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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (11543)	12/2/2010 8:41:40 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24235

Progress lagging on cellulosic ethanol By ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star JournalStar.com \| Posted: Wednesday, December 1, 2010 9:00 am The future of renewable fuels is supposed to be largely about breaking down the stubborn cellulose fiber in such cheap materials as wheat straw, cornstalks, switch grass and wood chips, converting them to energy and putting the results in your fuel tank. The future didn't seem to get much closer on Monday. That's when the Environmental Protection Agency lowered its 2011 expectations for cellulosic output from 250 million gallons to 6.5 million gallons. The EPA retreat raises questions about reaching the lofty federal goal of 16 billion gallons of cellulose-based fuel by 2022. But Chris Standlee is not ready to hit the panic button. "Twelve years is a long time," Standlee said Tuesday, looking ahead as executive vice president for a company that already has converted wheat straw to ethanol at its York pilot plant. "And look at what the starch-based industry has done in the last five years," said the St. Louis-based spokesman for Abengoa Bioenergy, which also expects to break ground in Kansas early next year on a $400 million to $500 million cellulosic plant of commercial scale. Standlee said the rapid ratcheting up of ethanol made from corn from 2 billion gallons five years ago to more than 13 billion gallons now supports his point about big transitions happening in short periods of time. At the same time, he conceded that progress has been pretty limited so far toward the next generation of renewable fuels. "It's due to several reasons," he said, "one of them being, perhaps, that loan guarantees and other government support programs have not developed as quickly as anticipated." Critics of the effects that corn for ethanol use can have on water quantity and quality, the cost of livestock feeding and other parts of everyday life have been eager to see how quickly renewable fuels production might evolve away from corn. Reaction from prominent people in Nebraska ethanol circles to the latest EPA news ranged from concerns about the shortage of private financing to a professing of faith in the ability of corn farmers to rise to a new production challenge. Loran Schmit, executive director of the Association of Nebraska Ethanol Producers, sounded almost like Clint Eastwood playing the part of San Francisco Police Detective Dirty Harry and saying, "Go ahead, make my day." Schmit, a former state senator and crafter of state incentives for corn ethanol, said corn farmers have much more potential to double their output than champions of cellulosic ethanol have for reaching their goal. "I just hope that, if we need more ethanol, that we recognize that corn producers can do it," Schmit said. Ken Vogel, a federal researcher of switch-grass potential at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, offered a more cautious view of the contribution from a perennial that typically grows 8 to 10 feet tall. "I think it's still a viable crop for use on marginal lands if the conversion technology can be developed and implemented," Vogel said. Until processing plants for switch grass and other cellulosic prospects are up and running, the result will be hard to assess, he said. "There were supposed to be six cellulosic plants built, and I think they're all behind schedule," he said. Todd Sneller of the Nebraska Ethanol Board said much of the early trouble with cellulosic production has to do with inconsistent follow-through on loan guarantees and other federal incentives. "As a result," Sneller said, "I think we continue to see a real concern on the part of financiers who are willing to take some risk but would like to have that risk and the public policy risk shared by the federal government." Sneller also suggested that the Obama administration is putting too much focus on such subjects as electric cars and too little on renewable fuels. "It does puzzle me that we don't see more of a focus," he said. journalstar.com