Industrial Charcoal Breakthrough

Industrial Charcoal Breakthrough

I have copied this material from Renewable Resources Research Laboratory. It is very important, even though they are still in the post prototyping stage and certainly have a lot more fussing around to do.

We have explored traditional methods and so called conventional methods for producing char coal and biochar and have learned both their strengths and shortcomings. The challenge faced was to come up with a basic design that cou8ld be operated at the farm gate and also be scaled to handle any feedstock volume. We seem to have at least the first clear cut demonstration of this principal.

The Q&A part brings home that our economy needs to focus on maximizing charcoal production. The market is clearly unlimited when we accept non woody plant waste char as a soil re mediator.

This also means that forest management can now focus on harvesting waste wood as a matter of course. After all, we are sending a ten ton truck out into the forest every day with a chipper and taking the annual surplus out of the forest. Forest management demands this for best practice. The daily yield is then brought directly to the local flash carbonizer and either kept in inventory to dry or processed.

The carbonizer uses pressure to force a fast burn. This was a bit unexpected, but the ramifications are obvious. It takes perhaps thirty minutes for the heat to fully penetrate the feedstock. The process is not taken to the point of full reduction which leaves a substantial residue of gases and tars. I assume the light gases provide most of the heat. These gases and residues will become continuously available and can be immediately used to fire a boiler for power generation. Any more than that is likely to be swapping dollars.

The point of this is that we have a reliable productivity for the whole spectrum of feed stocks. The principal feedstock can be waste wood fiber. Seasonal sources of agricultural waste can then be folded into fuel stream. Even manure is a good potential feedstock although moisture content might be a problem.

What is very important is that a farmer can bring his load in, have it treated and then take the product back to the farm for soil remediation. I think that we will learn that carbonized cattle manure is a very excellent soil additive.

That sewage waste also makes an excellent product is no surprise and has the added benefit of eliminating the cultural objection to human waste been added to soils.

My earlier arguments for the development of a distributed two lung incinerator system all apply here.

Here we are using pressure but not trying to go to the high pressure methodology that has romanced so many.

I suspect that this is the enabling technology that will now allow industrial scale production of soil charcoal and also a major supply of charcoal suitable for metallurgy and perhaps occasional replacement of coal.

Can you imagine the boreal forests been properly managed for a sustainable crop of waste wood and also a sustainable crop of cattails? This technology makes those types of ideas actually work.

Renewable Resources Research Laboratory

The Renewable Resources Research Laboratory (R3Lab) is a test-bed for the development of innovative technologies and processes for the conversion of biomass into fuels, high-value chemicals, and other products. A consistent theme of the lab's research throughout its history has been the search for new uses for Hawaii's abundant agricultural crops and by-products.

Currently the R3Lab is perfecting the operation of the catalytic afterburner that cleans the effluent of the Flash Carbonization™ Demonstration Reactor. Also, we are producing Flash Carbonization™ charcoal for use in carbon fuel cell research, terra preta and carbon sequestration studies, and metallurgical process research. Finally, we are fabricating an aqueous carbonate/alkaline biocarbon fuel cell that we hope to begin testing soon.

Earlier in its life the R3Lab engaged in research on conversion of biomass into gaseous fuels (hydrogen), and liquid fuels (ethanol). Reprints of publications are available upon request to Prof. M.J. Antal.

Biocarbons (charcoal)

News Item: Recently we began Flash Carbonization™ studies of raw sewage sludge produced in Honolulu's Ewa sewage sludge treatment plant. We were surprised by the ease with which air-dry sewage sludge can be converted into charcoal. We obtained charcoal yields of about 30% (dry basis) from the sewage sludge. The charcoal contained 45-51% ash and 40% fixed-carbon. Studies of the use of sewage sludge charcoal as a soil amendment (i.e., terra preta application) with the side-benefit of carbon sequestration are now beginning at UH. Results of these studies will be reported at the forthcoming AIChE meeting in Philadelphia (November, 2008).

A recent article appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper about the Flash Carbonization™ process. The following is a question and answer explanation relative to that article.

Q1: You mention that the University has licensed the Flash Carbonization™ technology to several companies that plan to use it for the commercial production of charcoal. Can you tell us who these companies are?

A1: Our three current licensees are Carbon Diversion Corp., which has operations here in Hawaii; the Kingsford Products Company, which most people recognize as the largest manufacturer of BBQ charcoal in the world; and Pacific Carbon and Graphite. Licenses are also being discussed with other companies on the US mainland, in Canada, and elsewhere in the world.

Q2: Isn't charcoal merely a barbeque fuel?

A2: No! Charcoal is the sustainable fuel replacement for coal. Coal combustion is the most important contributor to climate change. Coal combustion adds about 220 lb of CO2 to the atmosphere for every million BTU of energy that it delivers; whereas crude oil adds 170 lb per million BTU, gasoline adds 161 lb per million BTU, and natural gas adds 130 lb of CO2 to the atmosphere per million BTU of delivered energy. On the other hand, the combustion of charcoal - sustainably produced from renewable biomass - adds no CO2 to the atmosphere! Thus, the replacement of coal by charcoal is among the most important steps we can take to ameliorate climate change.

