Coal-To-Liquid Diesel Fuel: A Bipartisan Issue That Unites Environmentalists With Farmers
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 01.26.07
The Wall Street Journal has an article titled Energy Mandates Fuel a Rift (subscription only) that reminds us of the madness that breaks out when fans pour onto a soccer field to mix it up:- "...President Bush's push for domestic alternatives to imported oil has ignited a battle between coal interests and environmentalists -- and underscored tension between the goals of increasing U.S. energy security and curbing global warming." And, an unusual 'coal-ition of the unwilling' seems to have been forged, now that the President mentioned coal-to-liquids (CTL) diesel as an "alternative fuel": "Environmentalists are backed by the ethanol industry, which doesn't want the coal industry muscling in on a fuel mandate that ethanol producers now have to themselves". Prominent Democrats favor CTL. For example:- "Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat and White House hopeful, is a sponsor of the Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act, which provides more tax incentives and federal loan guarantees for companies interested in making coal-based fuels". A few of us TreeHugger writers who are US citizens have conversed about the linkage of CTL, climate, and conservation and have come up with what we hope will be seen as constructive criticisms for evaluation of alternative liquid fuels. Good for any party. Have a look below the fold.
Background:
Recently, Senator Barack Obama’s website carried a press release with this announcement: “Obama, Lugar, Harkin Introduce Legislation to Increase Availability and Use of Renewable Fuels, Decrease U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil.” As noted on BlueClimate, however, “There was absolutely no mention of global warming or climate change, in the press release”.
As Grist’s Amanda Griscom Little woefully notes, on the day before the renewable fuel bill press release, Senator Barack Obama “joined with Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning to introduce the "Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2007." Coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology uses a highly energy-intensive process to convert coal into diesel fuel for cars or jet fuel for airplanes -- an appealing prospect to the coal industry in Obama's home state of Illinois, but not to enviros and others concerned about global warming”. Again from Grist: “According to an NRDC analysis, a 35-mpg car powered by the CTL fuel that's currently available would generate as much carbon dioxide pollution as a far less efficient 19-mpg car that runs on conventional gasoline.” The reason? CTL emits relatively more C02 during the extraction and processing stage of making transportation fuel.
Via BlueClimate again, the Obama-Bunning press release describing the CTL bill states that: “This bipartisan piece of legislation is based on the bill first introduced by Senators Bunning and Obama last spring and would help create the infrastructure needed for large-scale production of Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) fuel. It is a comprehensive bill that expands tax incentives, creates planning assistance, and develops Department of Defense support for the domestic CTL industry”.
Discussion:
If design improvements and Federal incentives eventually prove the CTL technology worthy of massive scale up, we’d be good for 50 years or more of diesel from a North American carbon source…maybe. And that does little for gasoline. Unfortunately, that determination is a decade or more away.
Meanwhile, in the decade we have left to take climate change seriously, less than a quarter of US citizens take full advantage of compact fluorescent bulbs or have convenient access parking near a bicycle trail or bus stop. Many such simple options could be more immediately and reliably realized than speculative, unproven, long-range energy infrastructure projects, with the added benefit of helping to stabilize emissions now. The general principle: conservation stabilizes energy supply and climate.
Per the press release, the Department of Defense is said to be supportive of the Obama and Bunning draft bill; but no mention is made of USEPA involvement. This is not a reassuring situation, given recent requests to absolve DOD of continuing cleanup responsibilities for historic contamination, and in light of the hazardous waste certain to be produced by CTL operations (see below).
Regardless of clean-up capabilities included in the battery limits of a CTL process, there is never an “away” for the sulfur compounds, or the lead, arsenic, mercury, and halides that must be removed in initial CTL steps. Material is conserved. As a result, vast amounts of non-fuel materials -- potentially hazardous waste -- could be produced by a large-scale shift to CTL. No mention is made of how these will be managed; and again, no confirmation is given by Senator Obama’s press release that EPA supports the bill.
When EPA does get involved, here are likely to be a few of the major questions to address. What is the suitability of CTL co-product streams for conversion into competitively priced chemical products. How much sulfuric acid does the world really need? Will the governent incentives be subsidizing the chemical industry? What market specs can be cost-effectively met?
Regarding the press releases from members of both parties, metaphorically speaking, it feels as if we are in a time machine set for the late 1960’s and readying to see the Maumee River in Ohio again catch fire. The mind reels at the energy security grandstanding, and at what would seem to have been the failure to do a proper and balanced risk management review. The US can do better.
