visit to a brazilian sugar cane mill

I'm currently in Sao Paulo, Brazil attending the 1st Brazil-US Biofuels Short Course organized by Fulbright Brazil. This post was originally posted at www.davidwogan.us.

Today we visited the Iracema Sugar Cane Mill, which is a few hours northwest of Sao Paulo. The mill takes sugar cane stalks from nearby plantations and refines it into sugar and ethanol. All of the sugar mills in Brazil make sugar and choose whether or not to make ethanol based on market prices. I have never been to a sugar mill or ethanol refinery today.

While sugar and ethanol are the main products from the mill, leftover biomass, or bagasse, is burned to create process steam and electricity that powers the plant. All ethanol plants are required to be self-sustaining or else they're products are hit with a penalty. The flue gas from combusting the bagasse is scrubbed with water vapor to remove (most) particulate matter.


The exhaust is mostly water vapor.


They produce a lot of bagasse.


The scrubber system.


While most of the sugar cane is harvested mechanically a fair amount is still burned and delivered to the mill. Today's cane was milled. Notice the burn marks and full stalks. Mechanically harvested cane is shorter because it is chopped up into smaller pieces by the harvester in the field.


The cane stalks are milled by giant machines.


Juices from the cane goes off for processing while the bagasse is separated out.


The sugary juices are hit with steam and then left to turn into molasses. The solid sugar crystals are then removed from the molasses by a centrifuge. The remaining sugary liquid is sent off to be fermented and distilled into ethanol.


The sugar crystals are stored in a giant mountain of sugar bags.


We didn't get to walk through the refinery, but we did get to travel out into the fields and see the harvesting.


What a sight it must have been to see a bus full of Americans get out and take pictures of cane harvesting then get back in and leave.


The sugar cane is several meters tall!


We watched them dump cut cane into trucks.


We made sure not to get run over by the big machines.


The trip to the sugar cane mill was very educational. Before going I had a hard time visualizing the scale of biofuels production, but I have a better understanding about it now. Even though I'm not a huge fan of ethanol, you have to hand it to the Brazilians for having a large-scale system that is very efficient.

Not quite right!

Earth Hour 2009 is being claimed to be a huge success with millions of people across over 2000 cities participating in this hour long initiative. I was curious about the magnitude of energy saved in the process and decided to scour the internet for some information. Though I did not find any data representative of worldwide energy savings, I did find information about some cities and states in their respective regional news articles. However, what was interesting was the frivolous use of power and energy as same and interchangeable in various news articles.

For example, the Brisbane Times reports:

In total, about 195 megawatts of electricity were saved across South East Queensland: the equivalent of turning off more than 300,000 standard plasma televisions for one hour while last year, enough energy for 500,000 plasmas was saved.

Well, turning off 300,000 plasma televisions for one hour, at a rated power in watts, should be an energy saving in watt-hours. Similary BusinessWorld reports from Manila, Philippines:

The Energy department said at the weekend that Luzon saved as much as 500 megawatts (MW), the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) reported that power consumption in Cebu went down by 48 MW, while the main cities of Davao and Zamboanga in Mindanao saved about 50 MW.

I believe, savings should be in terms of energy whereas decrease in load or consumption should be reported in terms of its time-derivative, power. To draw an analogy (though not a perfect analogy), if we take a shorter route while traveling from point A to B in a fixed time, we say that we saved some distance and not velocity.

Some of them have been more considerate to this difference, such as this one:

The reduction in electricity usage in the City of Chicago and ComEd's northern Illinois service territory during Earth Hour was estimated to be about 100 megawatt hours.

One possibility for this neglect might be that the Earth Hour was exactly 1 hr long and quantitatively it made no difference.

PS: On an entirely unrelated note, I found this article on the changing perspective towards nuclear energy. What was interesting was this hitherto unknown information to me: coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste!

Agricultural Policy and Energy Policy

After listening to President Obama get sworn into office on Tuesday and hearing him talk about the need for change in energy policy, I couldn't help but think about the link between our food system and energy policy. This occurred to me primarily because my fiancee and I are in the midst of reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which is an excellent analysis of the deficiencies in America's food system and how it impacts the country's health, environment, economy, and way of life.

