Chairman Criticizes Climate Change Bill

  • Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Collin C. Peterson from Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the House Committee on Agriculture)

A dispute about bio-fuels could put passage of a climate change bill at risk. Lester Graham reports corn ethanol is at the center of a dispute among some Democrats:

Transcript

A dispute about bio-fuels could put passage of a climate change bill at risk. Lester Graham reports corn ethanol is at the center of a dispute among some Democrats:

Conventional wisdom in Washington these days is: it’s not a good idea to use food for fuel, so corn ethanol should be replaced by cellulosic ethanol – made from crops such as switchgrass.

The chairman of the Ag Committee, Democrat Collin Peterson, believes the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress are putting rules and legislation in place to put corn ethanol at a disadvantage to cellulosic ethanol.

He says they’re forcing changes on corn ethanol makers and farmers that could ruin the future of the bio-fuels industry.

“They are setting this up to guarantee there will never be second-generation ethanol or bio-diesel.”

Congressman Peterson says the Climate Change bill is just more of the same. He says he won’t vote for it and he doesn’t think any of the 46 members of the House Agriculture committee will either.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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New Rule for Renewables

  • More bio-fuels, like ethanol from corn, will be blended into petroleum (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

The Obama administration wants us all to use more bio-fuels in our vehicles. Lester Graham reports on a proposed rule released by the White House:

Transcript

The Obama administration wants us all to use more bio-fuels in our vehicles. Lester Graham reports on a proposed rule released by the White House:

The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, says this will mean blending more bio-fuels into petroleum.

“Under the proposed rule, the total volume of renewable fuel ramps up to a maximum of 36-billion gallons by 2022.”

But, for the first time, renewable fuels also will have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Bob Dinneen heads up the ethanol trade-group, the Renewable Fuels Association.

He says the carbon footprint of ethanol is 61% smaller than petroleum. But the government wants to include indirect effects – such as reduced corn exports leading other countries to slash and burn rain forest to grow corn.

“We believe when that is better understood, ethanol is going to continue to demonstrate significant carbon benefits.”

The government will hear about their concerns and others during a 60-day comment period.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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High School Student Is Biofuel Whiz-Kid

  • John working on his converter in his workshop (Photo by Sarah Russell)

It’s hard to be optimistic about
paying $4 a gallon at the pump.
But when you’re a teenager working on new
ways to make cheap fuel, it can be pretty
exciting. Julie Grant met one high school
student who is showing off his biodiesel
converter at the county fair:

Transcript

It’s hard to be optimistic about
paying $4 a gallon at the pump.
But when you’re a teenager working on new
ways to make cheap fuel, it can be pretty
exciting. Julie Grant met one high school
student who is showing off his biodiesel
converter at the county fair:

(sounds of the fair)

The Fairgrounds sit in a quiet countryside of rolling green
hills. Small children yell and wave to family members as
they enter the Fair. There’s a steer auction in the barn. And
an antique tractor pull in the grandstand.
It’s like a scene is right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

I’m here to talk with John Russell. He’s walking around in
faded wrangler jeans. A red t-shirt with the sleeves cut off.
And a ballcap advertising a tractor company.


“We’re at the Columbiana County Fair in Lisbon, Ohio. In
the junior fair building.”

John is 17 years old, and amidst 4-H project displays, he has
set up his view of the future. His homemade biodiesel
converter.

It’s a rectangular box – nearly as tall as me.
It’s made of stainless steel. There’s a row of toggle switches
along the side. They light up when John plugs it in. He’s
been working on this for more than a year, and says it
makes vegetable oil into a usable fuel.

“I started out with new oil from Save-A-Lot. I went down to
the local grocery store and picked up a bottle of frying oil.
And just from a recipe I found online, with methanol from an
auto parts store, they sell it as heat. It’s gasoline antifreeze.
Just methanol from an auto parts store, Caustic soda from a
hardware store, and oil from a grocery store, I set out to
make this fuel. And it took me couple of times. I finally got it
right when I actually tried a batch of waste vegetable oil from
the valley drive in. So that was my first successful batch.”

