2. Presented at: Food and Fuel conference, University of Missouri, Oct. 12, 2010 World Café, Concordia University, Montreal Nov. 21, 2010
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5. The myth: When whales were almost extinct, the free market found petroleum. There was no need for government intervention . In fact: Alcohol-turpentine lamp fuel use was at 90 to 200 million gallons per year; whale oil never topped 18 million gallons per year. The US government imposed an alcohol tax of $2.20 per gallon in 1862, but only taxed kerosene at 10 cents per gallon. Tax policy created the oil industry, not the free market. See: https://php.radford.edu/~wkovarik/drupal/?q=node/54
6. “ The Standard Oil Company has, largely by unfair or unlawful methods, crushed out home competition. … It is highly desirable that an element of competition should be introduced by … putting alcohol … upon the [tax] free list.” Teddy Roosevelt May 5, 1906 Washington Post p. 1 1906 – Alcohol tax repealed
7. Second stage: Anti knock fuel for autos Gasoline base 55 octane Lead or ethanol (TEL) 2000s 7.5 :1 engine compression Gasoline base 84 octane 1921 6 :1 engine compression Benzene, MTBE, ethanol
8. Alexander Graham Bell "Alcohol makes a beautiful, clean and efficient fuel… Alcohol can be manufactured from corn stalks, and in fact from almost any vegetable matter capable of fermentation… We need never fear the exhaustion of our present fuel supplies so long as we can produce an annual crop of alcohol to any extent desired. -- Feb. 1917 Source: National Geographic,
9. “ Alcohol will inevitably play a part of steadily increasing importance in our economic life…” 1920
10. Cellulose to Ethanol -- 1921 “ This country will be dependent entirely upon outside sources for a supply of liquid fuels... paying out vast sums yearly in order to obtain supplies of crude oil from Mexico, Russia and Persia.” Chemists could solve the problem by making fuel from cellulosic materials like seaweed, sawdust, corn stalks and wheat straw. Yale Prof. Harold Hibbert ACS Cellulose Division founder 1921, SAE Journal Paper mill, Maine,1916, Edwin Slosson Creative Chemistry
11. “ "The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumac out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything … There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years." …” Sept 20, 1925 New York Times Henry Ford
12. Charles Kettering GM research v.p. 1919-1947 Researched anti-knock effect of many fuel blends, including ethanol, benzene and, eventually, tetra-ethyl lead (leaded gasoline).
13. 1923 - 25 - Leaded gasoline introduced by GM, Standard Oil and DuPont, forming corporation called “Ethyl” 1923 - 25 DuPont NJ plant -- 11 die from severe industrial lead poisoning April 1924 -- GM Dayton labs 2 killed Oct. 1924 -- Standard Oil NY refinery 6 killed, 50 or more disabled May 1925 -- Public Health Service hearings in Washington DC Jan. 1925 -- Half baked report provides Ethyl with a “clean bill of health.” The Ethyl Disaster
14. “ Try a tank full -- You’ll be thankful” • Backed by Ford in 1937 • Over 2,000 stations in Midwest • Fought by oil industry • Bankrupt by 1939 • Unanticipated bonus for war preparedness US ethanol blending 1930s
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17. WW I I and synthetic rubber • Natural rubber from SE Asia cut off • US faced crippling shortages • Truman investigation finds Standard had a secret “marriage” with I.G. Farben • Ethanol was an alternative way to make synthetic rubber • By D-Day, 3/4 of US rubber was from ethanol not petroleum
18. 1971 -- Nebraska Ag products utilization committee formed (Gasohol Commission) 1973 -- Gas lines - prices up 1974 -- Tom Reed (MIT), Leo Spano (DoD) testimony – Cellulose = fuel of future 1979 -- More gas lines 3rd stage: Oil embargoes
19. 1974 -- MIT Prof. Thomas B. Reed (left) gives MIT administrators his research grant money. Exxon demanded that the project be cancelled if other grants were to continue. MIT caved.
28. Non-food biofuels • Pasteur Institute obtained 10 gallons of ethanol per ton of seaweed in 1918 • Farm Journal editor Wheeler McMillan predicted we would eventually turn to ocean energy Miscanthus, Jatropha, many others
29. Conclusions • Fuel of the future 100 years: Octane boosters from grain, oil replacement from cellulose ethanol. • Leaded gasoline and benzene were replaced by MTBE and ethanol, creating today’s industry. Old technology solved a 1970s environmental problem. • Climate change and biodiversity: recent policy goals • EC: carbon footprint and biodiversity issues can be managed through certification and standards; • US: cutting ethanol, solar, wind tax incentives in 2010 gives no leverage for managing standards like EC. • Media should get beyond swinging pendulum and cover deeper issues in science and environment.
Personal interest - farm protests 1970s, wave of farm bankruptcies 1980s / coujld anything be done to shore up farm economy? Not exactly a recent question.
So here’s how that worked
Smithsonian exhibit: "It was the discovery of petroleum in 1859 that kindled the revolution in artificial lighting… Kerosene ...was cheap and relatively clean. Lamp companies had sprung up immediately and by the 1870s virtually everyone could enjoy indoor lighting."
Fear of oil shortage was motivating interest in all kinds of replacement technologies
NREL researcher works on cellulose enzyme hydrolysis 2002
"The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumach out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There ís enough alcohol in an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the field for a hundred years.”
"We could produce certain results and with the higher gravity gasolines, the aromatic series of compounds, alcohols, etc. [to] get the high compression without the knock, but in the great volume of fuel of the paraffin series we could not do that." -- May, 1925 (to SG hearing on TEL)
On the 11th of April, 1933 Charles Wayland Bryan, governor of Nebraska, (re-elected in 1931), and the sheriff of Merrick County symbolically filled their gas tanks with a new product: a blend of gasoline with ten percent corn alcohol. The pumps at Earl Coryell's station, 14th and N Streets, Lincoln, were decorated to promote the new gas.
Allen Hammond wrote about the scandal in Science magazine in 1975 but few paid any attention.
The law was made for industry, not consumers, and disclosure was not required. But what WAS in their gas? Benzene? Toluene? Xylene? MMT? MTBE?
ERG Biofuel Analysis Meta-Model / Energy Resources Group NOTE for existing operations not expansion of cropland
Pulitzer said the press should never lack sympathy with the poor. Special resonance.
To replace all petroleum used today (27 billion barrels / year) might well be impossible using terrestrial biomass. Marine biomass holds the promise of large scale sustainable fuel systems development. Imagine 8 million square miles -- an area equivalent to 12% of the Pacific Ocean -- being harvested for renewable energy and sustainable food production.