Pollan also contributes to the NY Times Magazine. In an October 2008 open letter to the next President, Pollan cites some striking statistics. For instance:

• 19% of the fossil fuels burned in the US are used by the agricultural sector, making it the 2nd largest category of fossil fuel use (cars are #1)
• One study says that agriculture contributes as much as 37% of the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere
• While in 1940, 1 calorie of fossil fuels could produce 2.3 calories of food energy, it now takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of food

This means that while we can talk about electricity generation and hybrids until we are blue in the face, we will be missing a huge piece of the energy picture. While measurements such as yield per acre have gone up tremendously during this transition in agriculture, such a measurement gives a very flawed picture of agricultural efficiency. If efficiency is measured by amount of output for a given amount of input, the more relevant input should be energy. What's worse is that policymakers are making the situation progressively worse, and "organic" agriculture does relatively little to fix the problem. As Pollan points out,

It must be recognized that the current food system — characterized by monocultures of corn and soy in the field and cheap calories of fat, sugar and feedlot meat on the table — is not simply the product of the free market. Rather, it is the product of a specific set of government policies that sponsored a shift from solar (and human) energy on the farm to fossil-fuel energy.

In order to develop any kind of comprehensive energy policy, the agricultural dimension must be considered. Electrical grid operators complain about solar energy because of intermittancy problems, but we could be using solar power even more efficiently to power our food system. Policymakers can hopefully seize this moment to lead us to a more responsible system of agriculture. As for consumers, when people talk about "calls for sacrifice" for the sake of the country, they should keep in mind that changing our food choices as consumers could have an even bigger impact on America's energy security and the environment than many of the other conservation measures that tend to get more attention.

carbon tax and 100% dividend

So while we're moving past the failed Lieberman-Warner climate bill, I've come across another way to get big stationary (and mobile ones too, it looks like) to cut their emissions without making basic needs such as energy unavailable to lower and middle classes. The idea is that you set up a number of credits that allow certain amount of CO₂ to be emitted each year. The number of credits will decrease, and with it the amount of pollution emitted into the atmosphere. Companies will have to purchase these credits.

So far this doesn't sound too different from the standard Cap & Trade system that was in the Lieberman-Warner bill. But where these two ideas differ is what to do with the money collected from the carbon credits. The Dividend idea would return the money to the public. I'm guessing this is to help offset some of the increased costs of energy as a result of a realistic price on carbon.

What sort of bothers me about this idea is that we have to return the money to the public. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind a check coming in every month, but I can think of a ton of other uses for the money. I personally would favor taking the money and investing it in research grants and projects (NSF, DOE, etc...) instead of having some guy go out and buy a new plasma or iPod with it.

Maybe somebody has more info on this idea? I'd love to learn more about it.

Cross-posted at davidwogan.us

where does all the money in energy investments go?

Great breakdown of Energy Information Administration data regarding where federal tax incentives and subsidies go with respect to energy investments. See here. Apparently the Federal Government is spending double the amount on energy subsidies than we did over a decade ago. This shouldn't be surprising since the price of energy is increasing and affecting every facet of our lives.

Interesting to note is the breakdown in renewable and alternative fuels. Tax breaks have shifted more towards renewable sources of energy. The government gave about $4 B in tax breaks for renewable energy producers; unfortunately $3 B of this went to ethanol refiners and blenders. Oops.

Of note is that wind and solar are getting a ton of money, which is good. Even with all the spending on renewable sources, coal still receives the lion's share of federal funding. While funding for coal has dropped, the actual amount is still very large.

It looks like throwing some money at our energy problems has done some good, as the Senate voted to extend the Production Tax Credits for solar installations (both residential and commercial), wind, and biomass continuing to make these options attractive.

I'd be interested to see a breakdown of investment by company, ie: is BP really throwing money at alternatives. Are they really Beyond Petroleum? Ecomagination from GE? It would be informative to see the numbers.

As Jay-Z put it:

We can talk, but money talks so talk mo' bucks

¹ Izzo off of The Blueprint.

the kingdom

At the heart of The Kingdom lies America’s complicated relationship with Saudi Arabia, rooted in our desire for oil and worsened by our presence in the region. Saudi Arabia is interesting because of the constant struggle to balance modernity spurned by massive oil profits and the traditional religious conservative beliefs. The collision of these different ideals presents problems for both the U.S. and the House of Saud.

Our involvement and presence in Saudi Arabia directly influences radical Islamic sentiment against the United States. Attacks by bin Laden and al Qaeda can be traced directly to our defense of the Saudi Kingdom and the placement of half a million U.S. troops down the road from Mecca. This is not a judgment on the First Gulf War, but an accurate example of why anti-American sentiment is fervent.

What I find most intriguing about the movie is the alternative to our current foreign policy that it presents. The response by the F.B.I. in The Kingdom presents a complete reversal of our current policy against extremist violence around the world. This is significant in that it presents a different idea of dealing with crises in such a delicate region of the world, possibly with a little more success.

I find the movie to be an optimistic but honest look at our relationship with those in the Middle East. The Kingdom attempts to address a crisis in the Middle East not with brute force, but with cooperation and trust. In the end, the movie shows us that we may think the Western and Middle Eastern cultures are radically different, but in reality, they’re more similar than we think. And, Jamie Foxx gets to be a badass for an hour and a half.

