"There’s no free lunch" is an old axiom that surfaces everytime I think something for nothing is coming my way. This time it’s ethanol, and you’re probably already aware that less corn is going to your table because more of it is going to fuel. So we’re paying for cleaner air everytime we buy products made from corn.

Articles are showing up more and more by writers complaining about rising food costs not only in the US, but in other areas of the world. So here’s an old dude’s perspective.

Education: A Zillion Uses for Corn

Also on GO:

The Green Life Guide: Ethanol

Red, Green and Blue: A Case for Ethanol Skepticism

Red, Green and Blue: Ethanol: Fuel of the Future, or Ponzi Scheme?

4 Ways to "Cash In" on Ethanol

Climate Change, Energy Security and CAFE: With E85, the Country has a Better Mousetrap

US Drunk on Ethanol Hysteria

If a person pays attention, they can turn common situations into a positive energy saving message. That’s what today’s guest does very well with an interesting and informative website called Energy Boomer.

He tells the story of a bat that helped him find areas that would leak heat, and the story of that grasshopper. He shares his views on ethanol and electric automobiles, but you may not agree completely on his choice of a fuel to power electric generating stations.

You’ll find interesting ways to save energy, at home and at work, and also some tips on saving energy if you work at home. His latest post concerns wind energy, saying wind is a form of solar power. Well, enough of this: listen in and enjoy.

When I was a kid on the farm, tiptoeing through a barnyard was a way of life. It was something like playing hopscotch with cow pies. When spring came, it was time to clean out the barn, transfer the winter’s supply of manure, one pitchfork at a time, into a “honey wagon” and take it to the fields to be used as fertilizer. It amazed me how much there was, and until I researched this project, I had no idea how much manure and gasses cattle produce each day, or the effect they have on the environment. No, this isn’t fart science.

Cow manure has been discovered as an energy source: it has power and it’s being used to make electricity and ethanol. Take for example the E3 BioFuels Genesis plant in Mead, Nebraska. The $80 million facility began operation this summer, turning out some 25 million gallons of ethanol a year (a rather small amount, compared to other ethanol plants around the country). What makes this facility unique is it’s patented closed-loop system, the first of its kind in America, and quite possibly in the world.

The plant is old news, really, but here’s how it works. A nearby beef cattle feedlot provides 150,000 pounds of manure every day, which is processed through an anaerobic digester, and that produces methane. The methane is used to fire the plant’s boilers, replacing expensive natural gas, resulting in a large reduction in operating expenses. Company officials say the Genesis plant produces 46 units of energy for every unit of fossil fuel energy required, a 46:1 efficiency ratio. Conventional ethanol plants are rated at a ratio of 3:1.

A byproduct of ethanol production, wet distiller’s grain, is fed to the cattle in the feedlot and the process begins all over again. Now this is a very brief explanation of what’s happening at the Genesis plant. Their website explains it very well..

So why am I writing about this? Well, there’s more to cow manure, as you probably know. Millions of tons are produced every day by the estimated 1.5 billion cattle populating our planet. Let’s put this into some sort of perspective. The University of Wisconsin at Green Bay estimates the average dairy cow drops 148 pounds of manure each day. Do the math: that’s a lot of BS! And you thought it was all in Washington!

Dairy Farms

Haubenschild FarmSeveral dairy farms in America use the output of their cattle in much the same way as the Nebraska plant, with one exception. The Haubenschild Dairy Farm in Princeton, Minnesota, is a shining example. Instead of using the methane to create heat for boilers, it’s used to run generators that provide electric power for the operation, and supply electricity to surrounding homes as well. Anaerobic digester systems are expensive though, ranging from $200,000 to $1,000,000 depending on the size of the herd, so farmers with smaller herds have been reluctant to make that kind of investment. The USDA has free software for download that will determine digester size and cost based on the size of a farm’s herd. I found it fun, and very informative.

Hopefully, as the science of digesters improves, the process will become less costly, and more farmers and commercial operations will be able to take advantage of poop power. I was surprised to learn from The AgSTAR Program website that several pig farms are using digesters, and there’s even a duck farm in Wisconsin using a digester.

Belching

Here’s the capper: while manure provides greenhouse gasses, a cow’s breath introduces far more methane and other gasses into the air. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the six million tons of methane burped by cattle in the US each year is equivalent to 36 million tons of carbon dioxide. If you add the output of sheep, goats and other ruminants, they all account for more than 18% of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, and that, according to the IPCC, is more than cars, planes and all other forms of transportation.

So, is the world’s cattle population contributing to global warming? It would seem so with all the belching and pooping, and the IPCC makes a strong case.

While we’re beginning to discover applications for animal manure, what about the burping? I doubt gas masks would work well on cows, and there’s no way we’ll be decreasing herd sizes anytime soon. Diet seems the best way to reduce production of greenhouse gasses produced by livestock, along with more efficient and productive methods of dealing with manure.

I’m so proud of myself; I didn’t once say “shit."

The Ford Model T and the Chevy Volt: Image Sources: University of Houston, Edmonds.com

I was reflecting over the weekend on just how far we’ve come in the past 100 years or so, and I’d like to do some reminiscing. Old folks are prone to do that since we have so many “miles” stacked up. So humor me.

This was a little before my time, but back in the early 1900’s, Henry Ford began production of his Model T, the Volkswagen of its time. The really interesting thing about his new car was that it ran on ethanol, or gasoline, or a combination of the two. As a matter of fact, Ford was quoted as predicting ethanol was the fuel of the future. His vision was to “build a vehicle affordable to the working family and powered by a fuel (ethanol) that would boost the rural farm community.” He also became fascinated with soybean-based plastics through his relationship with George Washington Carver.

