BIOFUELS: POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS STUDIED

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Building the framework for the future of biofuels

Do plant-based fuels offer a realistic reprieve from a fossil-powered future? An ASU engineer examines the full cycle

Biofuels--fuels made from plants--are seen by many as one of the better options for brightening the national energy outlook.

They offer a promising renewable resource as a replacement for nonrenewable fossil fuels, and a way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere as a result of our use of conventional petroleum-derived fuels.

They could help the United States take major steps to reduce the country's dependence on oil from other parts of the world.

For more than five years Amy Landis has led research that is revealing the potential rewards of developing large-scale biofuels production, as well as the potential drawbacks we would face in the effort.

"We are documenting that there would be environmental benefits, but also trade-offs in growing biofuels that would have to be dealt with," said Landis, an associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU).

Two National Science Foundation (NSF) grants combined to provide about $650,000 for projects directed by Landis, enabling her to paint a clearer picture of the impacts of developing a major biofuels industry. Both grants were through the NSF's Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems Division.

One project looked at the feasibility of growing bioenergy crops on marginal lands where soil nutrients first have to be restored to enable agricultural use. A second project involved forecasting the environmental impacts of next-generation biofuels.

According to Landis, lands damaged by industrial waste or other pollutants could be restored sufficiently to support agriculture for growing bioenergy crops.

Landis' team was able to use other forms of nonhazardous industrial waste materials to neutralize the acidity of soil at polluted sites--particularly abandoned mining lands. The method restored fertility to a level that allowed many of the plants, from which biofuels are derived, to grow.

As a result, biofuels agriculture could become a significant contributor to soil remediation, land reclamation and natural storm water management that fertile, absorbent ground can provide.

A complex system

A downside is that many biofuel crops, like food crops, require fertilizers that cause water degradation, and the water carrying the fertilizers can be transported by runoff into other areas where they can do environmental harm.

To fully understand the ramifications of a big commitment to cultivation of biofuel sources, Landis said she took a holistic approach that examines the entire life cycle of bio-based products.

She looked beyond the benefits of greenhouse gas reductions and energy savings to the challenges of weighing long-term benefits and potential problems.

Landis has been able to quantify some potential future nationwide impacts of growing the various kinds of bioenergy plants--corn grain, soybeans, switchgrasses, canola and algae, for example--to extensively assess economic, social and environmental effects.

That included evaluating the feasibility of bioenergy crops to meet the Energy Independence and Security Act Renewable Fuel Standards, which sets challenging goals for fuel production quantity.

The project involved consideration of the various agricultural and environmental management strategies that would be critical to preventing or mitigating undesirable consequences that could result from growing bioenergy crops to manufacturing biofuels.

The work was also intended to provide a framework for a life-cycle assessment method that can be applied to future evaluations of biofuels cultivation and production, and for gauging the sustainability of various fuel development strategies throughout the United States.

"Our work shows there is no silver-bullet biofuel that provides a perfect sustainability solution," Landis explained. "Developing domestic sustainable fuels is a complex problem and we must consider the wide range of environmental impacts, economic ramifications and social factors.

"In particular for biofuels that rely heavily on fertilizer, our work shows that we should pay particular attention to protecting water quality," she said. "However, it's not all doom and gloom. Our NSF-funded research also developed some creative solutions to utilize abandoned lands and waste materials to produce biofuels."

Broader impacts

The NSF support enabled Landis to use her research findings for education outreach. Much of the information is being incorporated into undergraduate and graduate courses. In addition, in the past several years the grants have supported research activities of four undergraduate students and five graduate students, while also allowing another seven graduate students to engage in work related to the research projects.

Outreach efforts have also included demonstrations to K-12 students and their families. For example, Landis and her lab team have brought plants out of the greenhouse to show how biofuels are made from plants.

This and similar learning activities at ASU's annual Engineering Open House, DiscoverE Day, Night of the Open Door events and Engineering Adventure programs are reaching more than 14,000 younger students each year.

In addition, Landis volunteers at an annual Geared for Girls summer camp, where she talks about what her research is showing about the life cycles of energy and products.

Landis has been able to bring a multifaceted perspective to her biofuels research, drawing on the broad range of expertise reflected in her diverse academic and research roles at ASU.

