"Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy.  And here we have a serious problem: 

America is addicted to oil,

which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.  The best way to break this addiction is through technology.  Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources -- and we are on the threshold of incredible advances. 

So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research -- at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas.  To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy.  (Applause.) 

We must also change how we power our automobiles.  We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen.  We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass.  Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.  (Applause.) 

Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal:  to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.  (Applause.)  By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.  (Applause.)"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/index.html

Our President's Proposal To Break America's Addiction:

Ethanol & Hydrogen

First Question: Why do we do this?  If it is our nation's plan to produce only enough energy to ease the oil crunch, this institute sees little justification for the enormous costs that will be involved.  Our nation would be analogous to a man struggling to uncinch a noose from his neck.  The effort we invest in a struggle to simply maintain slack in our end of the rope will be irrelevant, the matter shall ultimately be decided by how hard those on the other end are pulling.  100% Freedom, or what's the point?  In this page we hope to offer some explanation of why we believe the President's ethanol and hydrogen initiatives constitute false avenues to achieving our energy goals.  We don't suggest the methanol transformation will be easy; however, we firmly believe it represents the nation's best hope for the accelerated removal of this albatross from our necks. 

This institute has had a very small description of cellulosic ethanol on our Biomass page for the past several months.  Our organization has always been opposed to the use of corn ethanol on the grounds that it only minimally contributes to a net energy gain for the US.  The production of ethanol merely supplants the energy content of an oil based fuel with that energy derived from either natural gas or coal electric to fuel the ethanol fermentation process.  It is a catastrophically inefficient process to acquire a slight net energy gain, which is then squandered and ultimately reversed to a loss when consumed in an internal combustion engine designed to consume ethanol at between 25-42% efficiency.  Ultimately, cellulosic technology is much more competitive as it alleviates the need for vast energy inputs in the form of fertilizer and cultivation.  However, we feel it will still fall short in it its ability to adequately supply the U.S. with a plentiful gasoline/diesel replacement.  Also, cellulosic ethanol doesn't offer strategic flexibility.  It is made by a single relatively slow process and relies on adequate harvests of biomass.   (Like methanol, ethanol may also be synthesized by reforming natural gas, but at roughly twice the volume).  Large nation wide droughts, floods, famines, fires, insect and disease infestations, and sudden labor shortages or any combination of these threats may all have a catastrophic affect on our ability to produce cheap quantities of this fuel.  Even without a catastrophe in the nation's annual biomass harvest, just a 10% fall in the anticipated harvest would allow commodity speculators in Chicago to significantly impose their will on our energy costs, as happens now in a tight oil market.  For the record, some very comprehensive information regarding ethanol may be found at the following websites: http://www.westbioenergy.org/reports/55019/55019_final.htm,  http://www.ethanol.org/,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol, 

A brief comparison of methanol and ethanol yields the following observations.   Methanol is a single carbon alcohol, ethanol is double carbon alcohol.  By our estimates, carbon will be the most difficult and expensive atom to work with when synthesizing/producing an alcohol fuel.  While ethanol does have an advantage in BTU's per gallon, it also doubles the carbon input requirements of the fuel on a per-molecule basis, which translates to 39.5% more carbon on a per-gallon basis.  Calculating the Delta of the maximum engine efficiency to fuel-energy ratios, one will find that the Delta between methanol and ethanol is 1.308 in favor of ethanol.  However, given the disparity in carbon requirements, every vehicle burning ethanol would lose almost 9% of the useful benefit of carbon per gallon of fuel consumed.  In other words, our nation will needlessly waste close to ten percent of each biomass harvest in engine consumption alone by converting to ethanol as opposed to methanol.  220,911,925,995 gal ethanol will be needed to replace current gas & diesel fuel demands, which means 346,221,163,013 kg carbon are needed to form the individual ethanol molecules.  The following is an excerpt discussing the fermentation process taken directly from the online resource of Wikipedia:

Fermentation

Ethanol for use in alcoholic beverages, and the vast majority of ethanol for use as fuel, is produced by fermentation: when certain species of yeast (most importantly, Saccharomyces cerevisiae) metabolize sugar in the absence of oxygen, they produce ethanol and carbon dioxide. The overall chemical reaction conducted by the yeast may be represented by the chemical equation

