(continued, page 2)

Energeia Vol. 18, No. 6, 2007 © UK Center for Applied Energy Research

Vol. 18, No. 6, 2007

Summary:The exhaustion of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves predicted for this century will create the need for emergent alternative energy sources including: biofuels, solar energy through photovoltaic cells, nuclear energy and others. Although the use of biofuels is the nearest alternative, it should not be taken as definitive, because it can upset the human food supply. Biofuels could be better considered as a transition form of energy between the fossil fuel age and the age of the new energy alternatives.

IntroductIon:Biofuels can be defined as substances that, with simple chemical transfor-mations, serve to feed either human beings or combustion engines. For example, sugar produced from a sugar cane plantation for food, can be trans-formed into ethanol as a substitute for gasoline. Biodiesel obtained from frying oil is another example.

In contrast to biofuels, biomass could be used, after relatively simple trans-formation, to feed engines, but not hu-mans. Only with complicated chemical transformations can the cellulose-lignin structure of biomass be transformed into edible carbohydrates.

The production of biofuels, including biomass, will require the use of fertile land. Therefore, one question arising is: will there be enough land available as not to affect food supply?

Within the above scope, calculations are presented in this article in order to estimate the amount of land required for the production of biofuels on a global scale, from two points of view: engine feeding and, human feeding.

For the calculations, it is assumed a global population of 6,000 million per-sons, and a land area of 15 Gha (1 Gha = 109 ha, 1 ha = 104 m2). This area is about 1/3 of the total global area. The other 2/3 (the oceans) is also a source of food supply through fishing, but will not be considered in this work. As a rough ap-proximation, the land is split into three equal parts (i.e., 5 Gha each): one part is fertile land for growing crops, including pasture for livestock, another part is for-est (Amazon, Siberia, Canada, etc.), and the other part is non-fertile land (deserts, mountains, glaciers, etc).

BIofuelS for human feedIng: Taking into account that one person would need food containing about 3,000 Kcal per day to live, the equivalent of sugar (4 Kcal/g) necessary to supply that energy is 275 Kg per year. Thus, knowing that a sugar-cane plantation can produce about 5 Ton/ha yearly, it would be necessary to have 0.3 Gha to feed, with only sugar, the entire world population, which represents only 6 % of the total fertile land available.

Biofuels and Human Feeding

Jorge Laine

Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC)

Energeia Vol. 18, No. 6, 2007 © UK Center for Applied Energy Research 2 (continued, page 3)

Biofuels and Human Feeding (cont.)

Another calculation method is by means of the established food consumption given by wheat equivalents, which var-ies according to socioeconomic condi-tions from 200 Kg per person per year in a poor situation where only basic foods (grains) are consumed, to 800 Kg in a wealthy situation with an abundance of luxury foods (meat, cheese, juices, coffee, etc.). In addition, the land’s food yields strongly depend on the level of development of the agricultural techniques employed, leading to a range of values varying from about 2 Ton/ha per year in a third-world country (e.g., Ethiopia) to about 10 Tons in a highly-developed country (e.g., Holland). Nev-ertheless, there would not be too much difference for fertile land requirements in the hypothetic cases where all world inhabitants were only Ethiopians or only Hollanders, cases resulting in land requirements of 0.6 and 0.5 Gha respec-tively, about 10 % of total available.

Even in the most extreme of the hypo-thetic cases: i.e., with the entire food supply produced at the Ethiopian level, and all the world population eating as the Dutch, the fertile land requirement still would be 2.4 Gha, less than the total available. Accordingly, the above calculations suggest a theoretical good panorama for human food supply. However, other problems out of the scope of this article have to be solved for the remediation of nearly 15 % of the total world popula-tion that actually suffer from malnutri-tion.

BIofuelS for engIne feedIng:Although current world fossil hydrocar-bon reserves (coal, petroleum, natural gas) are abundant enough to continue at the same actual rate of consumption for several decades, it is expected that these reserves will be exhausted sometime during this century. This is particularly true for the reserves of petroleum as this is the fossil fuel with the highest de-mand. The main emergent alternatives are: biofuels (which in fact, is another form of solar energy); solar energy through photovoltaic cells; and nuclear energy. Other alternatives include: wind energy, solar energy through thermal cells, geothermal wells, etc. The use of hydrogen as a fuel is not included here because its manufacture requires the employment of another source of energy, equivalent to that produced by its combustion.