Q3: Do we burn coal to generate electrical power here in Hawaii?

A3: Yes! In the year 2000 we operated a 180 MW coal fired power plant on Oahu, a 22 MW power plant on the Big Island, and a 12 MW coal and bagasse fired power plant on Maui. The HC&S Puunene power plant on Maui could be the perfect starting point for replacement of coal by charcoal. The highest priority for knowledgeable people who care about the environment is the replacement of coal by cleaner, renewable fuels.

Q4: Why doesn't the combustion of charcoal add to the CO2 burden of the atmosphere and thereby cause climate change?

A4: The combustion of charcoal does not add to the CO2 burden of the atmosphere because charcoal is produced from waste wood, crop residues, and other renewable biomass that would otherwise decompose (i.e. rot) in a landfill or in the ground and become CO2. Thus the combustion of charcoal is a small part of nature's great carbon cycle upon which life depends.

Q5: Does the replacement of coal by charcoal have other benefits?

A5: Yes! Coal is laden with mercury and sulfur. Mercury is a deadly toxin. Mercury from the combustion of coal in China has been found in fish taken from the Great Lakes in the USA. Thus mercury emissions can be windborne and carried across continents and oceans. New regulations concerning the release of mercury to the atmosphere may greatly increase the cost of electric power generation by coal combustion. Similarly, because coal is also laden with sulfur, the combustion of coal leads to the release of sulfur oxides into the atmosphere. Sulfur oxides are a principal cause of acid rain. In contrast, charcoal contains no mercury and virtually no sulfur. In fact, our drug stores sell charcoal tablets to eat as an aid for digestion! Moreover, on a pound per pound basis, charcoal contains much more energy than most coals.

Q6: Are you suggesting that charcoal would be a better choice than ethanol for the sustainable production of electric power here in Hawaii?

A6: Yes! From the standpoints of resource utilization, energy efficiency, and economics; charcoal is preferred over ethanol as a fuel for electric power generation.

Here in Hawaii we have an abundance of macadamia nut shells and husks, green wastes including tree trimmings, wood logs, coconut shells and husks, and increasing amounts of invasive species (e.g. gorse wood, strawberry guava) that should be contained or eradicated. These biomass feedstocks cannot be converted into ethanol in a practical process, but they are all ideal feedstocks for the production of charcoal.

Likewise, as a result of seed corn production, we also have significant amounts of corn stover including cobs. If this stover is converted into charcoal, the charcoal retains 59% of the energy content of the stover. This energy conversion efficiency (i.e. 660 lb charcoal per ton of dry stover) has been proven in the commercial scale Flash Carbonization™ reactor that is in operation on the UH campus. On the other hand, if the corn stover is converted into ethanol, the conversion efficiency is projected to be only 43% (i.e. 85 gal of ethanol per ton of stover). We emphasize that this efficiency is an optimistic projection, since the conversion of corn stover into ethanol is unproven on a commercial scale. Thus a ton of corn stover will deliver 37% more energy if it is converted into charcoal instead of ethanol. That's 37% more energy available for the generation of electric power!

Furthermore, because of tax incentives ethanol does not appear to be an expensive fuel. But appearances can be deceptive, especially in light of the relatively low energy content of a gallon of ethanol. The current rack price nationwide of a gallon of ethanol is $2.40. Reflecting the low energy content of ethanol this price is $3.66 per gallon of gasoline equivalent (i.e. $31.75 per million BTU). Note that this price includes no taxes. The comparable price of imported charcoal is $279/ton, or $0.79 per gallon of gasoline equivalent (i.e. $10.48 per million BTU). Thus the price of ethanol is 3 times more expensive than charcoal! Also, note that the production of charcoal enjoys no Federal tax credits; nevertheless, on an energy basis charcoal is about 87% the price of crude oil at $70 per bbl ($12 per million BTU). Given the high price of ethanol, Hawaiian consumers of electric power should contemplate the very large increase in their energy cost adjustment that will appear if ethanol begins to be used as a boiler fuel to generate electricity!

Q7: What about HECO's plan to use biodiesel produced from imported palm oil to fuel a 110 MW power plant in the Campbell Industrial Park?

A7: Biodiesel fuel (B100) is manufactured from vegetable oils. Anyone who purchases vegetable oils for salads or cooking knows that these oils are expensive. Thus, common sense leads us to expect that B100 - manufactured from soy, canola, rapeseed, or palm oil - will be expensive. The Union of Concerned Scientists predicts that the price of B100 will be double that of diesel fuel. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates the price of B100 from soy oil will exceed $2.40 per gallon, and from canola oil will exceed $3.00 per gallon. In Seattle the recent price of B100 was $3.29 per gallon.

