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It’s Not Easy Going Green

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  July 4th, 2011 at 08:04 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

It sounded like such a good idea.

Back in 2009, NRG Energy Inc. hatched a plan to “go green” using switchgrass and sorghum as boiler fuel supplement. It was hoped that it might replace up to 10% of the coal which fires its Big Cajun II power plant in New Roads, LA.

All the elements were in place: land near the plant (up to 30,000 acres of fertile Mississippi River floodplain — you can’t afford to transport biomass very far), plus the help of California-based Ceres Inc., a recently-IPO’d specialist in switchgrasses.

The project was to start up this year.

The effort failed when the crops yielded only a fraction of the expected biomass, a company spokesman said.

“We planted a warm-weather variant of switchgrass, a cold-weather variant of switchgrass and the sorghum. The result was we did not get a usable crop,” NRG spokesman David Knox said.

But switchgrass has been widely touted as an important part of our green future, both as a boiler fuel and as a feedstock for ethanol. Where could this plan go wrong?

Michael Blazier, an LSU AgCenter associate professor in Calhoun, said weeds can overrun switchgrass in the first year of a crop because there aren’t good herbicides available.

The other issue with switchgrass is that there’s a wider than desirable variation in the time that the seeds sprout, Blazier said.

Blazier said he does not know which switchgrass was used, but the yield estimates mentioned appeared to be on the high end of the production scale.

Knox said for biomass to be an effective fuel, NRG needed a crop of consistent quantity and quality. The plants had to produce a consistent amount of energy; they did not.

New technologies involve uncertainty; that’s why they’re new technologies.

It is natural for the proponents of a new technology to focus on its promise and to downplay or overlook its risks and shortcomings. This happens in the oil and gas industry all the time; scientists and engineers can develop a bias in favor of a pet project. Every manager or decision maker must acquire a mental filter to identify and neutralize this bias so that investment decisions can be based on reality and not wishful thinking.

In that sense, The New York Times’ recent look at shale gas is a parallel story. There is a key difference, though: shale gas currently accounts for 25% of America’s natural gas supply. The technology has been proved to work; the only real controversy is whether the technology is sustainable at current low natural gas prices.

The bottom line is this: there is nothing wrong with the pursuit of green technologies. We must be realistic and hard-nosed about which ones work and which ones send us back to the drawing board. Our policy makers seem to think that we can make the new technologies work by force of will and positive vibes, but the real world just doesn’t work that way.

Cross-posted at stevemaley.com.


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  • http://teapartisan.wordpress.com Loren Heal

    we quit using grass for fuel. Wood worked better.

    And when we found that coal was better than wood, we switched to coal, when we could.

    When it turned out that oil and gas were far better than coal for many (but not all) applications, we switched.

    The idea that grass can be made better than oil is rather unlikely.

    • banzaibob

      Ranchers have the the horses and cows use salt licks to supplement the “grass”(hay) the animals eat because it is low in energy value.

      Also it’s time for the government to stop subsidizing farmers and companies to create ethanol because they will remain dependent on the subsidy and real advances in renewable energy will not happen.

      Reward the company with a tax credit when they can manufacture a fuel that is equivalent in power to gas and is renwable.

    • pashley1411

      was at a DOE lab in biomass for 5 years in the 90′s. The theory of biomass is to make marginal land productive and divert energy into less carbon-intensive areas.

      The fact is that growing harvesting energy crops has the same problems as growing and harvesting wheat; you need to improve the land, weeds, pests, drought, equipment, ship to market. All capital and labor intensive. And then the crop has its own acids that form in burning, waste disposal and carbon emissions, and the plant has to be hooked to the grid.

      We knew all these economic problems 15 years ago, so now when you see biomass in action, what you are seeing is charlatans working the DOE grant-process dry. There is no economic future in it. The future of biomass looks to now be algae and algae pools, but of course, when we get there, there will be a new set of water and waste problems.

  • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

    we will never find viable, alternative fuels. Government should do what it is supposed to do and let the private sector find viable, profitable alternatives. When we let the government choose, we all lose.

  • Tbone

    generating electricity by burning grass seems like a good idea.