Last year, John was only able to fill a Gatorade bottle with
his fuel. Soon, he expects to convert 240 gallons of
vegetable oil into biodiesel in a day.

He hasn’t quite figured out how much the electricity costs to
run the thing, so he doesn’t know how much it’s costing him
to make the fuel.

Back five years ago, he met a guy who claimed to be making
biodiesel for 46 cents per gallon.

Headlines then were already screaming about skyrocketing
fuel prices. 1.60 per gallon. That’s what sparked John’s
interest in making his own converter.

“46 cents a gallon was pretty cool. And I’m into sustainable
agriculture. It’s recycling and its ecofriendly. The
culmination of all those things, that’s what makes it
interesting for me.”

Now that’s he’s almost 18, most of John’s friends are into
cars. And they’re taking an interest in his biodiesel project.

John Russell: “I’m a senior in high school. So most of my
friends’ reactions are ‘when are you going to give me free
fuel?’ But they all think it’s pretty sweet. It does make fuel a
lot cheaper than you could buy it at the pump.”

Julie Grant: “How much are you selling it for?”

John: “Well, I can’t sell it. Or else I’ll get in trouble with the
big man.”

Julie: “Is your dad the big man?”

John: “no. The IRS.”

He’s got to do some research into state and federal laws.
John wants to use the fuel to run his family’s tractors and
help heat homes in his neighborhood.

He’s not sure if biodiesel is the future of fuel, or even in his
long term future. But John is sure he wants a career in
green industry.

“Anything that’s gonna be tied into this fuel situation that
we’re faced with. Something’s gonna change and
something’s gonna change fast. So I’m very excited for
what’s going to happen.”

For now, John’s trying to put the finishing touches on his
converter so it’s ready for the Ohio state fair later this
summer. He’s the new face of agriculture – making eco-friendly practices into traditional American values.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Searching for New Bio-Diesel Source

The U.S. is looking for ways to depend less on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. A popular method is so-called bio-fuels. Those are fuels, such as
ethanol or bio-diesel, made from plants. Cleaner burning bio-diesel has been billed
as an environmentally-friendly replacement for our 60 billion gallon a year thirst for
diesel oil. But there aren’t enough crops or land to produce enough bio-diesel to
replace fossil fuel-based diesel. Amy Quinton reports new research is looking at
another way to make bio-diesel: using algae:

Transcript

The U.S. is looking for ways to depend less on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. A popular method is so-called bio-fuels. Those are fuels, such as
ethanol or bio-diesel, made from plants. Cleaner burning bio-diesel has been billed
as an environmentally-friendly replacement for our 60 billion gallon a year thirst for
diesel oil. But there aren’t enough crops or land to produce enough bio-diesel to
replace fossil fuel-based diesel. Amy Quinton reports new research is looking at
another way to make bio-diesel: using algae:


Bio-diesel is made primarily from plant oils: soybean, canola, rapeseed. Ihab Farag
is a chemical engineering professor at the University of New Hampshire. He climbs
up scaffolding to demonstrate a processor that turns waste oil from the University’s
cafeteria into bio-diesel. Farag says this is more environmentally-friendly than diesel:


“It’s coming from vegetable oil, so therefore it’s cleaner… it doesn’t have the sulfur in it so you
don’t get acid rain issue that you get from diesel, it doesn’t do particulates which are suspect[ed] to be cancer-
causing.”


Almost any diesel engine built in the last 15 years can use bio-diesel, but Farag says
there’s a major drawback: it takes an acre of most crops to produce only 100 gallons
of bio-diesel per year:


“I think it has been estimated that if we are using just something like soybean[s] and want to
produce bio-diesel for the whole country, we need almost an area of land that’s about
two and a half to three times the area of Texas.”