Is Energy Really an Issue in the Primaries?

Energy and environmental policy is obviously very important to those of us taking Dr. Webber's course, but while public awareness is increasing, I still feel like energy and the environment are on the backburner in these primary elections. Many other blog posts highlight the energy and environmental policies contained on candidates' websites. While this information is easily accessible for those who are interested, is it really what people are talking about when discussing the presidential primaries?

I've felt for a while that the short answer is "No," simply based on how often I notice energy related issues pop up in primary news or debates. To test this hypothesis, I went to the websites of 5 major news outlets (CBS, USA Today, Fox, MSNBC, CNN), searched news articles for "primary" and "policy," and found 5-10 recent (Feb.-Mar.) articles from each site that deal directly with the primaries (43 articles total). To get a rough estimate of how often energy and the environment is in the news relative to other major issues, I counted the frequency of the words "energy," "climate," "environment," "security (national, not social)," and "economy" in each article. I am aware that the news does not conclusively indicate the priorities of the American people, but the media has financial incentive to give the people what they want, so I figure this would make a good litmus test.

Total frequency of each word:
Energy - 11
Climate - 1
Environment - 31
Security - 19
Economy - 82

As could be expected, the economy is a clear winner; it had broad mention over many articles. Environment appears to do a good job making the news; however, all but 3 of these instances came from articles dealing with the NAFTA comments Clinton and Obama made in the Ohio debate indicating a desire to hold Canada and Mexico to stronger environmental restrictions on imports. So the primary reason for mentioning the environment was to promote fair trade and the protection of American industry rather than to focus on environmental policy. Also worth noting is that 9 of the 11 instances of "energy" were contained in just 2 articles, and the word "climate" only showed up once!

We could argue over the validity of my methodology or the quality of my analysis, but I think that this shows some good evidence that energy and the environment is, at best, a second rate issue in this primary election. At the Obama energy panel discussion last week, Dr. Kammen emphasized that in order for major changes in U.S. energy policy to occur, the public must strongly indicate within the first 100 days of the new presidency that we are voting based on energy and environmental issues and that dealing with related challenges is of the highest importance.

I think it's clear that we have work to do.

Water and Ethanol

There has been a lot of attention brought out in the media recently bringing attention to the troubles in making biofuels – in particular corn based ethanol. There are concerns about the energy intensity of ethanol and questions of how green the production of ethanol is. Using corn based ethanol is also driving the price of corn up. Additionally, producing corn based ethanol requires a lot of water despite technology improvements in plant efficiency over the last 10 years. An article in the Economist – Ethanol and Water Don’t Mix discusses how ethanol plants are being built and then requesting insane amounts of water. The Florida plant discussed in the article requested 400 million gallons per day. Citizens in other states are also stepping out against ethanol plants being built. I hope this starts to get noticed by our politicians, and they realize this does not make any sense! Ethanol is already driving up the cost of food, what next? I don’t want to see the cost of water and availability of water increase because we’re making bad energy choices.

Can We Staff a Cleaner Energy Industry?

This article brings up a side of the climate change mitigation effort that doesn't get a whole lot of attention. If we want to make all of these changes to how we create and use energy, who is going to do the work? For some efforts, changes to the labor force may be simple, such as farmers switching to fuel crops or grid operators learning to better handle intermittent power supply from renewable energy sources. For others, entire new industries need to be created, recreated, or grown at astronomical rates.

According to the linked article, we are building wind turbines faster than we can train technicians with the knowledge of weather and wind power and the grit to climb and service the 200ft towers in day, night, rain, sleet, and snow. Some of these issues may be unique to the wind power industry, but it is not the only technology that could suffer such a shortage. I have also heard Dr. Bryant, PGE Professor at UT and head of that department's CO2 Storage research group, speak strongly for the dire need to educate and train an entirely new breed of engineer if CO2 storage is to be feasible at a large scale. This issue is entirely separate of any concerns with the technology itself. I read an article in Manufacturing & Technology News a while back that stressed that even if public perception and policy barriers to new nuclear power were removed today, the U.S. no longer has the level of expertise or the manufacturing capability to drive a rapid resurgence in that industry.

However the world decides to approach climate change mitigation over the course of this century, it will involve a major restructuring of our material infrastructure as well as of our labor force. A breakthrough technology can be created by one team in a lab, but it takes an army to commercialize it. Lack of a properly trained workforce can be as big a hurdle as any in commercializing new technology, so it will be interesting to see if labor shortages prove to rival other technological and political barriers to energy technologies that seek to mitigate climate change.

Dubai: Playground of the Rich and Home to Blackouts!?

