The bioTrekker Vision

The bioTrekker vision is the best-case scenario for biodiesel in the future. Let’s picture it:

In this vision, America is entirely energy independent, relying on its own farmers and scientists to fuel its vehicles and heat its homes. The method of fueling vehicles and furnaces with the finite resource of petroleum has become very old-fashioned, and biodiesel has become the most important fuel in a strong set of renewable energy sources including ethanol, solar and wind power. Biodiesel is sustainable and comes from two major sources: American farms (growing crops of canola, soy, sunflower, mustard) and algae production facilities, which require neither freshwater nor fertile farmland.

In fact, the algae used to produce biodiesel actually thrive in sewage treatment plants and on smog forming carbon dioxide coming out of coal stacks. This cleans the air and water and fuels our engines and furnaces at the same time. In addition to an efficient mass transit system in every city, thanks to innovative technology like diesel electric hybrids, passenger vehicles are much more efficient than those in the past, averaging fuel mileages over 100 miles to the gallon. In addition, these vehicles emit no greenhouse gases. The increased efficiency results in decreased demand for vehicle fuel, which has the benefit of creating competition and significantly lowering prices at the pump.

From combined efforts in improved technology and conservation, the import of petroleum oil from countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran has become relatively unimportant to American transportation. True energy independence has been achieved, and this translates to a stronger economy and a more peaceful world.

Is it Possible?
Of course it’s possible. Human ingenuity is a friggin’ wondrous thing. We have space travel. We have technology that allows us to observe particles smaller than electrons. We have unraveled DNA strands and created clones. We have Pop Rocks.

You’re telling me we can create tiny, fruit flavored rocks that pop on your tongue, but we can’t figure out a way to mass produce large quantities of biodiesel and other renewable fuels? We can’t produce spacious, comfortable and powerful vehicles that achieve 100 miles to the gallon? We can’t convince ourselves that it’s in our best interest to invest in a combined effort of conservation and upgraded technology in order to eliminate our energy dependence? Pshaw!

There are diesel passenger vehicles on the market in Europe that achieve upward of 70 miles to the gallon. Volkswagen built a carbon fiber prototype vehicle with a diesel electric engine that achieved 319 miles to the gallon.

There is already research produced by our own government demonstrating that it’s more than possible to create biodiesel from a certain type of algae, with the potential to yield up to 150 times more fuel than can be squeezed from a soy or canola crop. In fact, there is already a company, GreenFuel Technologies Corporation, that has figured out how to grow algae from the carbon dioxide rich emissions produced by coal stacks. That algae can then be harvested to produce biodiesel. Yes, there are obstacles (namely money) to creating a facility capable of producing large volumes of the proper type of algae, but there were also obstacles to space travel, electron microscopes, clones and Pop Rocks.

Where We Are Now
America currently imports over 60 percent of its oil, the vast majority coming from the Middle East. The Department of Energy predicts that we will hit a level of 80 percent very soon. But we don’t have to. At the moment, biodiesel production represents just a drop in the bucket. Roughly 150 million gallons of biodiesel will be produced in 2006. This is one quarter of one percent of the roughly 60 billion gallons of petroleum diesel that will be consumed in 2006. Ethanol production is greater (at roughly 5 billion gallons) but almost as small when compared to the roughly 146 billion gallons of gasoline being consumed annually. So there’s a lot of ground to cover, but everything that’s big once started out small, right?

At the moment, the two major sources of biodiesel (used in diesel engines) in the U.S. include waste vegetable oil recycled from restaurant grease traps and soybean oil left over from agricultural production, although other oilseed crops can be used, such as canola (rapeseed), mustard seed, and sunflower.

Corn is the major source of ethanol (used in gasoline engines) in the U.S., although switchgrass crops also offer some potential. Sugarcane is the major feedstock in warmer climates such as Brazil, where all fuel sold contains at least 20 percent ethanol.

When it comes to fuel efficiency in the American auto industry, there is also a lot of room to improve. Based on sales projections provided to the EPA by automotive manufacturers, model year 2006 vehicles are estimated to average 21 miles per gallon, the same as last year. Oil used for transportation accounts for 2/3rds of the oil we use in America, with half of that being used in passenger cars and light trucks.