Recommendations:
1. CTL co-products, wastes, and emissions should be fully understood before tax incentives are put in place or public money committed for support of research, development, or commercialization. Do it for the total life cycle, from coal extraction, through benefaction, processing, refining, packaging, distribution, and end product consumption. Congress should make certain that a third party study is conducted and that draft and final reports are given the highest form of peer review: made available to all the people, well before the consideration of any bill.
2. A high level of carbon sequestration must be included as a pre-condition of proposed tax incentives, grants, loans, or development right transfers. Without this stipulation, the risk of “bait and switch” is simply too high.
3. The power of position means nothing when the future of the earth is at serious risk. “Bi-partisan” is a fine starting point, but we must keep in mind that a reduced carbon footprint is equally as important an endpoint as “energy security.”
4. The sum of all tangible government support for CTL research, development, or commercialization, whether financial in nature or given as real property, should be able to provide a measurable net decrease in carbon dioxide emissions over the product life cycle. A typical unit function would be Kg of C02 emitted, on average, per vehicle mile traveled, reflecting fleet average efficiency.
5. We strongly suggest that Congressional staffs involved in bill preparation visit either the South African or existing US based CTL operations to learn as much as possible about how waste and co-product streams are managed. An experienced chemical engineer not currently employed within the industry should be invited along on the visit to assist with gathering information about economics, co-product yields, waste management, and reliability.
6. Finally, we recommend that government study and support of CTL should be done in parallel with bills aimed at other alternative energy technologies that have significant carbon “footprints.” These include, at a minimum, food-crop based bio-diesel, food-crop based fuel ethanol, and cellulosic or “non-food” crop fuel ethanol.
Image credit: Boat Nerd
It would be crazy to go for CTL at this point when the more we learn about climate change, the scarier it looks.
Unless they can achieve full sequestration in a safe way - and how could they if the liquid coal is burned in millions of cars? - they should do a serious push for other measures.
I'm all for trying different things, but there's always an opportunity cost, both in terms of resources and time.
Why not push clean electricity generation AND electric transportation? That's a winning combo. Not CTL (which is worse than oil) + same old..
There are enough sources of renewable, and sustainable energy to power the U.S. several times over.
We have the technology.
We also have a leadership vacuum.
The idea that CTL is a viable alternative to 'secure' our future is absurd. It keeps perpetuating the painfully obvious mistakes of fossil fuel dependence -
1) increased toxic waste
2) increased air pollution
3) increased CO2
4) dependence on sequestration (some estimates state that we only have enough room to store about three decades of CO2 production)
5) ignores interdependence of U.S. to the environment.
6) ignores interdependence of the U.S. to the rest of the world.
There are enough sources of renewable, and sustainable energy to power the U.S. several times over.
We have the technology.
We also have a leadership vacuum.
The idea that CTL is a viable alternative to 'secure' our future is absurd. It keeps perpetuating the painfully obvious mistakes of fossil fuel dependence -
1) increased toxic waste
2) increased air pollution
3) increased CO2
4) dependence on sequestration (some estimates state that we only have enough room to store about three decades of CO2 production)
5) ignores interdependence of U.S. to the environment.
6) ignores interdependence of the U.S. to the rest of the world.
I like the recommendations. It's common sense, or at least, it should be.
Is it just me or does it seem a bit odd that Bush supports an extremely off shot alternative fuel method. He seems to want to piss as many people off as possible. =/
Farmers + Big Oil + Environmentalists + etc.
How can anyone expect any real progress when the system is set up to exploit the consumer. Big business will ALWAYS take the front seat to the sheep...I mean consumers. Whatever new fuel infrastructure is set up, you can bet it will keep the $ and power in the hands of a few.
Jack
Frankly, BioDiesel is what we need to replace Diesel.
It's fossil fuel inputs are about zilch in comparison to all other liquid fuels. (Even fuel cells)
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_vehicle_compare.html
And it's performance is equal or better than diesel.
Infact it's wear on the vehicle is dramatically lower.
Producing BioDiesel from Algae presents the possibility of producing more fuel than we could ever want.
Not to mention, it's cheaper than the newly mandated "Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel" that came into effect October 2006.
Coal-to-Diesel is completely unnecisary.
And in the face of the new IPCC report, it's practically treason to the Security of the America.
I have a bad feeling about Obama.
BTW, it was the CUYAHOGA River that caught fire, not the MAUMEE.
If the problems can be solved, CTL is a viable bridge technology: the energy is in the ground NOW and will allow the US to disentangle itself from the morass that is the Middle East, until other, less disadvantageous technologies can be adequately developed on the scales necessary to support the energy needs of this country.