In 1942, Ford patented an automobile using a tubular welded frame and a body made almost entirely of plastic derived from soybeans. According to Wikipedia, the vehicle weighed 30% less than a steel car, ran on ethanol instead of gasoline, and could withstand impacts ten times greater than could steel. WWII was underway, and the concept was lost in the demand for war materials.

So what happened to that prediction? Ethanol was used as a fuel by itself and as a blend with gasoline until prohibition hit in 1919, when anything alcoholic was illegal, except for ethanol’s use as an additive to gasoline. After prohibition, ethanol as a fuel by itself never regained popularity, and it was used in gasoline for a very short time to help boost octane and reduce the annoying engine knock that haunted higher compression engines. After World War II, the price of fossil fuels edged ethanol out of the fuels market, and by the late 1940’s, virtually no commercial fuel ethanol was available in the US.

The use of ethanol as an octane booster, or anti-knock additive, gave way in the early 1920’s to a substance known as tetraethyl lead, a cheap, explosive and very poisonous solution developed by General Motors. It was marketed as “leaded gasoline”, and remained a staple of the oil industry until the mid-1970’s when it was outlawed for what it was: a dangerous health threat. That’s why when you pull up to the pump, you see that you are using “unleaded” gasoline. It’s interesting to note that the developers of leaded gasoline were strong advocates of ethanol for boosting octane, but GM reportedly caved in to oil company interests looking for a cheaper method of preventing the pre-ignition of fuels in the cylinder.

So today, the love affair with fossil fuels is waning for a number of reasons, probably more because of the cost than the pollution they cause. Ok, it’s an old man’s cynicism that simply says “money talks”, or to quote Billy Holiday’s lyrics in “God Bless the Child,” “Them that’s got shall get, Them that’s not shall lose.” I really suspect that if the price of gas goes back to $1 a gallon, the push for alternatives like ethanol would fade big time.

Diesel fuel

Let’s move along to another fossil fuel, diesel. When Rudolph Diesel first conceived the engine that bears his name, his primary focus was to provide a simpler and more efficient power plant that would run on petroleum-based fuel or one made from natural plant oils.

The idea caught on in Europe, and Diesel became a millionaire. He came to the US on a couple of occasions to enlist the help of a super salesman he’d heard about, August Busch. Yeah, the Anheuser Busch guy. Busch gave it his best but the concept didn’t catch on in the states, so Rudolph went back to Europe to perfect his invention, and August sold beer. The first diesel engine put into use in the United States was at the Busch brewery in St. Louis. Diesel’s trip wasn’t in vain after all: he sold one. In 1913, as World War I was looming, Diesel boarded a ship to cross the English Channel in an effort to sell his concept to the British. Diesel didn’t make it to the isles: his body was found floating in the water after he didn’t show up for breakfast one morning. It is believed Mr. Diesel was very despondent after losing a patent battle and his fortune, and chose to end his life in that manner. Some conspiracy buffs think the German army, in an effort to keep the British from powering their submarine fleets with his engine, murdered him.

The diesel engine finally caught on after WWI, and became a workhorse during and after WWII. Today, it’s a major contributor to our society, yet most of those engines still run on fossil fuels. Again, I ask the question: if the price of diesel fuel drops to $1 a gallon, would money talk?

The Electric Car

Now, let’s consider the electric car. At one time, many years ago, there were more electric cars on the road than those fueled with gasoline. However, battery technology wasn’t as sophisticated as it is today, and the idea died rather quickly. But let’s fast-forward about 90 years and ponder for a moment GM’s electric car of the mid 1990’s, the EV1. It was a sensation in California, and more than 1000 were leased to eager customers with orders piling up. Then, one day, GM pulled the plug on their new concept, saying they stood no chance of ever making a profit on the car. As leases expired the cars went to the shredders, and all but a very few that were purchased, as I understand, are still traveling the roads of California.

Once again it’s alleged the oil companies, auto manufacturers and even our federal government weighed in on the undesirability of GM’s EV1 and the concept died a mangled death. The documentary film, Who Killed the Electric Car? tells an interesting story; it’s worth a look.

So, here we are, everything that’s old is new again! We’re spending billions of dollars today, researching and producing alternative energy sources to replace high priced and dirty fossil fuels, when the answers were there a century ago. But at that time, fossil fuels were cheap, and money appears to have talked louder than concerns for our health and environment. That’s progress, I guess. What fuels will prevail? With all the research going on we’ll just have to invoke the old saying, “let’s throw it against the wall and see what sticks.”

Sally and I are doing our part, by the way. We drive a ’96 Ford Contour, a nice little car and it serves our needs. However, since my lungs are giving out due to the coal smoke I inhaled as a kid, in addition to emissions from other fossil fuel sources, and of course, cigarettes, walking any distance just doesn’t happen anymore. So, the Veterans Administration was nice enough to give me a four-wheel Rascal scooter to get around. Sally’s knees work on a flat level only, so she now has a Jazzy power chair. We drive the car very little. She shops at the nearby farmers market for most things, and since we live downtown, the public library is close by, and city and county buildings, restaurants and movie theatres are but a few minutes away on our electric vehicles. And yes, it was forced upon us, and yes, there is still a carbon footprint because of the utility company’s use of fossil fuels, but we’re grateful to have these options and know we are contributing our small bit to cleaning up the air and still lead normal lives.