"The New BioEconomy: What Do We Have to be Excited About?" Economic boost may be fueled by agriculture
This thing is staring to look very interesting!
Economic boost may be fueled by agriculture
By Kay Ledbetter, Texas A&M
May 5, 2006
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AMARILLO - While no single source of fuel will take the place of foreign oil, agriculture offers many opportunities to make a dent in its use and provide economic benefits at the same time, speakers said during a recent meeting.
"The New BioEconomy: What Do We Have to be Excited About?" held April 5 in Amarillo covered topics ranging from sorghum and mesquite trees to manure as possible renewable fuel sources.
Biofuels are the sustainable fuel for agriculture, said Dr. Sergio Capareda, Texas Agriculture Experiment Station engineer in College Station.
"We can certainly expect more biofuel activities in the future," Capareda said.
New players, both big and small, as well as new markets, including the marine, trucking and heating industries, will be involved, he said.
"Environmental pollution and rising energy costs will contribute to its widespread use, but it will need more government and private support," Capareda said.
The potential ranges from liquid, gaseous and solid biofuels. Liquid biofuels – especially biodiesel and ethanol – are getting the most attention, he said.
Biodiesel production jumped from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 75 million gallons in 2005, Capareda said. Feedstocks for biodiesel can be vegetable oil, restaurant waste oil, animal fats and trap grease. Marketing the excess production of vegetable oil and animal fats through liquid fuels will help decrease the dependence on imported oil.
Biodiesel also is renewable, it contributes less to global warming and its exhaust emissions are lower than regular diesel, he said.
Ethanol production also is growing, with a record 286,000 barrels per day produced in January, Capareda said. Estimates put it at a $10 billion business producing 4 billion gallons this year. And federal government energy plans call for doubling production by 2012 and replacing 75 percent of the Middle Eastern oil by 2025, he said.
Currently, 97 ethanol plants with a combined capacity of nearly 4.5 billion gallons a year are running. In addition, 33 ethanol plants and nine expansions with an annual capacity of more than 2 billion gallons are on the books, Capareda said.
But the supply is still inadequate for consumption, he said.
Some of the new sources of biomass for biofuels Capareda outlined are animal manure; crop residue, such as gin trash, corn cobs/straw, rice hulls; fast growing trees; sugar and starchy crops; oil and hydrocarbon crops and herbaceous crops such as switchgrass.
Dr. Bill Rooney, Experiment Station plant breeder in College Station, said sorghum should play a role in bio-energy production.
Sorghum is a logical crop to feed into the growing ethanol program, he said. It has a high yield potential, high water-use efficiency and drought tolerance, existing seed and management systems, photoperiod sensitivity, which maximizes its growing season; and a high stalk sugar potential.
Dr. Jim Ansley, Experiment Station rangeland researcher at Vernon, is determining the feasibility of developing a bio-energy industry in rural west-central Texas based on the harvest and utilization of rangeland woody plants, such as mesquite and red berry juniper.
Working with Pearson BioEnergy Inc. in Aberdeen, Miss., Ansley is studying the supply, harvest technologies, ethanol conversion rates and ecological effects of mesquite harvesting.
The Rolling Plains is covered with about 6 million acres of moderate to dense mesquite. If two-thirds of that is left for wildlife habitat and hunting, 2 million acres is available for ethanol production, he said.
Dr. John Sweeten, Experiment Station research director in Amarillo, talked about the benefits of processing ethanol by burning manure instead of natural gas or other energy sources.
Manure is a renewable, collectable fuel source with a heating value about 25 percent that of coal, Sweeten said. If handling and transportation costs can be kept minimal, manure can compete as an alternative non-conventional renewable fuel, he said.
"Who would have thought of manure as an energy source and not just a smell," said Aries "Bugs" Graham, with Panda Hereford Ethanol. Panda is building an ethanol plant in Hereford that will use the cheaper manure power source instead of natural gas.
Graham, who has been in the business for 26 years, said this is the first time in his lifetime the ethanol industry has taken off the way it should have 20 years ago. The problem, he said, is it came to life in the Midwest and now Texas needs to get involved again and cash in on the billions of dollars being spent on goods and services in rural communities.
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