Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, has 15 years of experience with bioethanol buses.

From African jungles to Oklahoma landfills, biofuels come from the last of the Happy Hunting Grounds

Written by Kevin Lambert

We are constantly being told that the era of cheap oil is over, but the truth is that the era of oil of any kind is going to be over as well. It’s finite, and every aspect of it is both dirty and expensive, right down to the wars that are being fought over it.

Alternative methods for energy have been explored for decades. They have failed for various reasons, not least because they have to go against the oil companies to even get off the ground. But, now that the $3.00 per gallon point has been reached, the will of the people is finally ready to look into other ways of fueling things.

This January, the International Auto show in Detroit’s theme was green vehicles. Hybrids—even a hybrid limousine priced at $100,000—dominated the aisles. For the first time in the history of the automobile industry, car manufacturer touted mileages and sustainability, phrases that would bring a sneer and a horselaugh a few years back.

Basically, the people have spoken. They’re not going to continue to pay this kind of price—in money or political instability—to drive anymore. The clever guys who invent things have been given their orders: do something about it.

All of this has set the stage for the biofuel industry.

Biofuels
Biofuel, which is also called agro fuel, is a fuel made from what we call biomass, which in this case is a plant, living or recently dead. Some of the best source plants are corn, sugarcane, and hemp, although biofuel can be produced from any biological carbon source. Even garbage can be used, bringing up the specter of landfill farms.

Biofuels are attempting to fill a staggering need; to replace petroleum as our primary transport fuel on a permanent basis. The planetary economy and way of life depends on the transportation sector. And that usually means cars.

Automotive fuel requires high power density, run by clean burning, generally liquid fuels. Biofuels are considered to be a great alternative to oil, although the process of getting them to market has been called as harmful as the oil that they replace. This debate has been going on for some time and will not be resolved here. But nobody is denying that biofuels are a powerful step in the right direction. They have a quality that oil can never deliver: they grow back. Their source can be replanted and re-harvested, perhaps forever. This is their greatest advantage. In the words of Per Carstedt, CEO of SEKAB, Sweden’s largest biofuel company, “They are available for thousands of years; as long as you have the sun.”

Government steps in
The world’s leaders in biofuels are Sweden and Brazil, especially in terms of market acceptance. Brazil produces massive amounts of ethanol and knows how to use it, and Sweden has a long history of biofuel innovation and the political will to put friendly legislation into place. They are not alone. The United States has a definite, enthusiastic ethanol policy, as do countries as diverse as Colombia and Austria.

At this point in history, government incentives seem to be the best way to get this program going. It can lead to some surprising developments. In the case of Brazil, the military rulers set up an alternative fuel program to achieve independence after the oil crises of the 1970’s. The following governments kept the program going, and the country has been driving on biofuels for years. Over 85 percent of the cars sold there in 2007 were Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs). Brazil now has 4.6 million such cars, which run on a mixture of gasoline and sugarcane ethanol. This has not been hard on the national economy, adding over a million jobs in sugar and ethanol related industries. And the money is being spent at home.

Sweden came to biofuels earlier than people think. Their first plant—the same SEKAB that leads the country today—has been producing ethanol since 1938. “At first if was byproducts from cooking liquor,” says Jan Lindstedt, chemist, SEKAB’s CEO for industrial development. “It was produced for fiber for clothing.”

(They still make it. This fiber, after some refinements, is used for a heat shell in the U.S. Space Shuttle). As early as WWII, Swedish technology was using ethanol, blended into gasoline, for auto fuel.)

Postwar cheap oil cut off any further serious development of non-gasoline products. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Sweden experienced a wakeup call similar to that of Brazil.

Another motivating factor was their need to keep their rural economy moving. A product that their farmers could profit from and keep their currency from the mercies of OPEC was irresistible. This impulse—all those voting farmers—has been driving the United States as well. It has taken some more decades, but now it seems that this combination of elements can’t be stopped.