C₆H₁₂O₆ ™ 2 CH₃CH₂OH + 2 CO₂

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

In other words, after the enzymatic process, carbon demand needs to be calculated using the total mass of carbon existing within the amount of Sugar (Glucose) used for producing any given amount of ethanol.  Adding the mass of carbon lost from CO2 formation in the fermentation process to the established value of Ethanol's carbon mass will yield the total carbon requirements of the sugar needed for the fermentation process: 

( 346,221,163,013 kg  carbon x 3/2 ) = 519,331,744,520 kg  carbon

Assuming dry biomass contains approx 50.4% carbon, 858.7 million (English) oven dried tons will have to harvested at a minimum for ethanol production.  Plus: (Then factor in replacement values for the estimated carbon loss rate of the cellulosic process before fermentation).  This all compares to a relatively known amount of biomass or municipal solid waste required for methanol synthesis: 733.74 million (English) oven dried tons  biomass.  That's not even counting the possible  help (reducing carbon needs by as much as half) from the Boudouard Reaction identified on our Energy Solutions page.  It would also be possible to simply gasify coal to produce necessary carbon requirements.  Please examine our numbers below:

The following mass and energy density figures are from Table A1 of the Brusstar EPA study: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentations/epa-fev-isaf-no55.pdf       

Ethanol (E):  density of 0.794 kg/L, energy content of 26.75 KJ/g

1L (E) = 0.794 kg = 20,147.9 BTU = 0.41402 kg Carbon

 = 48.6639 BTU per g Carbon

42% efficiency x 48.6639 BTU/g  = 20.438 BTU used per g Carbon

Methanol (M):  density of 0.792 kg/L, energy content of 20.004 KJ/g

1 L (M) = 0.792 kg = 15, 028.8 BTU = 0.29688 kg Carbon

= 50.6225 BTU per g Carbon

43% efficiency x 50.6225 BTU/g = 21.7666 BTU used per g Carbon

Hydrogen:  Hydrogen is a different scenario all together.  Producing hydrogen efficiently on a massive scale will not be a major problem.  However, small and efficient fuel cells are not yet commercially viable to mass produce.  Of chief concern, finding an efficient way to transport, store, and safely refuel any given vehicle presents very significant challenges.  Hydrogen must be either frozen to a liquid or compressed to terrific pressures as a gas.  There are new developments concerning hydrogen carrier substances, however, the point of refueling still remains an issue.  Do we build an infrastructure of H2 pipes linking gas stations across the country?  Do we deliver freezing liquid H2 to gas stations via truck?  Do we up-grade the electric grid, install water demineralizing and electrolysis equipment and high pressure compressors at gas stations through out the country?  No matter what, selling hydrogen will require significant dollar investments in both gas station and automobile technology up-grades.  To recap, the primary challenge associated with hydrogen is logistical in nature.  Of course, in the methanol transformation, hydrogen is simply affixed to a carbon oxide molecule and then sold as a room-temperature liquid fuel.  In the end, the fuel may be used to power internal combustion, turbine and even fuel cell engines at very high efficiencies.  We've decided not to perform detailed hydrogen comparisons as we did with ethanol, as a specific viable hydrogen plan for the nation does not yet exist.  Please visit the DOE website for current H2 technology at:  http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/storage/current_technology.html,

http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/annual_progress04_storage.html, http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/h2a_delivery.html

To the president's credit, advancements are being made to make a potential hydrogen economy more competitive (in the distant future).  There are a few recent advancements of note that may alleviate some of the logistical problems with hydrogen.  One of the more recent and more impressive announcements comes from researchers at TU-Denmark.  These researchers claim that they've invented a size and cost-effective pellet, which can be refilled using ammonia (NH3), and easily liberate H2 for a fuel cell when needed.  Though we've not found cost estimates, the company, press and Danish trade ministry releases are as follows:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907102549.htm,

http://www.investindk.com/visNyhed.asp?artikelID=13655,

http://www.amminex.com/

 In Conclusion:  Thank you again President Bush for taking this admirable stand and for establishing lofty goals regarding US energy independence!  At a very minimum, the "energy independence" ball should now be considered in play.  To this end, the 2020 institute still advocates an immediate transformation to methanol for the reasons listed above.  While hydrogen has future potential, methanol is the winning choice for today.  Additionally, the physical infrastructure changes necessary to affect the methanol transformation are so minor, there isn't a risk of loosing billions in capital investments should a better alternative be found.