Returning Profitability to
   American Agriculture

Agricultural Management Systems, Inc.

This process of carbon negative ethanol production is environmentally friendly, produces virtually no pollution, and yields 11 units of energy for every 1 unit expended in growing (suitable) biomass and then turning it into ethanol. By comparison, corn ethanol, at best yields 1.3 units of energy for every 1 unit of energy utilized in its production.

This process can also efficiently use any source of cellulose or mixtures thereof: everything from crops grown specifically for their biomass to straw or stubble left in fields after harvest of food or fiber crops, switch grass, prairie grasses, old newspapers, or even sawdust.

The reason this process produces little pollution, has such a large "energy gain," and can efficiently use any form of cellulose is that it manufactures ethanol differently, utilizing almost the entire mass of the plant and requiring input of very small amounts of energy. It is a simple, low-pressure, low-temperature, noncritical "microorganism-mediated" process of ethanol production, using a different microorganism in each step of the process. (Nature has had millions of years to produce microorganisms that are energy-efficient and able to efficiently utilize different forms of cellulose.) The ethanol produced is also rendered pure-- 200 proof--by a final, simple, low-cost step.

This additional step during the manufacturing process can produce ethanol that is "carbon negative":

An existing device containing blue-green algae can capture the large amounts of carbon dioxide that are produced during htis (and other) biofuel manufacturing processes and turn the carbon dioxide into solid carbon compounds. (This algae technology is now being tested on a full-sized power plant to capture its carbon dioxide emissions.)

The carbon dioxide, which is captured and turned into solid forms of carbon, can subsequently be buried in the ocean below 3,000 feet, so that the carbon will remain sequestered long-term. (We have suggested a technique that will enable the dead algae to get below the 3,000 foot depth without a significant portion of the algae being consumed by organisms that live in this zone and their carbon recycled, short term, back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

This extra step in biofuel production can render many biofuels carbon negative in the sense that cultivating (suitable) biomass properly pulls more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by photosynthesis than is put back into the atmosphere when the biofuel made from the biomass is burned.

The reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide that accompanies the manufacture and use of carbon negative biofuels has two sources. One is direct: The production and use of the carbon negative biofuels themselves. But, to the extent that carbon negative biofuels replace fossil fuels, we rid ourselves of the largest manmade carbon positive enterprise on earth, fossil fuels and their support technologies and industries. (Consider for example, the energy and other resources expended and the carbon dioxide produced by drilling, transporting, and refining oil and building pipe and oil-drilling platforms.)

Biofuel manufacture will take place near where the biomass is grown, which minimizes both transportation cost and the use of energy to transport the biomass. Thus, both the manufacture and use of biofuels can become local in much of the nation with all that this implies for minimizing use of resources and output of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The logistical importance of carbon negative biofuels can easily be overlooked: We have been told that it is going to take at least an 80 percent reduction in manmade sources of carbon dioxide to keep global warming within limits that mankind can tolerate. Thus, continued use of fossil fuels would require capturing carbon dioxide at all the places where fossil fuels are burned, an impossible logistical nightmare, and after capture, a practical, low-cost, energy-efficient technique to sequester the carbon dioxide for millennia, either on site or the ability to transport it elsewhere for long-term disposal and sequestration.

With Carbon negative biofuels, the only place where carbon dioxide needs to be captured are the manufacturing plants where the biofuel is made. After that, the biofuel can be burned anywhere without capturing the carbon dioxide produced by burning it and still pull (net) carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. (If algae are used to capture carbon dioxide and turn the carbon into solid compounds, then the mass of dead algae that would have to be transported for suitable deep sea disposal would be about twice the mass of the carbon dioxide that is captured.)

Using the microorganism-mediated process of ethanol production, suitable biomass for replacing all United States' imported oil can be grown on less than 10 percent of the acreage currently used by United States agriculture. By comparison, corn ethanol would require more farm acreage than exists in the entire United States to replace all imported oil.

Two biomass plants used in conjunction with the microorganism-mediated process of cellulosic ethanol production would provide extraordinary productions of ethanol per acre: One is a sugar-cane/Miscanthus cross, developed at Texas A&M University, with an estimated yeild of 10,000 gallons of ethanol per acre. The other is Maralfalfa, a plant grown in the nation of Columbia for cattle feed, which requires water but otherwise little or no cultivation. This plant, as grown in Columbia, is estimated to produce about 19,000 gallons of ethanol per acre. It can be grown in southern parts of the United States, but its yield there would have to be redetermined. A third suitably high-yielding plant for much of the United States would be various forms of forage (as opposed to grain) sorghum.

Finally, a properly implemented food-fuel-fallow cycle can ensure the sustainability of food and biofuel production even after oil-based chemicals are discontinued or can no longer be used for environmental reasons.

Thus, the above choice of process and crops:

• can readily replace oil-based fuels with a local alternative costing $0.70/gallon USD to manufacture;
• requires the use of less than 10 percent of the agricultural land in the United States to replace all imported oil, which holds significant economic, geopolitical, and security implications for the United States; and
• can produce carbon negative biofuels that pull more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than are put back by cultivating the biomass and burning the biofuel made from it.