Because of the renewable character of biofuels, a zero net effect in the increase of atmospheric CO2 will result from bio-fuel burning, as shown in the following set of simplified reactions:

Therefore, as well as in all other quoted alternatives, the use of biofuels will con-tribute to stopping global warming.

Certainly, the use of biofuels is the near-est alternative energy source to substi-tute or partially replace fossil fuels as long as the technology used is practical-ly the same in both cases. However, the other two alternatives require resolving important technical issues. For example, in the case of photovoltaic cells it is necessary to store large amounts of energy to compensate for the variation in solar radiation when moving from day to night, or from sunny to cloudy. In the case of nuclear energy, some of the problems are: the disposal of used

radioactive material, and contamination by malfunctioning equipment. Un-doubtedly, today’s nuclear energy is not considered a ‘clean’ energy. Neverthe-less, just as a period of time was neces-

sary to develop the internal combustion engine from the steam engine, it should be expected that another period will be necessary to improve the efficiencies of these emerging energy alternatives.

There are also problems to solve if large-scale usage of biofuels to substi-tute fossil fuels is intended in the future. One problem is to be certain about the possible competition for fertile land between biofuel production and human food supply. Another problem is to avoid the destruction of forest land by the inappropriate (i.e., non-renewable) exploitation of biomass. As an example of renewable energy (i.e., bioenergy), Australians plan the overall processing

of eucalyptus trees, integrating the production of electricity together with eucalyptus oil for biodiesel, plus activated carbon and biochar (also referred to as agrichar), which can be used as an adsorbent and as a soil conditioner, respectively.

Converting areas comprising the non-fertile land into fertile land using biochar, afforestation, and the development of fast growing trees, would contribute to remedying the problems associated with biomass exploitation. Indeed, biochar is a by-product of both ancient and modern biomass processing, and can act not only as a soil conditioner, but also as one way for carbon sequestration to offset global warming.

The following simple calcula-tions estimate the amount of land required in the case of the use of ethanol to feed combustion engines. Assuming that the actual world pe-troleum production (30 Gb/year, 1 b = 160 Liter) will be substituted by ethanol (0.8 g/cc); then, as shown above, three molecules of sugar (30 g/mol) are necessary to produce one molecule of ethanol (46 g/mol). Thus, that volume of petroleum is equivalent to 7.5 Gton of sugar, which requires 1.5 Gha, about 30 %, of the total fertile land, that is about

A colonial “ingenio” factory at the Caribbean, today kept as an historical relic. The “ingenio” could be considered as the predecessor of modern biofuel production. Brought by colonists to America, it used the hydraulic energy from an aqueduct to move a mill that extracted the juice from sugar cane leaving the bagasse to fire a furnace to concentrate the solution, producing solid sugar for human food and molasses for rum’s ethanol

Photosynthesis: 3CO2 + 3H2O + solar energy ------> 3CH2O (sugar) + 3O2

Fermentation: 3CH2O (sugar) -----> C2H5OH (ethanol) + CO2

Combustion: C2H5OH (ethanol) + 302 -----> 2CO2 + 3H2O + renewable energy

Net: solar energy ------------------- renewable (clean) energy

3Energeia Vol. 18, No.6, 2007 © UK Center for Applied Energy Research

Biofuels and Human Feeding (cont.)

was attended by about 30 people from industry, government, and universities. Its success lay, not necessarily in being held at Buffalo Trace Distillery’s confer-ence center, but because it was taught in a low-key, no nonsense manner by industry experts.

The third in the series of events was a Distinguished Lecture by Mr. Matthew Simmons on November 15th. Held to

We Survived CAER’s 30th Anniversary!!

The first event held was the Kentucky Energy Summit. The goal of this day was to bring together experts in many areas of energy, not just coal, in order to encourage discussions among those who attended. Our seven speakers’ topics ranged from national security as it relates to oil to global change and carbon capture. It was an educational day where most of what we believed was turned upside down, resorted, and streamed back at us. That evening we held the CAER employees’ celebrations. Along with staff, several of the founding fathers were honored.