How to Get From Here to There
It’s obviously going to take some effort, but it’s not going to take massive algae farms springing up overnight or vehicles that average 319 miles per gallon — or even vehicles that average 100 miles to the gallon. Yes, it would be phenomenol if we could achieve those things in the course of a decade or two, and biodiesel and ethanol will certainly play a role in any formula for energy independence, but the most critical ingredients are things that are already accessible to almost everyone: increased efficiency and conservation.

If all of the passenger vehicles in the U.S. averaged 40 miles per gallon (mpg) we would save over 3 million barrels of oil each day. That’s more oil than the United States currently imports from the Persian Gulf.

Combine this increased fuel efficiency with replacing 20 percent of the gasoline we use with ethanol and 10 to 20 percent of the diesel we use with biodiesel, and our country would truly be energy independent, and would no longer need to import fossil fuels. The more conservation we can add to that, the less ground we’ll have to cover to reach it.

So improved efficiency and conservation are linked, and both are available to us now. The Honda Civic hybrid averages 49 miles per gallon. The Toyota Prius averages 50. The 2005 Volkswagen Jetta turbodiesel (which can run on biodiesel) averages 45 miles per gallon. Honda has announced plans to produce a diesel sedan for 2009 that will average somewhere between 55 and 60 miles per gallon. The resources are already there; it’s just a matter of choice.

If You Really Hate the Idea of Conservation
Don’t worry. The bioTrekker still loves you. Some of my closest friends are conservation haters. And I’m one to talk when my motorcoach averages 10 to 15 miles per gallon. I’ll do my best to offset this by running it on biodiesel, eliminating my commute, walking or riding a bike whenever possible, using an 85 mpg scooter for every day driving and by using rideshare sites like craigslist.com or rideshare.com to fill up the bus with other people whenever it’s time to move my mobile command center/home. But there is still a lot of room for personal improvement. And I’m getting off point.

The point is, if you would prefer not to conserve, you can still contribute to energy independence by making a greater investment in biofuels yourself or by urging your elected representatives to make a greater investment in biofuels. Obviously, it’s my opinion that we’d be better served by a combination of conservation, technology and renewable resources, but the less we choose to conserve, the more we’ll need to invest in biofuels in order to achieve independence. If we choose to maintain current consumption rates and still pursue energy independence, we’ll need a much bigger push in the biofuels industry to get there. Now we’re talking about really encouraging and subsidizing agricultural efforts to grow biofuels crops and seriously looking into that large-scale algae production facility that we talked about earlier. This would be a huge endeavor involving several roadblocks, and would likely involve an investment in the billions of dollars range, but the opportunity and the potential are there.

Biofuels Scenarios
Biodiesel guru Joshua Tickell estimates three scenarios for the growth of the biodiesel industry. The first is slow, steady growth with an average public call for greater investment and maintained levels of government support. In this scenario, Tickell predicts that biodiesel production could reach roughly one billion gallons by 2010. Decent, but still only a fraction of the 60 billion gallons of diesel currently consumed.

Scenario two involves a big push from the public, encouraging politicians to implement heavy investment into the industry (converting a portion of fallow cropland into oil-producing crops, and allocating more funds for research and development, for example). In this case, it’s very optimistic but possible that we could reach 5 billion gallons of biodiesel (8 percent of total diesel fuel usage) by 2010.

Scenario three is one that’s motivated by a big economic challenge or by the public standing up and kicking some ass. In this case, with massive investment (including replacing commodity export crops with oil-producing crops, utilizing all available fallow cropland and investing in research) into the biodiesel industry, the U.S. could achieve 10 or 15 billion gallons a year, about 20 to 25 percent of current diesel consumption.

The vision that bioTrekker supports is a fourth scenario that Tickell hints at, a vision put forth by Michael Briggs of the University of New Hampshire. Based on the algae research completed by the U.S. Department of Energy, Briggs believes that enough algae could be grown to produce biodiesel for the entire fuel needs of the U.S. in 15,000 square miles (that’s about 12.5 percent of the Sonoran Desert that straddles Arizona and California.) That’s about 9.5 million acres, which is pretty small in comparison to the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming and the 500 million used for grazing land. Briggs and his team estimate that this entire algal oil infrastructure could be created for $308 billion, with annual operating expenses of $50 billion, which is roughly half of our current $100 billion annual expenditure on foreign oil. So if we could get our government to reappropriate funds, or convince every American to chip in $125 (less than an iPod) we could feasibly grow ourselves to complete energy independence. Now, that’s a vision, baby. Sure, it’s lofty, but what’s the point of having a vision if it isn’t lofty?