Those roles include that of research director for the Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management; senior sustainability scientist with the Julie Ann WrigleyGlobal Institute of Sustainability; a Fellow of Sustainable Development and Ethics with the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics; and her appointment as a Tooker Professor of STEM Education in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

-- Joe Kullman, Arizona State University
Investigators
Amy Landis
Jason Monnell
Related Institutions/Organizations
Arizona State University
University of Pittsburgh

COBALT MAY REPLACE PRECIOUS METALS AS AN INDUSTRIAL CATALYST

Photo:  Platinum Necklace.  Credit:  U.S. Marshals Service.

FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

Cobalt Discovery Replaces Precious Metals as Industrial Catalyst
Transforming the chemistry of catalysis
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, November 26, 2012—Cobalt, a common mineral, holds promise as an industrial catalyst with potential applications in such energy-related technologies such as the production of biofuels and the reduction of carbon dioxide. That is, provided the cobalt is captured in a complex molecule so it mimics the precious metals that normally serve this industrial role.

In work published Nov. 26 in the international edition of the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists report the possibility of replacing the normally used noble metal catalysts with cobalt.
Catalysts are the parallel of the Philosopher’s Stone for chemistry. They cannot change lead to gold, but they do transform one chemical substance into another while remaining unchanged themselves. Perhaps the most familiar example of catalysis comes from automobile exhaust systems that change toxic fumes into more benign gases, but catalysts are also integral to thousands of industrial, synthetic, and renewable energy processes where they accelerate or optimize a mind-boggling array of chemical reactions. It’s not an exaggeration to say that without catalysts, there would be no modern industry.

But a drawback to catalysts is that the most effective ones tend to be literally precious. They are the noble metal elements such as platinum, palladium, rhodium, and ruthenium, which are a prohibitively expensive resource when required in large quantities. In the absence of a genuine Philosopher’s Stone, they could also become increasingly expensive as industrial applications increase worldwide. A push in sustainable chemistry has been to develop alternatives to the precious metal catalysts by using relatively inexpensive, earth-abundant metals. The chemical complexities of the more common metals have made this research a challenge, but the Los Alamos paper holds out hope that the earth-abundant metal cobalt can serve in place of its pricier relatives.

Cobalt, like iron and other transition metals in the Periodic Table, is cheap and relatively abundant, but it has a propensity to undergo irreversible reactions rather than emerging unchanged from chemical reactions as is required of an effective catalyst. The breakthrough by the Los Alamos team was to capture the cobalt atom in a complex molecule in such a way that it can mimic the reactivity of precious metal catalysts, and do so in a wide range of circumstances.

The findings of the Los Alamos team have major ramifications and suggest that cobalt complexes are rich with possibility for future catalyst development. Due to the high performance and low cost of the metal, the cobalt catalyst has potential applications in energy-related technologies such as the production of biofuels, and the reduction of carbon dioxide. It also has implications for organic chemistry, where hydrogenation is a commonly practiced catalytic reaction that produces important industrial chemical precursors.

The research was funded by the LANL Laboratory Directed Research and Development Early Career program. "Mild and Homogeneous Cobalt-Catalyzed Hydrogenation of C=C, C=O, and C=N Bonds." Angewandte Chemie International Edition. DOI: 10.1022/anie.201206051. Guoqi Zhang, Brian L. Scott, and Susan K. Hanson* Guoqi Zhang, Kalyan Vasudevan.

U.S. NAVY LOOKS TO BIOFUELS

FROM: U.S. NAVY
120718-N-XA289-035 PACIFIC OCEAN (July 18, 2012) Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) the Honorable Ray Mabus and Rear Adm. Tim Barrett, commander of the Australian Fleet, shake hands after signing an energy efficiency pact during the Great Green Fleet demonstration portion of the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2012 exerciseexercise aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Nimitz took on 200,000 gallons of biofuel for the demonstration. Twenty-two nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC exercise from June 29 to Aug. 3, in and around the Hawaiian Islands. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2012 is the 23rd exercise in the series that began in 1971. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Renee Candelario/Released)

NPS Researchers Evaluate Biofuels for Powering the Fleet

Amanda D. Stein, Naval Postgraduate School Public Affairs

MONTEREY, Calif. (NNS) -- Researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) are applying their experience in combustion to help the Navy meet one of Secretary of of the Navy's goals for the future.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced a number of energy initiatives for the Navy in 2009, including a 50 percent reduction in petroleum-based fuel consumption in the fleet by 2020.