Next on the fall’s agenda was the Pol-lution Control Short Course. CAER Program Manager, Kunlei Liu, orga-nized this short course, held October 24th in Frankfort, Kentucky. The course

Group of attendees at Summit

Dinner Tables at 30th Anniversary dinner celebration

CAER employee, Jack Groppo talks to luncheon speaker, Anne Korin

three times more than that estimated above for food supply.

Petroleum consumption varies according to the energy demand of each country, from about less than 10 Gcalories/year/person in some third-world countries up to more than 50 Gcalories in the most-developed countries. (Curiously, humans consume between 10 to 50 times more energy than that they use in their bodies’ metabolism). Therefore,

the future development of third world countries will require a substantial increase in the world demand for fuels that would lead to a serious compro-mise of land use if biofuels are going to replace fossil fuels.

Sowing fossil hydrocarbons may not be a utopia: if all proven fossil hydrocar-bon reserves (about 1,000 Gton C) were pyrolized into coke plus hydrogen (i.e., without CO2 emissions), and the

Energeia readers have been bombarded this year with news of events related to the CAER’s 30th Anniversary. Now that most of the events are behind us, we can breathe a collective sigh of relief and report that things went smashingly!

coke obtained was used as an agrichar, this would be enough to convert about 4 Gha of infertile land into fertile land. This would be sufficient to feed both fu-ture generations of humans and engines without damaging the atmosphere.

The “sweet gold,” an old name given to sugar by the first American colonists, is now a potential substitute for the nearly exhausted “black gold.”

Energeia Vol. 18, No. 6, 2007 © UK Center for Applied Energy Research 4

CAER’s 30th Anniversary (cont.)

coincide with the CAER advisory board meeting, Mr. Simmons’ talk “Is Ken-tucky Prepared for a Pending Energy Storm?” followed the theme of his inter-national bestselling book, “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy.” The percent-age of the audience under 25 years of age was high. There were even a few teenag-ers. We were satisfied that we brought a newsworthy and timely speaker to the university community.

November ended with the Kentucky Energy Tour. The university sponsored, and CAER organized, a three-day trip around the state for our federal legisla-tive staffers to tour and learn about UK’s connections to some of the state’s commercial energy endeavors. It ended with tours of UK’s Bio-engineering and Agriculture Science Department, CAER, and the Kentucky Geological Survey.

In the next issue of Energeia, I’ll describe our final event, which will be an Energy Fair for elementary students in January.

As busy at it has been this fall, all of the work was worthwhile because the nation has finally awoken from a 30-year slum-ber to find we are again in an energy crisis and realize that we have to solve it this time. Events mentioned above only serve to bring attention to the fine work that goes on here everyday.

The Kentucky Energy Summit web site (www.kentuckyenergysummit.org) contains abstracts, PowerPoint presen-tations, and audio files of most of the events mentioned here.

byMarybeth McAlister

Federal Staffers tour CAER

Federal Staffers ‘ARMY’ Armstrong and Megan O’Donnell on bus during Energy Tour of Kentucky

Mr. Matthew Simmons, Distinguished Lecturer

5Energeia Vol. 18, No.6, 2007 © UK Center for Applied Energy Research

COMMEnTARY

“Why is Mr. Burns being so nice to me?” — Homer Simpson

Rodney Andrews,CAER Director On my desk I have a small plastic toy one of my kids received as a marketing aid in some fast food meal. It is a fairly typical movie promotional item: Mr. Burns from the Simpsons sitting in his chair with his usual evil grin. Since the kids have many (more than is probably healthy) of these things, they did not notice when it disappeared and took up residence on my desk. Why, you ask? Well, aside from the nostalgia value, pushing the button on the back results in a fairly annoying recording of his catch phrase “Excellent.” This, I find to be just (push button now) “Excellent” -- childish, annoying to those coming to see me, and with just the right tone to express approval of successful outcomes of our various activities in and around the university.