If we make the optimistic assumption that B100 will cost $3.00 per gallon, HECO will be paying about $25 per million BTU (or $2.89 per gallon of gasoline equivalent without taxes) for its boiler fuel. On an energy basis, this is 2.4 times the comparable price of charcoal. As with ethanol, Hawaiian electric power consumers will be shocked by the energy cost adjustment that will be added to their bill when B100 is burned to generate electric power.

Q8: Is charcoal being used for the commercial production of electric power anywhere?

A8: Yes! The largest charcoal producer in Europe, the Carbo Group BV, has sold substantial quantities of wood charcoal to ESSENT for co-firing in their Borselle coal fired station.

Q9: If charcoal is so inexpensive, can a business make a profit producing charcoal?

A9: Yes! The cost of producing a ton of charcoal in the USA is usually much less than $200, depending upon the local cost of biomass and labor. The wholesale price of charcoal imports during 2006 was $279 per ton. Obviously, the production of charcoal is a very profitable enterprise.

Q10: Does charcoal have any uses besides fuel for barbeque and electric power generation?

A10: Yes! Iron, steel, and ferrosilicon alloys are all produced using a carbon reductant. Almost one pound of carbon is consumed to produce a pound of steel. In the USA coal ("coke") is used as the carbon reductant and this use of coal adds substantial amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere and is an important contributor to climate change. Brazil and Norway use charcoal instead of coal to produce iron, steel, and ferrosilicon alloys. As the steel industry moves to reduce its carbon footprint, the demand for charcoal as a substitute for reductant coal will explode.

Also, here in Hawaii charcoal is an important ingredient in potting soils, and is the preferred rooting medium for orchids. Moreover, the addition of charcoal to soil has been shown to greatly enhance the growth of corn and other cash crops. This use of charcoal to enrich the soil is attracting much attention around the world as a practical means for permanently sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.

Q11: Will Kingsford manufacture charcoal here in Hawaii?

A11: No. A local company, Carbon Diversion Corp., has exclusive rights to manufacture charcoal using the UH Flash Carbonization™ process here in Hawaii and in parts of the Pacific basin. Carbon Diversion is headed by Michael Lurvey; a prize winning MBA graduate of the UH Business School, and a Vietnam veteran.

Q12: What does this all mean for Carbon Diversion?

A12: The markets for charcoal as a boiler fuel for the sustainable production of electricity, a reductant for the sustainable production of metals, and a soil amendment for sustainable agriculture and carbon sequestration are enormous. We believe that Carbon Diversion is destined to become one of the Exxons of the 21st century.

Flash Carbonization™ process

Research at the University of Hawaii (UH) has led to the discovery of a new Flash Carbonization™ process that quickly and efficiently produces biocarbon (i.e., charcoal) from biomass. This process involves the ignition of a flash fire at elevated pressure in a packed bed of biomass. Because of the elevated pressure, the fire quickly spreads through the bed, triggering the transformation of biomass to biocarbon. Fixed-carbon yields of up to 100% of the theoretical limit can be achieved in as little as 20 or 30 minutes. (By contrast, conventional charcoal-making technologies typically produce charcoal with carbon yields of much less than 80% of the theoretical limit and take from 8 hours to several days.) Feedstocks have included woods (e.g., leucaena, eucalyptus, and oak), agricultural byproducts (e.g., macadamia nutshells, corncobs, and pineapple chop), wet green wastes (e.g., wood sawdust and Christmas tree chips), various invasive species (e.g., strawberry guava), and synthetic materials (e.g., shredded automobile tires). Results of many of these tests are described in a series of technical, peer-reviewed, archival journals paper that can be obtained by request to Prof. M.J. Antal.

We are now testing a commercial-scale, stand-alone (off-the-grid) Flash Carbonization™ Demonstration Reactor ("Demo Reactor") on campus (see photos below). The first successful test occurred on 24 November 2006. A canister full of corn cobs was carbonized in less than 30 min. This test proved that the Flash Carbonization™ process can be scaled-up to commercial size.

Recently HNEI received a two-year $215,000 research grant from the Consortium on Plant Biotechnology Research (CPBR) for "Flash Carbonization™ Catalytic Afterburner Development." The CPBR funding will enable us to make progress towards the elimination of smoke and tar from the reactor's effluent.

After we satisfy all emissions regulations, the University will team with its licensee for the State of Hawaii (Carbon Diversion Corporation) and use the equipment to convert green wastes into charcoal. Large, dense, green waste feedstocks (e.g., tree logs, coconut shells) will be marketed as barbeque charcoal. Lighter material (e.g., tree trimmings and macshells) will be marketed as orchid potting soil (see below). Some charcoal may also be marketed as an ultra-clean coal. Synthetic materials (e.g., shredded automobile tires and other shredded synthetics) may also be carbonized. When it is fully operational, the Demo Reactor will have the capacity to produce about 10 tons of charcoal per 24 hr day and provide employment to two or three workers. The capital cost of the Flash Carbonization™ Demonstration Reactor (pictured above), gantry, and two canisters was about $200,000 (including delivery to Honolulu).