That would be an environmental nightmare because bio-fuels require a lot of fossil
fuels to plant, harvest and process them. They only produce a bit more energy than
the energy needed to make them. It also would put the nation’s fuel needs in conflict
with its food needs. That could drive the price of both sky-high.


So Farag and Master Chemical Engineering student Justin Ferrentino are looking at
another plant. One that’s capable of producing much more oil : algae.
Inside the University’s bio-diesel lab, Ferrentino holds up a glass jar filled with a sea-
green powder:


“This is freeze-dried cells that we’ve grown up in our photo-bioreactor.”


He’s testing different ways of extracting oil from these single-celled algae plants to
produce the most bio-diesel:


“People have projected with micro-algae you can grow somewhere between five and 15,000
gallons per acre per year, so it’s a big difference.”


Compared to 100 gallons per acre of soybeans, it’s a very big difference. Ferrentino
has built a contraption of two small fiberglass tanks, surrounded by florescent lights
and reflectors. It’s called a photo-bioreactor. With the right amount of light, the algae
here grows rapidly:


“When I fill these with growth medium and then add the cells to them and they just
multiply, they divide… they double every ten to 15 hours, when they’re growing
exponentially.”


The more cells, the more oil, and the more bio-diesel. Ferrentino’s photo-bioreactor
is small, producing only a tenth of a gram of bio-diesel. But build one on a larger
scale where there’s lots of sunlight, like the desert Southwest, and it could potentially
produce thousands of gallons on just an acre of land.


And Farag says because carbon is needed to fertilize algae growth, the potential
exists to remove greenhouse gases while simultaneously producing bio-diesel:


“If we can connect it with a wastewater treatment plant, where they have a lot of
waste coming in with lots of carbon in it then you can consume the carbon to grow
the algae and at the same time clean up the wastewater.”


But skeptics say one of the biggest challenges is making algae production
economical. Commercial production would initially yield fuel that could cost between
20 and 50 dollars a gallon. Ferrentino recognizes the drawbacks, but says their
research is worth pursuing:


“I think that our energy needs are not necessarily going to be solved with a magic
bullet, but I think this is certainly one part of it, being that you don’t need arable land
you have the added benefit of maybe being able to use the carbon from flue gases
from power plants, maybe being able to treat wastewater. So, it has some significant
added benefits so it could be one piece of the energy picture.”


But growing algae in the desert or anywhere else doesn’t have the kind of political
appeal that subsidizing farmers to grow soybeans for soy-diesel does. So finding
funding for a commercial-sized algae bio-reactor will face significant obstacles.


For the Environment Report, I’m Amy Quinton.

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Interview: Sports Teams Go Green

All kinds of sports teams and venues are looking at more environmentally-friendly business practices. Lester Graham talked with Eben Burnham-Snyder who’s with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council about the new green trend in sports:

Transcript

All kinds of sports teams and venues are looking at more environmentally-friendly business practices. Lester Graham talked with Eben

Burnham-Snyder who’s with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council about the new green trend in sports:


EB: Well, I think for a lot of these sports teams, it’s come down to just
good business practices. You know, a good examples is when we approach
the Phildelphia Eagles in 2004 and said, ‘Hey guys, you’re getting a
lot of your paper from a forest that is a main habitat for the American
eagle. That started a dialogue.


They’re now buying 25% of their electricity from renewable sources,
they’re using recycled paper, and they’re even recycling cooking fat
from the chicken tenders and fries during the game day to run the
stadium’s vehicles on bio-fuels. So, there’s an understanding that you
can still have a good, robust business, a good robust sports business,
and do good for the environment at the same time.”


LG: So how are the big greens, the big environmental groups such as the
Natural Resource Defense Council, working with the sports industry?


