Re: Hydrogen Economy greatly overrated, biomass underrated...

[Laszlo Paszner <lpaszner@shaw.ca>]

Dear All,

Discussion of the impending hydrogen economy is very appropriate.  However, 
it is unlikely that it will be pure hydrogen which we would be 
using.  There are plenty of liquid fuels, including the renewable ethanol, 
that can provide the hydrogen.  In fact a recent study at MTU Munich, 
Germany shows that we could run fuel cells (SOFCs) on as low as 10% ethanol 
and still get around 40% conversion efficiency.  Vodka-strength (40%) 
ethanol gets 60% conversion efficiency.  Methane, while a good hydrogen 
source, is non-renewable if from natural gas, and too difficult to collect 
and transport/export any distance (from Africa to the USA) if from 
MSW.  Process of conversion is also very slow.  None of these constraints 
hold with ethanol.  In fact, it must be emphasized, that ethanol from 
biomass is the only energy form which generates jobs every step of the way 
viz., from growing the seedlings to harvesting the timber and manufacturing 
the ethanol.  None of the other renewable energy forms will generate jobs 
after installing the  energy devices.

It is not too difficult to imagine that in 15-20 years oil and natural gas 
will be in short supply.  Does anybody have a better idea as to what will 
be the future renewable energy source, other than biomass?  The choice is 
limited.  Bioethanol will be a good fuel requiring little or no change in 
the infrastructure for liquid fuel distribution and organic chemicals 
production (all/most by fermentation of sugars).  I do realize that this 
seems to be so simple and natural, however we must take a pencil and a 
calculator and figure out how much biomass will be required to displace the 
world transportation fuel (about 750 billion L/yr), at least 40% of the 
world electricity (now around 30 million MW) and 50% of the world organic 
chemicals production (in excess of 100 million T/yr).  When you look at 
these numbers and assume that the average ethanol yield will be about 350 
L/T dry wood matter, the biomass required turns out to be staggering; 
anywhere from twice to four times the total harvestable biomass production 
(today) of the world (about 2 billion T/yr).

Thus if the world is concerned about the poor and our energy future, all we 
have to do is to initiate an intensive afforestation program world-wide, 
this will give the poor a disposable income, while at the same time prepare 
the world for the impending collapse of the fossil fuel economy.  Since we 
have no idea how the global warming will play out in the long run, and 
assuming the worst, afforestation seems to be the safest energy reserve 
program which will not stare us in our eyes 20 years from now.  The lead 
time for new increased volumes of harvestable biomass is from 8 to 40 
years.  In the meanwhile, we should gradually increase the use of renewable 
residues (N. America has about a billion T/yr biomass wastes) and convert 
it to bioethanol.  Do not underestimate the significance of 
bioethanol.  Ben Wiens, a former Ballard Power fuel cell stack development 
engineer, swears that the fuel of the future for fuel cells is going to be 
ethanol, provided we can make enough of it in time.

We need to think the energy issues globally, not locally.  Smaller size 
conversions are easy to organize on a local scale, the global strategy will 
require real commitment.  I wonder who are the real visionaries?  I 
certainly could use some help with getting a solvent assisted wood 
hydrolysis process commercialized which starts with dissolution of wood to 
its monomeric sugar component, lignin and extractives and separates the 
components to refine them to high value products.  The wood substance 
recovery is >98% and ethanhol yield about 94% of theoretical from the 
hexoses (glucose and ammnose).  Xylose goes to sweeteners (xylitol), 
microbial cellulose and other high value fermentation products.  The 
ethanol value is only 10% of the total value recovered and the ROI for 350 
T/day dry feedstock capacity plant is 35-54%.  This is certainly the best 
process for wood hydrolysis today.

Dr. Laszlo Paszner
Professor Emeritus
UBC, Dept. Wood Science
VANCOUVER, B.C.
Tel: 604 538 1349
Fax: 604 538 5108





At 03:59 PM 9/21/2002 -0500, Harry W. Parker wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>Yes, Tom is right about the H2 economy.  The H2 economy is imagination 
>obscuring the reality of economical energy requirements for the 
>continuance of  our whole society, as per my paper "Essentials of 
>Essential Consumption", which is available upon e-mail request..
>
>Fuel cells for economic personal transportation is also imagination 
>obscuring the reality of providing less polluting transportation fuels and 
>for  CO2 management with less costly technologies.
>
>Harry
>
>Harry W. Parker, Ph.D., P.E.
>Professor of Chemical Engineering
>   & Consulting Engineer
>Texas Tech University
>Lubbock, TX 79409-3121
>806.742.1759 fax 742.3552
>
>
>
>
>
>


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