NPS Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Associate Professor Dr. Christopher Brophy, and MAE Professor and Chairman Dr. Knox Millsaps, are working to help the Navy understand how alternative fuels will perform in existing gas turbine and diesel engines. The goal is to seamlessly transition to the biofuel blends without having to change any engine components.

"The Naval Postgraduate School's part in this is really helping with certification, to give the Navy confidence through fundamental measurements that the fuels look, smell and taste the same, so to speak," said Millsaps. "These fuels should have the form, fit and function to serve as direct drop-in replacements. They don't want to modify any of the systems to accommodate these fuels.

"Our research focuses on the fundamental combustion and engine-use part of the fuels, and not the production of them," said Millsaps. "Once it's in an engine, does it physically spray the same as a regular fuel? Does it burn the same? Does it have the same emissions characteristics? We have seen that biofuels actually tend to burn cleaner. Petroleum-based fuels have some contaminants - high sulfur, and trace metals like vanadium, for example, and gas turbine blades have thermal barrier coatings that hate vanadium. These biofuels, since they are essentially built from the ground up, don't have as many contaminants, and in some sense, they burn a lot cleaner than conventional petroleum-based fuels."

The NPS team is testing the combustion of the alternatives to the Navy's current JP-5 and F-76 fuels, including algae-based, hydro-reformed diesel, and camelina-based, hydro-reformed jet fuel blends. The 50/50 blends would incorporate half of the petroleum-based fuels currently being used, and half of either the algae or camelina fuels. The blending of the fuels will make the transition easier on the engines, and help the Navy reduce the amount of petroleum-based fuels needed to run the fleet.

"We know you can't go 100 percent biofuel because in aviation or ground-based systems, existing seals rely on particular ingredients found in conventional petroleum fuels which causes them to swell and provide proper sealing," said Brophy. "If you put them in biofuel, they tend to swell only a fraction of what is expected. Liquids contained within the engine are kept in by seals around a piston or a shaft, and if the seal is not expanding as expected, they leak. This has resulted in aircraft returning with significant leaks, so it's a big problem."

"The question was how much biofuel can the engines handle, and 50/50 worked," Brophy said. "But can you do 70/30? We don't really know the demarcation line between what fraction of biofuel you can run, but 50/50 is what the Navy has selected to date because we know it works."

One of the challenges with biofuels is that the scarcity of the product makes it more expensive than the fuels the Navy currently uses. To harvest algae and camelina, a member of the mustard family, in quantities large enough to fuel the fleet is a challenge, and one that has driven up the cost of production for the biofuels. For the three-day Great Green Fleet Exercise that took place during the 23rd Rim of the Pacific Exercise in July, the Navy purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel to run the blend in two destroyers and several dozen planes for two to three days.

The cost per barrel of the biofuels led to questions on the Great Green Fleet exercise at a time when the defense department's expenses are being scrutinized. Mabus addressed them in the Navy's "Currents" magazine, explaining the importance of finding alternatives to fossil fuels.

"Throughout the Navy's history, we have pioneered the way we fueled the fleet," wrote Mabus. "In the 1850s, we moved from sail to coal. In the early 20th Century, we left coal to transition to oil and we led the way to nuclear power in the 1950s. At the time of each energy transformation, there were doubters and naysayers who said trading a known source of energy for an unknown one was too risky and too costly. But the Navy pursued innovation because it improved the capability of the fleet and made us better warfighters."

"The critics were wrong then, and they are wrong today," said Mabus. "The U.S. military, time and time again, has led in the introduction of new technologies, including the Internet, Global Positioning System, and flat-screen televisions. In each case, we pursued innovation because it strengthened our national security and our capability as a military."

Mabus visited NPS in 2011 to tour the biofuels lab, and learned about the university's new energy degree program and ways that students are helping address the energy challenges facing the Navy. Since NPS has become involved in biofuels research, the team has had three recent mechanical engineering graduates explore the topic in their theses research, and three more are currently involved - Navy Ensign Warren Fischer, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Adam Paz, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps Lt. j.g. John Petersen.

