Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Rachel's News #906: Peak Soil Part 2
http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_dhn070510.htm

Economic Barriers (or Investors Aren't Stupid)

1) Biomass can't compete economically with fossil fuels in transportation,
chemicals, or electrical generation.

2) There aren't any credible data on price, location, quality and quantity
of biomass.

3) Genetically-modified energy crops worry investors because they may
create risks to native populations of related species and affect the value
of the grain.

4) Biomass is inherently more expensive than fossil fuel refineries because

a) Biomass is of such low density that it can't be transported over large
distances economically. Yet analysis has shown that biorefineries need to
be large to be economically attractive -- it will be difficult to find
enough biomass close to the refinery to be delivered economically.

b) Biomass feedstock amounts are unpredictable since unknown quantities
will be lost to extreme weather, sold to non-biofuel businesses, rot or
combust in storage, or by used by farmers to improve their soil.

c) Ethanol can't be delivered in pipelines due to likely water
contamination. Delivery by truck, barge, and rail is more expensive.
Ethanol is a hazardous commodity which adds to its transportation cost and
handling.

d) Biomass varies so widely in physical and chemical composition, size,
shape, moisture levels, and density that it's difficult and expensive to
supply, store, and process.

e) The capital and operating costs are high to bale, stack, palletize, and
transport residues

f) Biomass is more geographically dispersed, and in much more ecologically
sensitive areas than fossil resources.

g) The synthesis gas produced has potentially higher levels of tars and
particulates than fossil fuels.

h) Biomass plants can't benefit from the same large-scale cost savings of
oil refineries because biomass is too dispersed and of low density.

5) Consumers won't buy ethanol because it costs more than gasoline and
contains 34% less energy per gallon. Consumer reports wrote they got the
lowest fuel mileage in recent years from ethanol due to its low energy
content compared to gasoline, effectively making ethanol $3.99 per gallon.
Worse yet, automakers are getting fuel-economy credits for every E85
burning vehicle they sell, which lowers the overall mileage of auto fleets,
which increases the amount of oil used and lessens energy independence.
(Consumer Reports)

Equipment and Storage Barriers

1) There are no harvesting machines to harvest the wide range of residue
from different crops, or to selectively harvest components of corn stover.

2) Current biomass harvesting and collection methods can't handle the many
millions of tons of biomass that need to be collected.

3) How to store huge amounts of dry biomass hasn't been figured out.

4) No one knows how to store and handle vast quantities of different kinds
of wet biomass. You can lose it all since it's prone to spoiling, rotting,
and spontaneous combustion

Preprocessing Barriers

1) We don't even know what the optimum properties of biomass to produce
biofuels are, let alone have instruments to measure these unknown
qualities.

2) Incoming biomass has impurities that have to be gotten out before
grinding, compacting, and blending, or you may damage equipment and foul
chemical and biological processes downstream.

3) Harvest season for crops can be so short that it will be difficult to
find the time to harvest cellulosic biomass and pre-process and store a
year of feedstock stably.

4) Cellulosic biomass needs to be pretreated so that it's easier for
enzymes to break down. Biomass has evolved for hundreds of millions of
years to avoid chemical and biological degradation. How to overcome this
reluctance isn't well enough understood yet to design efficient and
cost-effective pre-treatments.

5) Pretreatment reactors are made of expensive materials to resist acid and
alkalis at high temperatures for long periods. Cheaper reactors or low
acid/alkali biomass is needed.

6) To create value added products, ways to biologically, chemically, and
mechanically split components off (fractionate) need to be figured out.

7) Corn mash needs to be thoroughly sterilized before microorganisms are
added, or a bad batch may ensue. Bad batches pollute waterways if
improperly disposed of. (Patzek Dec 2006).

Cellulosic Ethanol Showstoppers

1) The enzymes used in cellulosic biomass production are too expensive.

2) An enzyme that breaks down cellulose must be found that isn't disabled
by high heat or ethanol and other end-products, and other low cost enzymes
for specific tasks in other processes are needed. 3) If these enzymes are
found, then cheap methods to remove the impurities generated are needed.
Impurities like acids, phenols, alkalis, and salts inhibit fermentation and
can poison chemical catalysts.

4) Catalysts for hydrogenation, hydrgenolysis, dehydration, upgrading
pyrolysis oils, and oxidation steps are essential to succeeding in
producing chemicals, materials, and transportation fuels. These catalysts
must be cheap, long-lasting, work well in fouled environments, and be 90%
selective.

5) Ethanol production needs major improvements in finding robust organisms
that utilize all sugars efficiently in impure environments.

6) Key to making the process economic are cheap, efficient fermentation
organisms that can produce chemicals and materials. Wald writes that the
bacteria scientists are trying to tame come from the guts of termites, and
they're much harder to domesticate than yeast was. Nor have we yet
convinced "them to multiply inside the unfamiliar confines of a
2,000-gallon stainless-steel tank" or "control their activity in the
industrial-scale quantities needed" (Wald 2007).

7) Efficient aerobic fermentation organisms to lower capital fermentation
costs.

8) Fermentation organisms that can make 95% pure fermentation products.

9) Cheap ways of removing impurities generated in fermentation and other
steps are essential since the costs now are far too high.

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