The Flash Carbonization™ technology is protected by U.S. Patent No. 6,790,317. The UH has applied for patents on the Flash Carbonization™ process in many other countries, and these patents are pending. The first license for charcoal production was signed in 2003. Since then Carbon Diversion Corp. has acquired an exclusive license for the State of Hawaii and various islands in the Pacific region, and the Kingsford Products Co. has acquired a license. Inquiries from other firms, in the US and around the world, are welcome. The University's licensing approach has been to grant territorial exclusivity with regard to production of Flash Carbonization™ charcoal and non-exclusive rights to sell such charcoal worldwide. All licensing activity is handled by the Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development (OTTED).

Based on this prior experience, we recommend that a potential licensee take the following steps to determine if the Flash Carbonization™ process represents an attractive technology for adding value to locally available biomass feedstocks.

Contact Professor Michael J. Antal, Jr. and provide information on the proposed region for practice of the technology, the feedstock characteristics, etc. The potential licensee should have the ambition and the ability to produce and market at least 10,000 tons per year of charcoal.

Visit Professor Antal and Richard Cox (OTTED) to discuss license terms. The potential licensee should have significant engineering expertise.

Test the proposed feedstock's carbonization behavior in the Lab Reactor. This test costs $1000 and typically requires about 1 month to complete (including the shipping time of the biomass sample to Hawaii).

If you plan to use the FC process to produce charcoal in a region where the UH holds patents (ie., the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, and most of the EU), or if you plan to sell FC charcoal in a region where the UH has patent protection, then you must negotiate a license with OTTED. You should begin with a term sheet that summarizes the key elements of the license. These elements will include the territory for practice of the technology, the charcoal markets, the license fee, the running royalty rate, and milestones. Thereafter, you should negotiate a license with OTTED.

HNEI will assist licensees of its Flash Carbonization™ technology by offering apprenticeship training that includes a parts list, drawings, an operator's manual, and intensive training in the operation of Flash Carbonization™ reactors that are now being operated and tested on campus. The apprenticeship program can accommodate more than one apprentice from a single licensee; it is scheduled at the mutual convenience of the licensee and HNEI, and it has a typical duration of 3 weeks. Note that the apprenticeship program is only offered to licensees of the technology.

Biocarbon Fuel Cells

HNEI researchers have fabricated and tested a moderate-temperature, aqueous-alkaline "direct" carbon fuel cell that "burns" charcoal as its fuel and directly generates electricity. The exciting results of this research are described in a technical paper that has just been published. The abstract of the paper appears below. Reprints of this paper are available upon request to Prof. M. J. Antal. Currently Prof. Antal and his team are fabricating an aqueous carbonate/alkaline biocarbon fuel cell that has been designed to achieve higher voltages and power densities. We hope to begin testing this new carbon fuel cell later this year.

Abstract

Because the carbon fuel cell has the potential to convert the chemical energy of carbon into electric power with an efficiency approaching 100%, there has been a keen interest in its development for over a century. A practical carbon fuel cell requires a carbon feed that conducts electricity and is highly reactive. Biocarbon (carbonized charcoal) satisfies both these criteria, and its combustion does not contribute to climate change. In this paper we describe the performance of an aqueous-alkaline biocarbon fuel cell that generates power at temperatures near 500 K. Thermochemical equilibrium favors the reduction of oxygen on the cathode at temperatures below 500 K; whereas the chemical kinetics of the oxidation of carbon by hydroxyl anions in the electrolyte demands temperatures above 500 K. Nevertheless, an aqueous-alkaline cell operating at 518 K and 35.8 bar was able to realize an open-circuit voltage of 0.57 V, a short-circuit current density of 43.6 mA/cm², and a maximum power of 19 mW by use of a 6 M KOH/1M LiOH mixed electrolyte with a catalytic Ag screen/Pt foil cathode and an anode composed of 0.5 g of compacted corncob charcoal previously carbonized at 950 °C. A comparison of Temperature Programmed Desorption (TPD) data for the oxidized biocarbon anode material with prior work suggests that the temperature of the anode was too low: carbon oxides accumulated on the biocarbon without the steady release of CO2 and active sites needed to sustain combustion; consequently the open-circuit voltage of the cell was less than the expected value (1 V). Carbonate ions, formed in the electrolyte as a product of the reaction of CO2 with hydroxyl ions, can halt the operation of the cell. We show that the carbonate ion is not stable in hydrothermal solutions at 523 K and above; it decomposes by the release of CO2 and the formation of hydroxyl anion. Consequently it should be possible to regenerate the electrolyte by use of reaction conditions similar to those employed in the fuel cell. We believe that substantial improvements in performance can be realized from an aqueous-alkaline cell whose cathode is designed to operate at temperatures significantly below 500 K, and whose biocarbon anode operates at temperatures significantly above 500 K.