And so, with Mr. Burns precariously perched atop my teetering stack of unread trade journals, HR memos, and research manuscripts awaiting my overdue review, I would like to take the opportunity to pass out a few of those “Excellent’s.”

First, I want to thank everyone involved in the CAER’s 30th Anniversary activities. The Energy Summit was a real success, and I thank the sponsors (UK, Kentucky Governor’s Office of Energy Policy, and E.ON-US); speakers (especially our Master of Ceremonies, KentuckyHouse Majority Leader Rocky Adkins and key-note speaker, US Senator Jim Bunning); and our staff who worked on very tight deadlines to pull it all together despite my constant need to meddle and rear-range the program. The 30th Anniversary Dinner was a great social event, and we had the opportunity to thank many of the people who made the Center what it is today, including former Senator/Gover-nor Wendell Ford, former Dean Jim Funk, and past state Secretaries of Energy, Bill Sturgill and Charles Haywood. I would especially like to pass on an “Excellent” to former state Secretary of Energy, CAER Advisory Board Chair, and chief CAER supporter, David Drake, who served as the evening’s host.

In terms of research accomplishments, despite a few technical hurdles and at

least one ‘BANG’ loud enough to cause Kunlei Liu to levitate briefly, the Power Generation and Utility Fuels group has commissioned its pilot scale CO2 scrub-ber system. This unique capability will allow CAER to play an active role in ad-dressing the needs of the utility industry. Similarly, the Carbon Materials program has brought its new carbon fiber facility online and is churning out miles (liter-ally) of new materials. In both cases, an “Excellent” is in order.

Another important accomplishment for the Center is the education and cre-ation of new scientists and engineers -- the future of our industry. This has been a banner year for the Center, and an “Excellent” is due to Matt Weisen-berger, Courtney Fisk, Brock Marrs, Link Shumaker, and Sarah Mardon. Despite our best efforts to keep them in perma-nent servitude, they have all managed to graduate. We also undertook to teach the teachers, with CAER staff hosting a workshop for local teachers to demon-strate experiments that they can then perform in their classrooms to illustrate scientific principals using energy-related examples. Not only was it “Excellent,” but also electrifying, heated, and only a tad bit sticky.

This has also been a year for “Excel-lent” adventures (with no reference intended to the Keanu Reeves actus reus), including a recently-completed tour with federal legislative staff. The tour included stops at a Lafarge wallboard

plant, the Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative’s Spurlock Power Sta-tion, Charah’s ash processing facility, the Kentucky Rural Energy Consor-tium meeting, a tour of Süd Chemie’s Louisville facilities and Owensboro Grain’s new biodiesel plant. The ef-forts of UK Federal Relations Director, Bill Schweri, who arranged the tour, CAER staff who gave tours and dealt with last minute changes in sched-ules, and our very generous industrial hosts all deserve an “Excellent.” Such opportunities to educate and inform on energy issues are a key aspect of the Center’s mission, and this fall’s “Kentucky Energy Tour” was a great success due to their efforts.

Lastly, and most importantly, the staff members at CAER deserve the loud-est “Excellent” for their hard work, determination, and genuine desire to accomplish something meaningful for the people of Kentucky. Thirty years is a long time for an organization such as CAER to keep focus and remain relevant, but the staff, students, and faculty associates working at the Center have managed to do just that. And now, with energy again in every newscast and political stump speech, the Center is moving ahead with pro-grams focused on developing tech-nologies to address the energy and environmental challenges we face.

“Excellent.”

Mr. Burns - handy for expressing joy and annoying one’s coworkers.

Energeia Vol. 18, No. 6, 2007 © UK Center for Applied Energy Research 6

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Energeia is published six times a year by the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER). The publication features aspects of energy resource development and environmentally related topics. Subscriptions are free and may be requested as follows: Marybeth McAlister, Editor of Energeia, CAER, 2540 Research Park Drive, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40511-8479, (859) 257-0224, FAX: (859)-257-0220, e-mail: mcalister@caer.uky.edu. Current and past issues of Energeia may be viewed on the CAER Web Page at www.caer.uky.edu. Copyright © 2007, University of Kentucky.