EB: Well, we’ve been working a lot recently with major league baseball and
the National Basketball Association. It’s something you’re going to
hear a lot about over the next couple months. We try to work with teams
to try and find out what are some of the best practices they’ve been
using already, with recycling and energy efficiency, and we’re trying
to help all of these sports teams understand… here are the different
steps that you can take to both lessen your environmental footprint and
cut costs.


I think for fans ultimately, that’s a chance for them to yet again
pressure their teams and take that money that they’ve saved and put it
maybe into some free agents.


LG: You know, it seems with teams jetting back and forth across the
nation for games and burning a lot of fuel, we see these huge parking
lots of concrete or asphalt that are sometimes only used once a week
for a season. We’ve got some older stadiums, such as Wrigley Field in
Chicago, using restroom facilities that are basically troughs with
constantly running water, and NASCAR burning lots of fuel, even if it’s
using bio-fuels, it seems there’s little actually being done to make a
real difference for the environment. So how is this movement in sports
anything more than just tinkering around the edges?


EB: Well, you know, listen, there’s only so much that they can do within the current
structure.


But when you have industries, like the ski industry, going 100%
renewable at mountains, when you have places like the Philadelphia
Eagles and their field buying 25% of their energy from renewable
sources, those are actually large steps for industries to be taking,
especially when they’re really aren’t any standards for them right now.
They’re really isn’t any program out there right now to guide them.


So, this is a case where business is really trying to lead government
and let them know that we can do this but we need your help, too. We
need you to set limits on pollution to make it easier for us.


LG: Course there’s an incredible fan base for sports of all kinds and
we’re starting to see some attention drawn to these environmental
issues. For example,Sports Illustrated‘s cover is talking about
global warming, we’re hearing teams talk about this. What will this do
for awareness for the typical sports fan?


EB: Well, I think, as with a lot of the coverage we’ve seen on global
warming over the past couple years, it’s an indication that something
that a lot of people have had sort of a common sense reaction to for
the past few years.


For example, this past winter was the warmest winter ever on record.
People are coming to the realization that things are changing. But
sometimes it’s hard to connect those dots and so when you have
something like Sports Illustrated putting global warming on the
cover, what that does is it helps people who already said, you know
what, I haven’t been able to play pond hockey for the past couple of
years with any sort of consistency. I haven’t been able to go skiing.
You know, there are things that seem to be changing, what’s up?


And then they make that connection. And you know, the more evidence,
the more knowledge that comes out about global warming, I think the
more people you’ll see make those connections in their daily lives and
how global warming and other environmental challenges we face really do
affect them.


Eben Burnahm-Snyder is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He spoke with the Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

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A Better Bacteria for Bio-Fuel?

President Bush and others are promoting more use of plant-based
material to fuel our vehicles. Scientists say they’ve taken an
important step toward more efficient production of bio-fuels. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

President Bush and others are promoting more use of plant-based
material to fuel our vehicles. Scientists say they’ve taken an
important step toward more efficient production of bio-fuels. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:


Biofuel producers say they need to get a common plant sugar called
xylose to ferment to get an efficient conversion of plant material into
fuels like ethanol.


Researchers from the US Forest Products Lab and the Department of
Energy are working on the problem. They say they’ve now completed a
genetic map of a yeast that helps xylose ferment faster.


Micro-biologist Thomas Jeffries says with the new information about the
yeast, researchers plan to do more genetic tweaking:


“Well, we’ve been able to increase the specific fermentation rate of
this organism with one of our mutations, we’ve been able to increase it
by 50%, we really are aiming to get a four-fold increase.”


But Jeffries cautions there are still many steps before the work with
the yeast might pay off at your local gas station.