High-Yield Activated Carbons from Biomass

Activated carbons made from biomass (i.e., coconut shells) charcoal are used to purify water and air. The R3Lab has developed an air oxidation process that produces high-yield activated carbons from biomass charcoal. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Hydrogen Production from Biomass

A conventional method for hydrogen production from fossil fuels involves the reaction of water with methane (steam reforming of methane) at high temperatures in a catalytic reactor. Research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy led to the development of a process by the R3Lab for hydrogen production by the catalytic gasification of biomass in supercritical water (water at high temperature and pressure). This "steam reforming" process produces a gas at high pressure (>22 MPa) that is unusually rich in hydrogen. Researchers at the Institut fur Technische Chemie CPV, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe in Karlsruhe, Germany are commercializing a biomass gasification process that employs the conditions identified by the R3Lab in its pioneering work. However, research on this topic within HNEI halted after a U.S. Department of Energy economic study projected dismal economics for the process

Biomass Pretreatments for the Production of Ethanol and Cellulose

The R3Lab has been a leader in the development of a pretreatment process that employs hot liquid water to render lignocellulosic biomass susceptible to simultaneous saccharification and fermentation for the production of ethanol. This process can also be used to produce microcrystalline cellulose from biomass. The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research.

Contact: Michael J. Antal, Jr.

Renewable Resources Research Laboratory

Termite Cellulose Conversion Research

Picked up another bit of encouraging news in the press today. A group of scientists have begun the process of determining how termites digest wood. So far they have separated out a potpourri of enzymes from the insects gut that must be responsible for the breakdown of wood cellulose. This is work that I can support whole heartedly even though it is a very beginning.

As I have already posted, the best method currently available to upgrade a wood based feedstock is to use slow pyrolysis to produce a black acidic liquid at a 70% yield. It looks like oil but it is not. For it to be usable, additional reforming would be needed, and the silence on that subject is not promising. The only positive benefit that I can see using that method is ease of transportation. All this reforming and chemical processing begs the question of actual process energy efficiency.

Yet wood chips are the one biological feedstock that is sufficient to our needs, actually need to be collected in order to properly maintain the health and vigor of our woodlands and forests, and also collects nutrients from deep down that can then be put into our croplands.

And the really frustrating aspect of this feed stock is that cellulose is a molecule produced chemically from long chains of tied together glucose molecules. The fact is that our forests are arguably forests of almost one hundred percent sugar and water that we cannot touch at the moment. Anything that successfully releases that sugar immediately allows the conversion of those sugars into alcohol and thus into ethanol fuel. This can be a wonderful fix to our pending loss of fossil fuel as a transportation energy source.

Simply allowing the material to rot releases the bulk of the material back into the atmosphere as CO2 without any serious gain to ourselves. The soil gain is actually comparatively negligible although this seems to go against common sense. That is why we would like to at least convert a lot of it into charcoal in order to use it as a near surface nutrient sponge.

Now we have a biological research strategy that could actually take us to an industrial production protocol that is capable of converting the global wood chip feed stock that can be readily produced through simple good forest management into a feed stock for ethanol.

Of course, the first painful step is to discover what path ways are been utilized by the digestive processes of a termite. Their extraordinary high efficiency is very compelling and that suggests that the reaction pathway will turn out to be super efficient when we actually can replicate it in a bottle. My only comment is to wonder that no one has tried this already or even done some of the basic research. Of course, there may be an extensive literature out there and we are actually seeing ongoing work been trumpeted as a new idea.

Back in the middle of the twentieth century, it was not uncommon for scientists chasing a new idea to first quietly go to the various scientific journals produced in the late nineteenth century in German to make absolutely sure it was not a new idea. Those boys had a head start on everybody when it came to chemistry and the depth to explore a lot of avenues.

I will be looking for more literature on this subject because it is very important to the future of agriculture and fuel production.

The threee options for global transportation fuel

As should be now clear, mankind has three options capable of supplying transportation fuel similar to what we are used to. That is fuels that derive their energy from the burning of molecular carbon and hydrogen.

As shown yesterday, it appears likely that we can extend the usage of geological hydrocarbons for around a century or so because we are mastering the art of their extraction. This will continue to be cheapest once it is all sorted out over the next twenty years.

The second source is the two stage conversion of wood chips into firstly a bio liquid through fast pyrolysis and then into a usable fuel perhaps through several reforming technologies. Since the first stage is liquid, and the feedstock is sufficient to globally replace oil, the payoff is obvious and the research should succeed.

The third source is algae oil. Research on production is in its infancy and it is still impractical and poorly understood. Did you ever wonder how many centuries it took to master the art of making wine? Same problem. The reward however is a huge leap in productivity on a per acre basis and the ability to preferentially use deserts. And the product will need little processing to use. It is also capable of completely replacing geological oil.

Then it comes down to preferences. The best solution is to successfully harness wood chips, not because of the fuel itself but because of the secondary need to manage woodlands properly worldwide. We truly kill two birds with one stone.

This second goal must also be met if we hope to handle much larger populations. The integration of agriculture, woodland management and the human population is very necessary in order to achieve a fully energy efficient civilization.

