the wine and other fermented products. We also found it was very flammable and when added to an internal combustion engine, it was a good fuel.

Randolph Diesel, inventor of the internal combustion engine, chose to use raw peanut oil as his fuel source. German scientists developed a process to produce diesel fuel from animal fats and vegetable oils when the Allied Forces cut off petroleum supplies to Hitler’s armed forces. The Germans began using biodiesel to supplement their dwindling fuel supplies

The use of fossil fuels became the industrialized world’s life blood for transportation. Mobility became our way of life worldwide. World leaders knew that energy was power. The countries with the largest energy resources controlled the world. We began to understand that fossil fuels resources were limited energy resources, and the 1973 “Energy Crisis” was created when OPEC members shut down their oil wells, opening the eyes of world leaders. New sources of safe fuels for transportation were needed. We needed renewable chemical energy sources for transportation and commerce.

Farmers saw the opportunity for increasing their market share and helping the world’s energy supply at the same time. Corn-based ethanol plant and soybean based biodiesel plants began to grow worldwide. Nations with abundant sugar cane and palm oil trees joined in the race to replace fossil base fuels with renewable energy. The United States farm cooperatives led the renewable fuels development by building 189 ethanol and 173 biodiesel plants in the last 15 years. The renewable energy industry created jobs and more demand for agricultural products.

As these renewable energy production facilities came online, producing more than 13.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels in 2009, American consumers saw the cost of foods produced from corn and soybeans increase because these grains were now going into the renewable energy market. Farmers were finally making good profits by supplying food and energy and no longer needing government-funded support. On the negative side, public support for ethanol began to shift as the cost of foods increased as a direct result of the growth in renewable energy supplies.

Energy experts looked at the energy used to produce renewable fuels. Known as “cradle to grave” analysis, these scientists realized the energy used to produce one gallon of ethanol was greater than the energy delivered from the gallon of ethanol. In other words, the energy used to plow the fields, plant the grain, fertilize and protect the plants from pests and disease, harvest the grain, transport the grain to a processing plant, ferment the grain the produce ethanol and finally distill the ethanol so it is a useable fuel is not an “energy positive’ process. Using the same analysis, soy biodiesel is “=energy positive, but there is not a significant enough energy gain to call this fuel a sustainable energy resource.

Now the race is on for smarter sources of renewable liquid fuels that are highly positive in energy yields. Governmental, educational and capital venture research groups are exploring a large pool of biobased materials that can be converted to biofuels. Some exciting research is in the area of genetic modification of bacteria to digest cellulostice-sourced materials such as wood and plant biomass directly into usable biofuels.

Another energy positive area of research is using algae to produce oils that can be extracted and the remaining biomass can be used as food for livestock or fuel. All algae needs for growth is carbon dioxide and water. Studies have shown that one acre of algae biomass will have 400 times the biomass energy as an acre of corn or soybeans and the energy used to harvest this biomass is comparable to harvesting corn or soybeans.

What does this mean to you and me? I believe that human ingenuity will find ways to feed the world’s population and supply the energy we need to live in a sustainable lifestyle. What choice do we have?

Jim Gardner

When I was hired to design, train operators and provide start-up support for the first commercial biodiesel plant in the U. S., I had no idea how fast the renewable fuel industry would grow. WOW! What a rush seeing jobs created and farmers finding another profitable outlet for their crops.

In the past 17 years, more than 300 biofuel refineries have been built in the U. S. supplying ethanol and biodiesel to supplement our “mobile” fuel supply. The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) is calling the decade of the 2000′s “the era when biofuels came of age.”

Now that the renewable fuel industry is “of age,” we have seen public opinion shift from “freedom from foreign oil” to “renewable fuels are increasing the price of our food.” In December 2009, Congress failed to renew the $1.00/gal. federal subsidy for renewable fuels to help renewable fuel prices stay competitive with the fossil fuel giants. The consequence of these changes has been a slowdown of the U. S. ethanol and biodiesel industries. Construction has stopped on new plants, and some producing plants have shut down due to the loss of profits and/or market.

Contractor Ron Fagen, the CEO of Fagen Inc., put Granite Falls, Minnosata, on the national map by building 47 ethanol projects across the U.S. between 2006 and 2008. But Ron now says, “The U.S. ethanol building boom is over.” Yet despite the job cuts and slowing sales, Fagen remains an unabashed believer in ethanol and renewable energy.

The company will finish one more ethanol plant in Pennsylvania, but Fagen’s attention already has turned to other forms of renewable energy—biomass and wind. Going forward, Fagen said he thinks his business mix will be about 60 percent biomass projects, 25 percent wind energy and the remaining share from building other types of industrial facilities.

His company recently landed a job in Texas to construct the largest biomass power plant in the country. The Minneapolis office of Zachry Engineering is the design engineer on the project. The 100-megawatt plant will serve customers in the Austin, Texas, area.

“East Texas has more trees than northern Minnesota,” Fagen said, but trees won’t be harvested for the new facility. Instead, chips, bark and other wood waste from wood processing plants will be used to fuel the biomass facility.

“We are making use of forestry residue wood to produce electricity, rather than using coal,” said Alison Cochrane, a vice president with Zachry Engineering. Work crews will start pouring concrete on the Texas site this month.

Tom Erickson, associate director for research at the Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, said, “We definitely see the use of biomass as a significantly growing area.” Erickson added that the demand for biomass will likely intensify if politicians approve a carbon tax or place a cap on emissions.

“You can combust [biomass] in a boiler to produce electricity or heat. Or you can gasify it, in which you can produce a syngas, which is similar to natural gas,” Erickson said.

Business leaders in the Ozarks have the opportunity to take a similar path as Ron Fagen. We have large quantities of biomass that can be converted into usable energy. We need to promote the use of renewable fuels, and we need to continue to invest in new technologies that can efficiently use the available biomass in the Ozarks.

You can help by contacting your elected officials to promote legislation that will offer incentives to use local biomass to produce useable forms of renewable energy that reduces our dependency of fossil fuels.

It can be done if you and I do our jobs as responsible, “tree hugging” citizens.

Jim Gardner