Energy Department investing more than $1 million in improved biofuel lifecycle analysis: official

Stephen Chalk of the Department of Energy testified before the Senate yesterday and gave an overview of DOE efforts to develop life cycle analysis as well as advanced biofuels. Chalk said that the DOE opposed reducing the Renewable Fuel Standard in light of all the efforts by the Department to increase the amount of data available for true lifecycle and economic impact analysis.

“The Department is focused on robust empirical validation of all environmental impacts of bioenergy across the production life cycle, from feedstocks to vehicles.  In FY 2008, DOE is funding approximately $1 million worth of research across the national labs and universities to collect and analyze data to assess the indirect impacts of biofuels production.  This work is to validate DOE’s existing life cycle analysis models as well as inform the development of new analytical tools.

In addition to these analytical efforts, DOE is engaged in field trials to grow and harvest dedicated energy crops into biofuels, to address the lack of data available at a large scale, so that life cycle analysis tools can be adequately validated.  A better understanding of carbon and water cycling in environments where dedicated energy crops are produced will increase our ability to model the environmental impacts of large-scale bioenergy production nationally.

The Biomass R&D Board, an interagency coordination group established by the Biomass R&D Act of 2000 and co-chaired by DOE and USDA, is also addressing sustainability issues.  The Board recently established a Sustainability Working Group, chaired by DOE, USDA, and EPA.  This group is focused on collecting and analyzing existing criteria, benchmarks, and indicators to ensure sustainable production of biofuels.

The Department’s biomass research and development (R&D) activities are designed to make biofuels from non-food feedstocks cost competitive by 2012.”

Full testimony to the Senate is here.

DOE research background

• Athena Biotechnologies received a Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to develop an energy efficient, high temperature process that drives a 10% drop in ethanol production costs. The company is focused on developing bacteria that produce ethanol at temperatures exceeding 80 degrees Celsius.

The grant was one of several from DOE relating to cellulosic ethanol research. SunEthanol received $100,000 to further develop its patented C3 process, which combines hydrolysis and fermentation into a single step. The five-step project is a collaboration between SunEthanol, Texas A&M and UMass, and is based on SunEthanol’s proprietary Q Microbe.

• John Mizrock, principal deputy assistant secretary to the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said that transportation energy, is now “the No. 1 issue facing the United States and its economy, and the US will spend “more than the rest of the world combined in developing alternative fuels.”

Mizrock added that “the US economy is completely dependent on transportation. The US owns 25 percent of the global car and truck fleet is in the US.

Nazeer Bhore, Senior Technology Advisor to Exxon Mobil, told the same SAE conference attendees that the world will require 40 percent more energy in 2030 than 2005, and that the scale of the energy needs made certain that biofuels cannot replace oil.

• In March, the USDA and Department of Energy announced a $944,000 grant to support a project at Iowa State using fast pyrolysis, gasification and nanotechnology based catalyzation to produce ethanol. Project director Victor Lin, a professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Catalysis, told Science News said that research into catalysts slowed in the 1990s over issues of controlling reactions and productivity. The new catalysts are solid nanospheres with honeycomb channels, loaded with a metallic catalyst and other species.

•

In Washington, USDA Secretary Ed Schafer and Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman today announced at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference 2008 (WIREC) that the two departments will award $18.4 million for 21 biomass R&D and demonstration projects. The projects will support the removal of barriers to cost efficient production of biomass.

The Biomass Research and Development Initiative, a joint USDA-DOE effort established in 200, will provide up to 80 percent funding for R&D projects, and 50 percent funding for demonstration projects. The USDA will provide up to $13.2 million, and DOE will provide up to $5.2 million in the next three fiscal years.

The U.S. Department of Energy most recently awarded $33.8 million in research grants to four cellulosic ethanol projects in California and New Jersey. The four-year research grants come from a $1 billion fund the DOE established to finance cellulosic ethanol research. The grants are for projects researching advanced enzymes for converting cellulose into sugars.

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