The farm and woodland needs access to a community with available surplus labor in order to be able to maximize productivity of the resource. Ultimately that is how we prospered when the only available energy came from our backs.

One reason I totally appreciate the amazing achievement of the Amazonian Indians is the fact that they managed to create terra preta soils with a resultant high population density and a semi urban society using only their backs. If they had had to cut anything, it would never have happened. It simply would have taken too long to both cut material and to build out a proper kiln. Having a crop that could easily be pulled out of the seed bed with its soil contribution made the job possible.

Modern technology allows a small community to have all benefits of the urban world while still integrated with farm and woodland. This was not true ever. Such formal integration must now be planned for and implemented for civilization to achieve maximum energy efficiency while handling much larger populations.

Recall that five condo towers tied to one square kilometer of farm land gives us a population density of around 1000 people per square kilometer. We can all imagine that. Since around 15,000,000 square kilometers are readily available to us for human occupation in some form or the other, it becomes fairly clear that we can accommodate a population of 15 billion without becoming cheek and jowl. The real secret is to plan so energy needs are minimal and self sustaining.

It is all very possible.

As an aside, I have focused on strictly organic solutions to the transportation energy equation. Other options exist but are technically much more challenging and face the natural problem of an inability to integrate at all with the current legacy of gasoline and diesel power plants and engines.

Electrical systems require super batteries that are cheap. This research has been ongoing forever and has not changed anything that matters. And other storage systems ultimately give us the problem of traveling around with a bomb in our fuel tank. Not very likely even though I like a couple of the methods.

Fast pyrolysis and Wood Chips

I attached a link here to a critical review paper on the pyrolysis of wood and other biomass that was published last year in Energy and Fuels(2006, 20, 848 - 889). As I have recently posted, our two options for the production of transportation fuel that can use our current engine technology without a massive overhaul is algae derived biodiesel and wood chip derived oils using heat and or pressure.

Algae, though largely undeveloped offers the promise of a very labor efficient oil and cattle fodder production system operated even on otherwise non agricultural lands. It really lends itself to automatic pumping systems, filter presses and the like with potentially very high yields.

Wood chip processing will produce oil and char through the process of heating. The article gives us an approximate 25% yield for a slow pyrolysis with a 24% char yield as well. Fast pyrolysis promises to give us nearly 75% yield with a 13% char content. Obviously, fast pyrolysis needs to be perfected. Without question pyrolysis will produce a liquid component that I am loathe to call oil as yet but can obviously be processed into a working fuel.

The difficulty of course, is that wood chip production is never going to be particularly labor efficient. We have discussed the need to properly manage woodlands throughout this blog. If woodlands can now produce an economically viable crop in the form of wood chips, we go a long way toward the restoration of the productivity of these woodlands.

The optimal annual yield of an acre of temperate woodland will still be around one ton per year per acre of woodland. The value to the owner operator of this ton of wood chips will need to cover its cost of recovery and removal. With fast pyrolysis we are suddenly looking at around five barrels of oil equivalent production per year per acre. This may actually be financially viable for the owner a participate in with oil in the $100 plus range.

Other occasional agricultural bio waste can also be fed into the system, although the direct value of most of these feed stocks as local bio char will surely dominate.

Again, we face a very significant haulage cost component. A 1000 ton per day processor needs to draw from 365,000 acres of woodland. This quickly looks like 500 net square miles or in country with a minimal woodland component, a draw radius of thirty miles at least. That is a lot of haulage.

And that 1000 ton per day facility will produce perhaps 5000 barrels of oil equivalent and some charcoal. By oil industry standards this is significant but still fairly modest.

The principal benefit of a wood chip conversion system is that it can be easily tweaked to drive good woodland management practices, which has been sorely missing to date. It may even end up been completely self sustaining.

The benefit for the owner operator is that his woodlot is economically self sustaining while he is growing a profit in the form of sawn wood and any fruit production.

The technology will also be easily implemented in the tropics were the wood waste content per acre is several times what can be achieved in the temperate zone. Of course, moisture content will be difficult to manage.

Rise of Tar Sands and new Energy regime.

While the press has slept over the past year. the prices of oil has rather quietly risen from $60 per barrel to the current $95 per barrel. It has happened without geopolitical excuses or a catastrophic drop in specific production anywhere. It has happened because no single producer can ramp up production to take advantage of this rising demand.

This past two months, the price has been moving against the historical seasonal trends and just yesterday the projected inventory gain of 500,000 barrels turned out to be a 3,800,000 barrel deficit. Obviously everyone has accepted the fact the price of a tank of gas is going up. It is also going to be costlier to keep the house warm this winter. This should begin the first gentle wave of oil usage contraction.

I started reporting on this story back in July because all the evidence that was available strongly supported the emergence of a production crisis. It could no longer be increased to make up even for declines. It has been called global peak oil and will certainly be remembered as such. More importantly, the only government in the world that has moved forcefully in an attempt to stay ahead of the problem has been the Canadian Government, and that only because they could with the tar sand resource.

