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From In Business Magazine January/February 2002, Page 14 Renewable Energy AS WE consider developments in the renewable energy industry — everything from the technologies, economics, public policy, national security and environmental impacts — we can see them as evidence that a profound revolution is developing in our entire energy system. Specifically, in analyzing the current state of “renewable energy from organics recycling,” there is a wide range of possibilities for creating fuels and chemicals from biomass. A whole range of technologies — anaerobic digestion, fermentation, gasification, pyrolysis, supercritical gasification — confronts us. All these developments in recycling organics as an energy source may very well be pieces of a radical change whose nature, pace and eventual scope we will understand only with the benefit of hindsight. This will not be a neat, centrally planned change, but a messy, chaotic process that will take a long time to evolve and then suddenly, almost overnight, appear as a new part of our world. Behind this revolution, research will drive the process of change. HISTORIC EXAMPLE Let me illustrate my point with a simplistic historic example: the railroads’ transition from steam locomotives to diesel locomotives for propulsion. History books tell us that steam locomotives vanished quickly in the 1950s, replaced by diesel locomotives. That is mostly true, but it is a gross oversimplification. Mr. Diesel started developing his new technology before the turn of the 20th century. By the time the revolution in locomotive technology arrived in the 1950s, it was backed by a half century of research, development and demonstration. In the 1920s, diesels started to show up in niches. Small industries wanted locomotives that were easier to operate and maintain than steam locomotives with all their attendant fuel and maintenance requirements. Cities wanted to eliminate air pollution from steam locomotives, which were rather nasty devices in confined spaces. They turned to diesels. They had the alternative of electrification, but that was very capital intensive and created a great deal of infrastructure to maintain. Diesels, without as much smoke as steam locomotives and able to run without overhead wires, had found their place. Early diesels weren’t always reliable. They weren’t as powerful as giant steam locomotives. There were lots of failures and disappointments along the way. By the 1930s, the technology became more robust and the niches for diesels began to expand, even though progress was slowed by the Depression. By 1940, diesels were poised to take over many railroads based on their newfound reliability, lower infrastructure requirements and reduced staffing demands. World War II came along, however, and the nation needed all of its resources for other purposes. The plants that might have made diesel locomotives made tanks. All the steam locomotives in the nation were put to use. More steam locomotives were built, largely because they were a known technology with the infrastructure in place to support them. The United States had a war to fight. The early 1940s were not the time to invest in a wholesale technological change. Then the war ended. The economy returned to a civilian focus. All the reasons for delaying a change in locomotive technology were gone. In fact, there was great impetus for change; the war had worn out many locomotives and large numbers of replacements were needed. So in the 1950s, steam locomotives were “suddenly” replaced by diesels. DYNAMIC CHANGES Was this an isolated event or was it a pattern that has happened elsewhere? I believe it is something that happens in many areas. Think about the arrival of personal computers. It was not a nice, well planned linear progression from mainframes to personal computers. It was chaotic and dynamic as we went from punch cards, tape drives, and room-sized computers to floppy disks and Apples. Technologies and products were tried and tested. They succeeded or failed, and the industry moved on. (Remember CPM as a PC operating system?) Research is the driver of continuously moving on. The transition to PCs was littered with start-ups and failures. The details of what would succeed at any given moment were not clear. We can see the transition, the long-term trend, only in hindsight.” RECYCLING ORGANICS — “A PATTERN OF REVOLUTION” We can talk about recycling organics as composting or making fuels and chemicals from biomass. I would challenge you to step back, look at some other developments in the world, and see if recycling organics doesn’t fit into a pattern of a revolution in our current energy system. Advances in plant science are giving us a better understanding of plants and the materials we want to recycle than ever before. This science is advancing at an astounding rate. We have improved technologies for processing these plant materials. Not the least of these improvements lie in biological processes. We may not need the mechanical, thermal, and chemical processes we have relied on in the past; there may be more effective, benign ways to make valuable products. While it may seem a leap from plant science, think at the same time about the energy systems serving our buildings to keep the lights on, the rooms comfortably heated or cooled, and the