WetEV said:
AndyH said:
"Taking all feedstocks into account, the U.S. can replace 51% of fossil transportation fuel through biogas, or 77 billion gasoline gallons equivalent," each year, Schuppenhauer said. Of that feedstock mix, 49.93% is energy crops, 30.29% is crop residues, 6.01% is manure and the rest, 13.76% is made up of landfills, organic MSW, and other sources.
Biogas sources:
50% energy crops. In other words, planting, fertilizing and harvesting crops on land we currently don't grow crops on. Hmmm... Might this take extra energy? Maybe? Might even be a large fraction of the energy harvested?? Maybe?
30% crop residues. Perhaps leaving this on the land to protect and maintain the soil might be a better idea... Maybe?
20%? Maybe. That would be 10% of transportation fuel. Worth doing? Probably yes. Solve all transportation fuel requirements? Not close.
Wet - I have two primary points/reasons for being part of this conversation and so far neither seem to be getting any traction with most of the group. The first is that this infrastructure project for H2 is NOT an isolated incident - it has a real function behind it and it's not about car- or oil-company domination. The second is that it's pretty clear that most Americans have no idea what it takes to grow things.
First - I did not say or intend that we should produce 100% of our H2 needs from plants. What I DID say is that we can very easily replace a significant chunk (and yes - I do think that the easy 20% is a no brainer) if we want to.
Second - if you looked at the examples I've listed of operational, closed-loop, independent biogas plants you might have noticed that there is no fertilizing, no displacement of food, no terraforming.
You and many others seem to think that man is supreme and that we have to beat the hell out of nature to get 'her' to do our bidding. What I'm trying to show you is that that starting concept/assumption is absolutely, categorically false. And therefore, any further brain-cell Olympics based on that faulty starting paradigm is also false.
To your points. You've ignored the easy 20% of gasoline replacement and jumped to 51%. That's fine. I'm not recommending that or suggesting that and I do not want to go in that direction. It's only quoted to show the IMMENSITY of the available resource available to us if we don't have any other options. We DO have other options and therefore do NOT need to go that route.
The fact remains that nearly every one of our ~2100 landfills is a methane producer that's not being used - gas is either vented or flared. Every one of our farms/CAFOs (whether dairy, beef, chicken, or pork) is a methane producer. The ~40% of the food we waste and the table/restaurant scraps are a methane feedstock. As is this nation's number one agriculture commodity (and number one user of herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizer) - freshly mown lawns. Each of these is an untapped resource that can completely change the energy picture in this country.
As for agriculture/returning cornstalks to the field: Our ag system is broken. Except for the growing ranks of small organic producers and Permaculturists, our ag system is doing nothing less than soil mining - it's just as damaging and extractive as the fossil fuel industry. Yes, returning cornstalks to the field can be good but in our system where everything must have an associated financial value, the stalks might be better used for another function.
While I am not proposing we follow the big ag lead and use cornstalks to supply liquid biofuel or H2, I'm well aware that on farms that use organic and/or agroforestry and/or Permaculture methods, the picture is significantly different. No chemical fertilizers, no herbicides, no insecticides, no GMO materials (and in the case of Permaculture, no irrigation) yet crop losses are within a couple of percent of big ag losses, overall harvests are larger, and the quality of food is better. Each option outperforms 'conventional' ag by some margin - with Permaculture in the 600-800% range. Instead of mining the soil and reducing it's mineral content and volume, these methods increase fertility and build new soil. As I've said repeatedly, the problem with biofuels or biomass or biogas to H2 is not the natural processes - it's our ag system.
Back to your energy balance concerns. When we work with natural processes, or take advantage of useful (to us) parts of natural processes, 1+1=3. That was sort of the point of the linked paper entitled
Synergistic interactions in the microbial world. Go back to the youtube video about the Mexico biogas electricity generation system. You may not know about prickly pear cactus - I sure didn't growing up in the Midwest. But after living in Tucson and now here, and spending some quality time helping my in-laws on their ranch while researching small-scale biogas production, I'm amazed at how well these plants thrive in hot/dry places with little more than course granite sand. One doesn't need to plant them, or till soil, or weed or apply water or chemicals - they grow and spread on their own. That's lesson one - nature does not work like an American farm. When one looks at their life cycle, they grow, flower, reproduce, repeat. Eventually paddles will die and be recycled into the soil to feed the plant. Paddles can be harvested quickly and easily without killing the plant. When those paddles are shredded, digested by microbes, and returned to the field the plants grow much faster and much larger - and we get methane as a by-product. A lot of methane. None of this is rocket science - a 10 year old can do it and many do around the world. It's not 'over unity' from a energy balance view if one includes all the organisms and processes involved - but it looks like magic to folks steeped in a conventional ag 'education'. And now we're back to our major disconnect.
Bottom line - we're already making methane in large quantities - and even though it's current carbon and not fossil carbon, it's still better to use it than let it vent into the atmosphere. It can be easily harvested and used and has almost zero marginal cost. (It's already being used in the US so it's not like this is some future fantasy!) Ignoring this energy source is like running across a parking lot covered in quarters to grab a $10 bill taped to a window. It's a Homer Simpson level of thinking.
If you or anyone else is interested in this, I'll gladly reference books, papers, researchers, et al. But since this flat spot on my forehead is starting to get a little tender, I think I should let you go back to your paradigm already in progress.
