Research and development
Ethanol
Methanol
Chemicals
Cooperation
Biomass research: a survey of recent US government efforts
Jim Williams
JIM WILLIAMS IS Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture. This report is condensed from one he gave in March 1980 to the US Senate Subcommittee on Agricultural Research and General Legislation.
The research and extension efforts of the US Department of Agriculture are directed toward increasing the availability of woody and agricultural biomass materials, materials which are used not only to produce alcohol fuels, but also for direct combustion and production of other forms of energy. The US alcohol fuels programme is therefore not a separate entity, but an important component of the total biomass and synthetic fuels production effort.
Huge quantities of agricultural and forestry residues and wastes are generated each year in the United States along with the production of agricultural and forest products. Some 500 million dry tons of wood are potentially available, but remain unused, each year. Plant wastes such as cereal straw, corn cobs and stalks, and sugar-cane bagasse total about 400 million tons of organic solids yearly. Farm animals, many of which are raised in confinement, produce another 210 million dry tons of organic matter yearly.
Total agricultural biomass from residues and wastes constitutes well over one thousand million tons of dry matter produced annually. Since the net energy yield from a ton of dry organic matter is roughly equal to 1.3 barrels of oil, the fuel equivalent, in Btu value, of this resource would be 1.3 thousand million barrels of oil annually.
The USDA is expanding its research and development efforts in support of the production of alcohol fuels from agricultural feedstocks. This research on alcohol fuels is conducted mostly by the Science and Education Administration (SEA), Forest Service (FS), and the Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service (ESCS) of the Department.
Much of the research on biomass and alcohol fuels is conducted through SEA Energy Research Centers located in Peoria, Illinois, and Tifton, Georgia, and the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. The staff at the Peoria centre is involved in screening thousands of crops for starch and sugar content, examining other biomass materials to be utilized in large-scale conversion, and evaluating of large-scale conversion processes. Staff at the centre at Tifton are evaluating the production, harvesting, and conversion of wood and crop biomass to alcohol and other energy forms, and are using small-scale biomass energy systems on the farm. At the laboratory at Madison they are examining the conversion technologies for use of wood as a source of energy and petrochemical substitutes.
Because the technology is well established, alcohol has been the sole material used in the blending of gasohol sold in the united States. The blend of 90 percent unleaded gasoline to 10 percent anhydrous ethanol can be utilized without engine modification and with no apparent damage.
Since petroleum prices have been low during previous decades, comprehensive research effort on the utilization of ethanol as a liquid motor fuel has not occurred since World War II, when petroleum stocks were threatened. With prices now rising and supplies diminishing, additional research is clearly needed in the near future.
One important research area is the screening of large numbers of plants which show promise for total biomass production, high yields of hydrocarbons, and the development of substitutes for petroleum products. :Research efforts will also include enhancing biomass plant production through selective genetics and plant breeding.
The ESCS is evaluating the economic impacts of different types and levels of biomass production on the structure of agriculture and the effect on rural areas. Potential areas where structural change would occur include size of farm and ownership patterns, regional shifts in areas of crop and livestock production, different combinations of enterprises, and employment shifts in agriculture and rural areas. the effect on food price increases will also be estimated.
Research is also under way at the Peoria centre and at cooperating institutions to enhance the fermentation and chemical conversion process. This involves selection and evaluation of microorganisms for the ability to produce alcohol at a higher concentration, greater rate, or to function under a variety of fermentation conditions and substrate types and concentrations.
During World War II, the Forest Service developed an improved process for making ethanol from wood. A pilot plant was built in Springfield, Oregon, and while it never became operational, there is renewed interest in the technology. This technology is currently being used in about 40 plants in the USSR.
Forest products are being utilized by a wood pulping mill located in Bellingham, Washington, to produce about 4 million gallons of ethanol annually. This plant utilized waste sulphite pulp liquor as the feedstock material.
Wood alcohol (methanol) can also be used to displace petroleum-based fuels. Although methanol production is quite desirable because of the large quantities of forestry and wood products available, production has not proved economical on a commercial basis. An additional consideration is that, in the long run, the immense coal resources of the United States can be utilized as a feedstock, thereby freeing additional biomass resources for conversion into methanol.
Prior to the widespread use of methanol as a motor fuel, some engine parts and fuel storage and supply components in motor vehicles must be replaced with parts which will withstand the corrosive action of methanol or methanol-gasoline blended fuel.
Methanol can be produced, along with char, oils, and gas, by pyrolysing biomass materials. If biomass is to be used as a source of methanol, the most promising technology is gasification of wood to make a producer gas. The producer gas is then made into a synthesis gas and converted to methanol. More Forest Service and SEA research is planned to improve these processes.
The Forest Service Madison laboratory is conducting studies on the prehydrolysis of wood with steam to extract pentosans prior to further processing. These chemicals may be used in the production of valuable co-products such as furfural and xylytol, or, in some cases, they may be fermented to alcohol with microorganisms. This type of pretreatment might also be beneficial in preparing the wood for production of high yields of glucose and ethanol from the wood cellulose, or in preparing the wood for pulping. The need for pulping chemicals is reduced by the pretreatment.
The Forest Service is conducting extensive studies on the production and characteristics of terpenes in pine extractives. These chemicals have a potential for use in internal combustion engine fuels. Turpentine was used in aviation-grade gasoline in Japan during World War II. Turpentine can be derived from pine wood as a co-product with alcohol and pulp.
The Forest Service will be examining ways for pulp mills to produce alcohols and chemicals in an integrated forest products utilization approach. Similarly, excess energy potential at wood processing plants, in the form of residue wood or co-generated low-pressure steam, could be used for distilling alcohol from grain. Rural community cooperatives might thus use either wood residues or crops as a source of sugar and heat for making alcohol.
There is a potential for joint efforts with other countries in pursuing production of alcohol from biomass to mutual advantage. Much work on alcohol production has been completed in Brazil, where new projects for both ethanol and methanol production from eucalyptus wood are about to begin. The United States may benefit from the Brazilian experience by working more closely with them. The Austrians and Swiss are already working with the Brazilians to pilot-test production of alcohol in a full-scale plant in Switzerland built during World War II, deactivated in 1965, and reactivated recently. Such developments should be followed.
The US Department of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service is providing information to their county offices on the alcohol fuels programme as rapidly as technical information and loan assistance information become available. Farmers and small business in rural communities are extremely interested in examining the issues and the opportunities in producing alcohol. initial feedback from a number of states indicates that there is more interest in community-based plant than in individual farms because of their advantages of quality and safety control and fewer storage problems.