The massive long term investment cycle needed began with the first oil crisis in the late seventies. The government and its industry partners committed the huge financial resources necessary to solve the production problems. Thus while Canada's conventional production peaked at around 1,000,000 barrels per day and has since declined, the production of synthetic crude from the tar sands has moved Canadian production to a current plus 3,000,000 barrels and a projected 5,000,000 barrels of production as our likely optimum production rate.

We say optimum under current technology which uses up an unsustainable amount of natural gas. I personally think that the advent of THAI technology, now been proven out will completely change everything. This is toe and heel production which I described in an earlier post. This method also skips the massive impact on the environment of tar sand mining and hot water/surfactant separation.

The real payoff for those who do not understand the tar sands is that the real geological reserve is estimated at 1.6 trillion barrels of oil or more than the rest of the world combined. We have burned about 1 trillion barrels over the past 100 years, so 1.6 trillion barrels of new oil would tide us over very nicely into the next few decades. In addition, there is another trillion barrels of tar in Venezuela with our friend Hugo should we run out in fifty years or so. And of course there are many strat traps around the world loaded with heavy oil that was simply walked away from. Perfected THAI will access all these resources.

Yet Canada is still the only country that has had the foresight to spend the money and years to advance the necessary technology. And even if it were already possible to tap this total resource, Canada would have to achieve production levels of 50,000,000 barrels per day over the next two decades to replace the pending shortfall in global oil production let alone needed growth.

At that production level, the annual depletion will hit 18 billion barrels per year and it will take around a hundred years to clean out the tar sand reserve and perhaps another hundred years to clean out Venezuela and the other smaller reserves we know about. What I am saying is that is possible, though obviously undesirable to sustain a form of our hydrocarbon based civilization for another two centuries at least.

The real long term difficulty is that this is expensive fuel. It compares fairly directly with the expected cost structure of a wood chip sourced fuel which is vastly preferable.

Since a massive new investment in the production of transportation energy is now eminent when the other shoe drops with the rapid decline of global production, it is now that policy makers can redirect that investment energy into the reforming of the global agricultural and forest paradigm.

Human rewards of Energy Regime Change

I would like to point you to the following data on global land usage for specific numbers as to global forestland and grassland/woodlands.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ag049e/AG049E03.htm

Forests report at 39,886,000 square kms and woodlands report at 34,421,000 square kms. As a comparable, total farmland comes in at 15,335,000. Rather clearly, on a global scale, there are five acres of woodland to every acre of cropland. That suggests that every farmer should be responsible for the management of five acres of forest for every acre that he crops. Of course, it is never so conveniently set up for this, but we now have at least a rule of thumb for any planning efforts.

The other aspect of forest management that we need to recognize is that the inputs need not be overwhelming, although when ones confronts a wild forest, it is totally overwhelming. In practice, a forest will produce a ton of waste while growing a ton of new wood on an annual basis. The forest management trick is to get that ton of waste removed every year. That is also the sole input required for good forest management.

It sounds like a lot, but it is readily handled with modern equipment like chippers, chainsaws and perhaps a hydraulic grabber for larger chunks on a small cart. In fact there is a real price per ton for this type of effort that is readily quantifiable. It is also quickly none by semi skilled workers.

We have 7.5 billion hectares or about 15 billion acres of forest and trees able to produce on average around one ton of wood waste globally. In other words, through the simple expedient of better forest management, we can produce around 15 billion tons of wood chips that would otherwise be released back into the environment mostly as CO2 for those who think this all ends up as soil.

If a ton of wood chips could produce one barrel of oil only, we end up with a oil supply of 40,000,000 barrels per day. I think it will be possible to do twice this, but you can all see where this takes us. Good forest management practices combined with efficient conversion to hydrocarbons could by itself replace geological oil.

No one has taken a sharp pencil to the economics yet, but $90.00 oil very likely is good enough to cover the cost of actually doing this, even perhaps in the developed world and certainly elsewhere with low cost labor.

It would also be wonderful to put every idle body of earth to work harvesting and manufacturing oil in this way. Obviously, no one would lack a base job and this would be a social revolution never needing giveaways.

I also cannot promise that other methods of producing biological fuels will be any easier or ultimately much cheaper, so this can become a permanent component of the global economy.

The ultimate cost of our energy subsidized western lifestyle will be the necessity of extending this lifestyle to everyone on earth. We cannot go backwards.

The signal that this transition has begun will be the establishment of the price of oil at around $200 per barrel. That will be sufficient to support this type of projected infrastructure.

It will also trigger and encourage an unrelenting investment in alternative energy protocols and its swift expansion.

This plus the establishment of terra preta will be the greatest single economic shift in human history with two outcomes. We will have completely sustainable energy and completely sustainable agriculture powerful enough to permit a huge increase in global population.

We have 6 billion people now. The population densities of India and China is very sustainable throughout the tropics and sub tropics once the water problem is properly managed and augmented by atmospheric water. On the other hand our primary constraint of population growth will be this continuous struggle to produce sustainable energy.