Ethanol, the most popular biofuel
Ethanol is technically the same type of alcohol found in Johnny Walker Red. (But don’t drink it.) It is easy to manufacture and process, and can be made from very common materials, like corn or sugar cane. It can also come from cellulose. That particular form has been too expensive up to now, but a plant came online in Canada in 2004. Like all of the other biofuel ventures, it was heavily supported by its government, both as a financier and customer.

The costs will be worth it. This technology could transform agricultural byproducts like straw sawdust and corncobs into renewable energy resources.

On January 14, 2008, General Motors announced a partnership with Coskata, Inc., a biofuel manufacturer. The goal is to produce cellulosic ethanol cheaply, with an eventual goal of $1 per gallon for the fuel. The partnership plans to begin producing the fuel in large quantity by the end of 2008.

Alan Adler, manager of biofuels communications for GM, explained that GM is not planning on going into the biofuel business, but will be building vehicles that run on it. GM currently has 11 FFV vehicles on the road today. “We expect to double that by 2010,” he said.

This partnership is going in unimaginable directions. “One of the greatest (assets) is the renewable aspect. Ethanol can come from garbage. There are bugs from an Oklahoma swamp that, through natural selection, have become much more specific and they will eat anything. Then they excrete ethanol the way we excrete carbon dioxide. Scientists are working-through natural selection-on making them better and more specific. (Sci-fi moviemakers, calm down. The bugs are anaerobic and cannot threaten life on earth. They’re named L-7 and L-11.)

In Sweden, SEKAB is the biggest and most successful maker of biofuels. Jan Lindstedt explains that the market for auto fuel is so vast that he’s not even worried about competition from other alternative power. “It’s tremendous, it’s difficult for people to understand. For a ten percent replacement of gas and diesel in Europe we would need to construct 600 rather big (factories). I think we need different kinds of fuels for the transport sector. It’s a really big challenge.”

SEKAB, which has pledged to produce alternative fuels in a socially conscious manner, uses “green steam” to make their biofuels. “Green steam is biomass used in the boilers,” says Lindstedt, “so we produce electricity and heat and use that heat in distillation. A lot of the energy needed for distillation of corn based ethanol (is) natural gas, not green but fossil.”

The EU, and a lot of other organizations, has claimed, “Biofuels are an expensive way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Part of this cost has been reckoned by oil companies, who handle the distribution, and Lindstedt points out that they have been revamping their infrastructure anyway. But he agrees that, for the moment, it isn’t cheap.

“I agree that there are cheaper possibilities, but we need replacement. That is as important as the reduction of carbon dioxide.” And he reminds us that popular movements don’t stay expensive forever. “Brazil produces ethanol at the same price as we produce electricity,

Africa’s Promise
One of the major sustainability questions is, where will this biomass come from? Will the prices of food skyrocket because everybody is planting corn for fuel?

One answer is that there is still a lot of unexploited arable land in the world. According to Per Carstedt, “Only a fraction of the arable land in Africa is being used.” Jan Lindstedt was more specific: “Tanzania could use one percent of their arable land to grow sugarcane and they could replace all the gas and all diesel in the entire country.” Lindstedt expects Africa to have a big role in the future. And he is not just talking.

“That’s a big reason we are involved in developing in Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique. We want also to teach them how to do it and putting up a roadmap. We shouldn’t just go there and make ethanol and take it but to teach them to use ethanol as a transport fuel also.”

Is this leading to a bunch of unstable governments gaining control over the world’s energy supply? Lindstedt considers Tanzania to be “the most stable. There has been Swedish aid in Tanzania for 20 to 30 years. The governments have really good cooperation.”

The future and direction of biofuels
Alan Adler believes that, “Ethanol provides the greatest near-term possibility to offset if not replace petroleum. In addition to customer choice it does reduce greenhouse emissions. Coskada could reduce them by up to 84 percent.”

Jan Lindstedt says the future of ethanol is “great,” and that ethanol has “a great future. We must have something to replace fossil fuel. It’s now really taking off.”