For the Environment report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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Flex-Fuel Economy Questioned

If you plan to buy a new car or truck this
year, you might find some showrooms filled with
vehicles that run largely on ethanol instead of
gasoline. Car companies are pushing these corn-fueled vehicles as environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant takes a look at those claims:

Transcript

If you plan to buy a new car or truck this
year, you might find some showrooms filled with
vehicles that run largely on ethanol instead of
gasoline. Car companies are pushing these corn-fueled vehicles as environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant takes a look at those claims:


More people are considering buying cleaner, more fuel-efficient
cars now that gas prices and global temperatures are on the rise. The gas-
electric hybrids made by Toyota and Honda are becoming popular. And
American car companies are also jumping on board and offering alternative-
powered vehicles.


General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner has put much of his company’s stock in
ethanol:


“At GM, we believe that the bio-fuel with the greatest potential to
displace petroleum-based fuels in the US is ethanol, and so we have
made a major commitment here to vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol.”


E85 is a blend that’s 85% ethanol with 15% gasoline. GM’s not the only company offering cars that run on them:


(Sound of vehicle introduction)


Angela Hines is from Green Bay, Wisconsin. She’s taking notes as she looks at one
flex fuel car. The E85 only matters to her if it’s going to save her a
few bucks:


“I drive anywhere from 80-200 miles
a day for work, so yeah, gas is important.”


Gui Derochers is looking at a Chevy Silverado pickup truck:


(Grant:) “Does it matter to you that it’s a flex fuel?”


“I think it’s a good thing… flex-fuel. Particularly, we know there are some ethanol plants in Michigan coming, right? Isn’t
that what flex fuel is? Ethanol?”


Derochers works on engines and transmissions:


“You have to remember, I work for Daimler-Chrysler. But we have flex fuel as well. It’s a good thing. It’s wonderful.”


But not everyone thinks the move toward ethanol-fueled cars is
wonderful. Tadeusz Patzek is a professor of civil and environmental
engineering at the University of California in Berkeley. He says
ethanol is not cheaper and it’s not any better for the environment than
regular gas.


Patzek says each gallon of ethanol burned might emit less greenhouse gas
into the air, but you have to burn more fuel to go the same distance:


“So, mile for mile, emissions of CO2 are exactly the same for gasoline as
they are for ethanol. Because they are proportional to the energy stored in
the fuel.”


When it comes to gas mileage, Patzek calls claims that ethanol is any
better then gasoline an imaginary economy… and he’s not alone. When
Consumer Reports magazine tested a Chevy Tahoe that runs on gas mixed
with only ten percent ethanol, the truck got 14 miles per gallon. But
it got less than 11 miles per gallon when the ethanol content was
raised to 85%, as in E85. That’s a 27% drop in fuel economy with E85.


Consumer Reports concluded that to go the same distance, you wind up paying more than a dollar
extra per gallon on E85 then on regular
gas.


Patzek says it’s not a good deal for consumers or for the environment:


“You emit less because you have oxygen but you burn more, so it comes as a wash.”


Patzek says ethanol has other environmental costs. To grow the corn needed to make it, farmers have to use more fossil fuel-based fertilizers, tractor fuel, and then more fuel to truck the fuel to gas stations.


Even so, many scientists say ethanol still provides an energy benefit over fossil fuels and some auto engineers say ethanol cars
are just a stop-gap measure until a better technology comes along, but Patzek disagrees with that logic:


“So, you’re saying the following: why don’t we have a terribly bad
solution and call it a stop-gap solution because it’s politically
convenient. I’m saying is, if I’m an engineer, I have to, essentially, if I’m honest with myself and others, do I want a
better technological solution or do I want to say, let’s do probably the worst possible solution
that delays other solutions 10-15 years into the future… while the
world is running out of time?”


Patzek says the real reason American car companies are moving toward
vehicles that run on E85 is that the federal government rewards them
for it.


GM and the others get extra credit for meeting fuel efficiency
standards just for making cars that can run on E85, even if those cars
aren’t more fuel efficient.


Patzek knows he’s become unpopular among many farmers, engineers,
scientists and politicians who want easy answers. He wants people to
start reducing their energy-use rather than waiting for technological
magic bullets.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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