As I have shown, it is completely believable that we can harness the biosphere to produce transportation oil for the current population. It is not so believable if the population jumps to much more than twice the current levels. It is also a certainty that the convenience of high energy density fuels like biological oil will make them our first and actually our best choice for portable energy.

The alternatives are possibles but certainly not nearly as convenient. After all no one is afraid of cold cooking oil. Most everything else that you may wish to use, including gasoline will quite happily flatten the neighborhood in an accident.

So yes, there is a lot of fairly simple technology to perfect, but all the ingredients are there.

Wood chips and fuel.

As my readers well know, over the next twenty years, humanity has to replace the majority of the current 83,000,000 barrels of daily oil production that we rely on to day. And it has to be in a form that allows it to be used for transportation energy. In spite of the naysayers, we really have no problem with any other part of the energy equation.


In other words, we are going to survive this horrific shift in our energy options. Personal transportation will find better ways to access other energy forms through hybrids as we are seeing now.

I have already described the one best option for the production of transportation fuels, which is the production of biodiesel from a high oil algae feedstock. It promises to be super efficient and to be integrative with cattle farming. The theoretical numbers cannot be achieved today, but I think that a viable pilot operation can be run that could easily bring the cattle industry on side producing the requisite infrastructure. The feed byproduct alone may carry the investment.

There is one additional option, that meshes with my original thesis. That is forest management. Our technology now allows labor efficient protocols for forest management. The owner can salvage wood waste every spring from his forest in the form of wood chips and sawn blocks. We want to rebuild and transform our woodlands globally into maximal ecologies. This key element of forest management is poorly capitalized, yet if it is capitalized we can establish a waste wood stream that will be uniform and transportable.

In fact the vigorous removal of wood waste will stimulate strong regeneration of forest growth and suppress the prospect of powerful forest fires limiting us to managed brush fires.

This massive stream of wood waste can be be treated in two ways. The first and least desirable is atmospheric combustion that uses the heat to support pyrolysis. A liquid fraction will be driven of that can be used as a fuel. The rest will be either burned or converted into charcoal that may or may not be used for agriculture, though I suspect that is the only useful application without burning again.

The point is, is that the output is rather small and the quality is problematic and complex. There is currently a lot of enthusiasm around it, but I must admit that I am not overly optimistic. I simply think that we can do a lot better.

A lot better, means running this same feedstock through a high pressure chamber at 600 atmospheres and 600 degrees which reprocesses all the constituents to their simplest form. This is the principle of depolymerization. This approach is very promising and the wood waste provides a uniform feedstock that can be implemented globally. The output will be hydrocarbons.

Of course, creating this wood chip gathering infrastructure also opens the door for the folks who believe that it will be possible someday to convert cellulose into the constituent sugars. The key to all these technologies is a steady supply of waste wood chips that can then be processed.

The point that I want to make, is that a wood chip recovery program can be created at the national level, inducing the woodlot owners to start systematically managing the waste output of their forests and to stockpile chips. These chip inventories are then available for processing in some form while the superior forest management and economic considerations mature.

I will develop some numbers tomorrow, but in fairness, I do not think that we can use it to offset the largest fuel burner of all. It will help though.

Celluose conversion

The fundamental roadblock that we face in the conversion to an ethanol based fuel economy is the economic conversion of cellulose feed stocks into firstly glucose and then ethanol. We actually understand how this is done - see the link for a quick explanation.

There is no lack of various feed stocks even if once again we lean on corn stalks. Every individual feedstock will present their own individual conversion issues which will obviously impact on the cost. On average though, fifty percent of the feed stock will be separable as cellulose, leaving lignins and other byproducts. This feed stock can then in theory be converted to glucose. After all, a cow does just that.

There exists a great deal of current optimism that this is achievable. I am personally very cautious in this regard. We have not lacked major research on this problem over the past century. It has been a valuable option from the beginning of organic chemistry. And the results have been unsatisfactory.

The difficulty is that we now need to economically solve this problem for a wide range of feed stocks. We can sort of do it at a high cost. Can we bring this cost down?

We already know that half of any feedstock is not cellulose. We can also expect that the recoverable portion after a chemical soak will be perhaps eighty percent of the available cellulose. Thus a first major cost will be the neutralization of the chemical soak, dehydration of the waste and its carbonization. And the volumes exceed that of the produced cellulose. We are looking at a sixty - forty split of waste and product.

Then, with our current knowledge we treat this cellulose with expensive enzymes to produce glucose. At that juncture, we are then able to do classic fermentation and alcohol production. This all promises to be a ghastly technical headache and has been to date.

What we obviously require is a handy microbe that loves dead plant material and does all this for us, including the production of alcohol. It still promises to be an incredibly slow production system. One envisages large vats of wood chips with a sprinkler recycling fluids for months on end. Not an attractive plan and the need for profitability ensures a catastrophic price for the end product.

So yes, we can see how it could work. Right now, the likely cost base means it will be anything but cellulose first.