occupants supplied with fresh air. Large central generating plants lie at the heart of our electricity supply today. Distributed generation, a phrase tied to the use of small engine generators, microturbines, fuel cells, or photovoltaics, are now moving into the market to provide heat and power right at the building site. This potentially may replace major power plants and redefine how electrical transmission systems operate. The citizens of California have been learning the hard way that you can’t change the electric generation and transmission system overnight. Their lack of generation and transmission capacity has caused both economic and environmental problems. Rolling blackouts and power outages have a very negative impact on the economy. Our economy runs on energy. At the same time, starting up dirty old power plants just to meet short-term power needs produced some environmental impacts that Californians would just as soon have avoided. Even putting aside the rolling blackouts and power outages experienced in California, there are concerns about electric system reliability. The grid, our traditional system of power plants and transmission and distribution wires, is a remarkable system. It is about 99.9 percent reliable. That’s impressive. Multiply 8,760 hours per year by 99.9 percent reliability, however, and you discover that the grid is down 8.76 hours per year. If you are running a computer-based industry or a computer controlled industry, that doesn’t look acceptable. The computer industry does not like to talk about being 99.9 percent or “three nines” reliable. They want to talk in the range of nine nines (99.9999999 percent) reliability, a level that amounts to virtually uninterruptible service. They don’t want interruptions or power surges that shut down the latest batch of product or disrupts the latest financial transactions they are processing. The grid cannot reach nine nines reliability. Much of it is out in the open, exposed to storms, tornados, ice, and errant drivers who hit power poles. You can’t get to nine nines reliability without talking about distributed generation, power storage, and other new technologies. RELIABILITY AND POWER GENERATION A fascinating possibility lies in fuel cells. These devices combine hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity and heat. Their exhaust is water. Visionaries like Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute have asked, “What if our cars became very lightweight and aerodynamic? What if these carbon fiber, sleek cars ran on fuel cells?” These cars, called hypercars, could be very energy efficient. They would produce very little pollution. They could also become a major part of our power generation system. Drivers would essentially take their power plants with them. They would plug them in at home or plug them in at work and let them run. Hypercars would provide electrical power to buildings and industry whenever they are not using their fuel cells to move. The power plants would move around to where people are using power. Better yet, the owners of hypercars would be paid for the electricity they generate. This is a fascinating concept. Could it be real? All of the major automakers are working on fuel cells to power their vehicles, driven by environmental concerns. General Motors has already announced that when they make fuel cells for vehicles, they will also make stationary fuel cells for homes and businesses. What they will have in place is all the infrastructure needed to sell and service these devices. Mr. Goodwrench will service your fuel cell; Mr. Goodwrench’s parts department will provide the parts you need for your home or your car. It’s not a great leap from this approach to Amory Lovins’ hypercar. NEW PERSPECTIVE ON NATIONAL SECURITY We have a whole new perspective on national security after September 11. The possibility of disentangling our nation from the politics of Middle East oil takes on much greater meaning. The thought of highly efficient fuel cell powered hypercars running on ethanol made in the United States, now has national security as well as environmental value. Even if we pump Alaska dry, the United States only has about two percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. The Middle East has two-thirds of the proven reserves. If we stay on present course, consuming far more than we produce, we will become increasingly, inevitably dependent on foreign oil. Drilling in Alaska may very slightly postpone the date of total dependence, but it cannot eliminate that eventual dependence. The work we are doing in recycling organics takes on new value when viewed through the September 11 lessons of homeland security. A heightened need for security can become another driver of an energy revolution. Think about the possibility that right here, right now, we might be witnessing the early to middle stages of a vast revolution, a revolution that will take years to build momentum, but then may change our world in the blink of an eye. Floyd Barwig is director of the Iowa Energy Center based in Ames, Iowa. This article is based on his plenary address at the”Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling” Conference October 29-31, 2001 in Des Moines. The Conference was sponsored by BioCycle, sister publication of In Business.
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