Petersen is a part-time student while stationed at the nearby Point Pinos Lighthouse. The NOAA Corps, the smallest uniformed service in the country, is responsible for the operation of research ships and aircraft. Petersen was immediately drawn to biofuels as a topic for his thesis research, and sees energy independence as an important step for energy security.

"This research will not only greatly benefit the Navy but our entire nation," said Petersen. "About 60 percent of the oil used in the U.S. is imported. The Navy values energy as a strategic resource and it is fundamental for its mission. Supplementing our use of conventional fossil fuels with renewable fuels will significantly increase our energy independence and energy security. In addition to the tactical benefits, there are many environmental benefits that renewable fuels have over the use of fossil fuels. As an NOAA Corps officer, I am proud to be working on a project that will have a positive impact, not only on the Navy, but on our nation and the global environment overall."

Paz will be exploring the combustion performance of bio-derived synthetic fuels in his thesis, and noted that the value of biofuels extend beyond the desire for the U.S. to be independent of foreign oil.

"As petroleum becomes less cost effective to refine into usable grades of fuel for bulk military, and ultimately governmental or even industrial use, the need for alternatives will become apparent," said Paz. "It is not just a question of 'energy independence' for the United States. I think the U.S. will always require resources from non-domestic sources. It is whether the world market can be sustained by current known reserves. These bio-derived fuels will be a drop-in replacement for fossil fuels, allowing us to continue to use the same internal-combustion-centric infrastructure currently in place until something better is developed."

THE GREAT GREEN FLEET FLOATS WITH BIOFUELS

FROM:  U.S. NAVY
100610-N-5319A-212 PACIFIC OCEAN (June 10, 2010) The amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans pulls alongside the Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS Henry J. Kaiser (T-AO 187) for refueling during a scheduled three-month deployment. New Orleans and embarked Navy and Marine Corps units are participating in Southern Partnership Station 2010, an annual deployment of U.S. military training teams to the U.S. Southern Command areas of responsibility in the Caribbean and Latin America. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brien Aho/Released) 

USNS Henry J. Kaiser Loads Biofuel For RIMPAC 2012'S Great Green Fleet Demo
By Sarah Burford, Sealift Logistics Command Pacific, Public Affairs
SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Military Sealift Command (MSC) fleet replenishment oiler USNS Henry J. Kaiser (T-AO 187) commenced the load of 900,000 gallons of a 50/50 blend of advanced biofuels and traditional petroleum-based fuel at Defense Fuel Support Point, Manchester, Wash. June 13.

Kaiser will deliver the biofuel to the platforms participating in the Great Green Fleet demonstration, which will take place in July during the 2012 Rim of the Pacific exercise.

This demonstration allows the Navy to test, evaluate, and demonstrate the cross-platform utility and functionality of advanced biofuels in an operational setting, and will achieve one of the five energy goals established by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus: to demonstrate a Great Green Fleet in local operations by 2012.

"The Navy has been at the forefront of energy innovation throughout its history," said Mabus. "From sail to coal-fired steam to oil and nuclear powered submarines and carriers, we have sought and achieved technological advancement in how we power the fleet because it has made us better warfighters. The Great Green Fleet demonstration is a significant milestone in the Navy's progress to greater energy security."

Kaiser will take on 700,000 gallons of hydro-treated renewable diesel fuel, or HRD76, and 200,000 gallons of hydro-treated renewable aviation fuel, or HRJ5. Both fuels are a 50/50 blend of traditional petroleum-based fuel and biofuel comprised of a mix of waste cooking oil and algae oil.

While underway, Kaiser will transfer the HRJ5 fuel to U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68), and the HRD76 fuel to the Navy's guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) and destroyers USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) and USS Chaffee (DDG 90).

Military Sealift Command operates approximately 110 noncombatant, civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships, conduct specialized missions, strategically preposition combat cargo at sea around the world and move military cargo and supplies used by deployed U.S. forces and coalition partners.

"Our mission is service to the fleet," said Navy Capt. Sylvester Moore, commander, Military Sealift Command Pacific. "Delivering advanced biofuel to the fleet is a great opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities, and to be a part of the continued efforts of the Navy to develop new technologies that will advance mission capabilities."