There are a lot of pie-in-the-sky alternatives out there: they may be cleaner . . . but can they scale up? We should be working on all technologies and possible solutions, not limiting ourselves because some of those possibilities are saddled with current "difficulties."
===== author's response follows ===
Right you are about the Cuyahoga being the river that infamously caught fire in 1969. http://www.jcu.edu/chemistry/naosmm/2007/Cuyahoga%20Revisited.htm
Yes, some CTL is surely going to be in the mix.
Agree about scale up being a categorical issue for alternative fuels. However, I argue that the residuals and air emissions of CTL could make its scalability uneconomic and potentially increase the risk of climate catastrophe. At the very least a full accounting of that potential is needed. The design life of a new plant would be in the 30 to 80 year range -- far longer than the time in which we need to identify and scale up more benign alternatives.
Using an Emission Free Nuclear Liquid Fuel Refinery would address the Emission issues.
See our website for research and links
www.liquidcoal.com
Although many of these reccomendations are slightly redundant, as much of the independent check-and-balance work referenced above has already been done a number of times, and has been thoroughly studied by the afformentioned political interests, I agree wholeheartedly with many of the points.
I would adjust #6 a bit though, by adding: “non-food” crop biomass synthetic diesel fuels
What one must realize is that these CTL plants are not necessairly just stuck with using coal as a feedstock. If designed correctly, these facilities can actually function as xTL plants, being fed anything from negative-value waste streams (old tires, municipal solid waste, sewage sludge) to biomass, to coal. Once adequate carbon regulation is put in place, biomass becomes much closer to competitive with coal as a feedstock, and when properly paired with carbon capture and sequestration, at a sufficiently high blend of biomass added to compliment the coal feed, an xTL plant can get the overall carbon footprint down to zero or better, actually make the whole operation a carbon sink. This is all do-able with commercial off-the-shelf technology available today. Some of the Illinois CTL plants referenced in this article are likely to be first-movers in real-world large-scale deployment of this second-generation biofuels technology, as they can use coal as a bridge to a more renewable feedstock source that must go through a time-consuming development process before being able to supply a plant of any real magnitude.
Lets get good nationwide carbon regulation in place, and assign a value to that CO2, so some real large-scale renewably-fed fuels plants can get built without having such a ravaging effect on global food prices. (just compare yield-pre-acre, with EROEI factored in, for Miscanthus or blended prairie grasses BTL vs corn ethanol or soy biodiesel)
Carbon regulation will be essential to incentivize much of industry to take switching to sustainable fuels seriously.
The best plans for liquid coal stipulate the use of nuclear power at the processing plant. If that is the case, liquid coal is cleaner than conventional diesel. Ethaonol and Biodiesel are still dirty sources that require substantial carbon output to grow and process. Also, the so called "renewables" at best can only supply a tiny fraction of our total energy needs, and require a huge investment in infrastructure to implement. Conventioal oil is only expected to last another 30 years. We need to get going NOW to avoid worldwide chaos. LIquid coal will work in exisitng engine technology, and the infrastrucure is already in place.
All of this talk about coal-to-liquid and how it will end our dependency on foreign oil is completely overlooking the environmental destruction caused by the extraction of coal. Mountaintop removal (a commonly used way to mine coal in Appalachia) destroys the land while the valley fills (dumping the removed mountain tops into the nearby by valleys) snuffs out the head waters of many small streams. After the coal is finally removed, it is sent to a 'wash plant' where the impurities are removed leaving a toxic slurry that the coal companies must dispose of. This slurry often ends up in the drinking water. We need to stop promoting coal as the solution to our needs and move towards fuel sources made from renewal resources.
Question:
Does this only apply to coal to liquid or does it apply to ethanol and other sources as well?
We got ourselves into this mess by being totally dependant on one fuel source, why make the same mistake.
Precisely what would prevent us from having a variety of sources of fuel so that no one group has a monopoly.
BTW
My remarks are meant to say that all alternative fuel plans should meet the same economic and environmental impact statements.
Scientists at the University of Minnesota point out that if we converted every ear of corn into ethanol, we would only displace 12% of gas usage. So, unless you're also going to radically restrict auto usage (good luck) you're going to have to keep adding more arable land to ethanol, causing food prices to go up. I don't think that will fly pollitically.
What's wrong with using coal to create diesel fuel that we can add biomass to as needed so that we still have food enough for people and let states and regions that have common biomass products work at converting them to biomass locally rather than a one-size fits all philosophy.