  • drfredc

    Seems to me the only way grass might be viably linked to energy would be if grass (aka Pot) were legalized and taxed, with the tax going to support well developed viable energy systems (coal, oil, gas, nukes)…

  • hwgood

    …is what Bam-Bam wants us using. Unfortunately, we need to plug in our electrical cords today.
    Until the electrical power is generated using Unicorn Urine, we need to stop shutting down the power plants we have running to supply the needs of today.

  • megsmom

    Cost of Obama?s Green-Car Mandate: 260,000 jobs June 16, 2011 8:30 A.M
    The Detroit News?s dogged David Shepardson has unearthed a study by one of world?s most respected automotive research firms that reveals that President Obama?s radical CAFE mandate that vehicles average ? average! ? 62 MPG by 2025 ?could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.?
    Shepardson is quoting from the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research and the 260,000 job loss figure (consistent with past job losses from CAFE rule hikes) is another dent in White House?s propaganda that Green creates jobs.
    The CAR study also reveals that Obama?s NHTSA and EPA have been gaming the figures when it comes to the cost of their new rules. The center?s study predicts it will cost between $3,744 and $9,790 per vehicle, while the agencies have low-balled the figure at $770 to $3,500 per vehicle.
    The resulting costs would shrink the new-car market, with 5.5 million potential buyers disappearing (and manufacturing jobs with them) by 2025. That assumes that the auto fleet can even be built to meet such an absurd spec. Currently, no car ? much less the average ? meets 62 mpg. Indeed, only a handful of small vehicles meet the 35-mpg fleet-wide standard mandated in just five years.
    As a result, there is more gaming of the system, as automakers pour lobbying money into D.C. to effect

    (1)If ?clean energy? were actually cheaper than fossil fuels, it wouldn?t need a policy.
    Al Gore claims that he knows of ?renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.? Then why doesn?t he go make a fortune on it by outcompeting gasoline-powered cars?
    More broadly, if other sources of energy are so good, why must the government have a policy to support them and cripple their competitors? Wouldn?t the self-interest of utilities, of automakers, of factories make them more than eager to buy such fuels–and wouldn?t the self-interest of investors make them eager to put billions upon billions of dollars into these game-changing technologies? Energy is, after all, a multi-trillion dollar market in America alone. And if carbon-based fuels are as rapidly-depleting as we?re told, wouldn?t participants in the energy futures market be trying to make a killing by buying coal, oil, and gas contracts? And wouldn?t the rising prices of these fuels make it even easier for ?clean energy? to compete?
    (2)Clean energy advocates want to force us to use solar, wind, and biofuels, even though there is no evidence these can power modern civilization.
    For more than three decades, environmentalists have overwhelmingly favored replacing carbon-based fuels with ?natural,? ?renewable? energy coming directly from the sun–whether through direct sunlight (solar panels or solar thermal), wind (a product of currents created by the sun?s heat) or biofuels (plants nourished by the sun through photosynthesis.) They have generally opposed carbon-free nuclear energy and hydroelectric energy as unnecessary and insufficiently ?green.?
    They have acquired billions in taxpayer subsidies for solar, wind, and biofuels, in America and in ?progressive? European countries. After three decades, the score is in. 86% of the world?s energy–the energy we use to make food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and everything else our livelihoods depend on–is produced by carbon-based fuels (coal, oil, natural gas). 6% is produced by hydroelectric power. 6% is produced by nuclear power. Thus, 98% of the world?s power generation is regarded as unacceptable by environmentalists. All of 2%–an
    expensive 2%–is produced by solar, wind, and biofuels. And despite incessant claims that carbon-based fuels
    (3)Obama Administration Spends $17.4 Million to Explore Market for Carbon Credits Wednesday, June 08, 2011
    (Under cap and trade, in general, companies that exceed their ?cap? on greenhouse gas emissions can ?trade? (buy) credits as compensation, the money for which is applied to more environmentally friendly industries; you pollute, you pay, and the money goes to green companies.)
    Lastly out in California they have started putting solar panels on houses, businesses, and warehouses to go green. The fossil fuel electricity cost eight cents per kilowatt, but the solar electricity cost twenty three cents per kilowatt. Yes green is better for the rich.

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