Three undersea power lines to Dubai have been cut since Wednesday. The third ruptured while repair ships were in route to the first two disrupted cables. This has been a great blow to the international traders that base themselves in Dubai and is causing some noticeable tumult in the trading markets. Coupled with China's recent energy dilemma, I believe the defense thinktanks ought put some sincere effort into futurative strategizing.

This CNN report claims that:

"the [first] two cables damaged Wednesday collectively account for as much as three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East, so their loss had a much bigger effect"

Ok. Now, I'm interested.

One person interviewed even mentioned that:

"a similar Internet problem could not happen in the United States. We have all the content here, he said. It's not going to be felt other than we won't get the BBC."

Alright, you've got me. I have to say it.

Since, I'm feeling Machiavellian today and my last blog concerned how we might opportunistically wrest economic dominance from China, I was wondering if anyone has every really considered that not only techy hubs like Dubai, but most of Asia relies on telecommunication lines from Europe to support a large part of their involvement and stock control in Western markets. What happens if someone turns off the cable on purpose?

I mention this only because this article says to me that, in spite of the rising dominance of China as an industrialized force, America still holds significant reigns. After all, the Westernization of the globe could really be called the Americanization of the globe. What would happen if China or Russia, or India suddenly had there new American cultural influence taken away from them?

All I know is that if we ever get into trouble with those nations a sure way to get their attention won't be economic sanctions, but our control lies in our ability to now threaten worldwide telecommunication sanctions.

China Frostbitten

China's stocks fell recently after a sudden snow storm left hundreds of thousands stranded at transit stations around the nation. In preparation for the Chinese new year, many families (about 199 million Chinese) are expected to be traveling both by train and plane in the weeks just before and after the Lunar New Year. The government has encouraged provinces to "share" coal and electricity during what will undoubtedly become a very strained period of energy consumption.

Two things come to mind: what an awesome experiment and how will this affect the U.S!? The first of these thoughts is perhaps a bit brutal, but seriously, how often does the world get to see the energy supply in a nation like China stretched to the limit? Of course, a similar experiment occurred to the U.S. following Hurricane Katrina; the outcomes there were often dire and still has the American energy market reeling. Will China be any better suited to deal with such situations? We will have to wait and see.

Furthermore, if China's stocks fall, the question becomes: is that a good thing for the U.S.? I am willing to wage an answer of both yes and no. Our economies are becoming incomprehensibly intertwined. If they do poorly, Americans will definitely feel the effects. China owns in excess of one trillion USD's, and more and more, they are pouring their currency into our economy. Even so, China relies on its ability to supply consumer nations. If that ability to produce becomes hampered, we might gain more independence from their markets, which would definitely be a good thing. As well, if the dragon stumbles, it too may find itself dependent on other nations to supply medical and emergency aid. These are all pluses for the U.S., especially since the ensuing world-wide recession has affected Chinese markets the least until now.

All in all, Americans should sit up and take note. China may soon find itself on the downhill and in need. I say strike while the iron is hot!

Climate talk cancelled in Montana high school

Interesting article in the NYTimes today about how a talk on changes to the earth's climate due to the warming of the Earth was cancelled at a high school. See here. The speaker was Steven W. Running, lead author of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change given to the U.N. last year. This is same U.N. group that shares the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Opposition to the talk at a school in rural Montana arose because another side of the global warming argument was not going to be given. Too bad Steven Running is a scientist and not a political figure with an agenda. Unfortunately for the students and town members an informative talk on a critical issue was not given. Moreover, they missed out on a chance to have a Nobel laureate to speak to the students.

You can also look at this in terms of education in our country and how we are falling behind in the sciences and mathematics. One of the greatest strengths of our country is having innovation and technology that can lead us into the future, giving us an edge over the rest of the world. Its disturbing that a Nobel laureate can be turned down from talking to a group of potential leaders of our nation. It may seem like a stretch, or an isolated incident, but it is indicative of a larger problem.

nuclear energy and the debates

I wrote a comment regarding nuclear energy from the post below, but it was so long I thought it'd be a good idea to repost it here.

A lot of people involved in the debate about nuclear energy aren't informed about the mechanics of nuclear power and its benefits. Its not a perfect solution, but it offers a reliable, safe, and extremely well regulated source of power. If you have doubts, look no further than the U.S. Navy which has operated nuclear reactors for over 50 years.

Regarding the Democratic debates, I went to a John Edwards rally over the summer and became dissatisfied with his energy policy after his adamant refusal to support an increase in nuclear energy. I'm not a one topic voter, but I feel so strongly about the benefits nuclear power holds that I wrote him off.

Ultimately I think education of the public will help to alleviate the barriers of building new reactors in the U.S. There is a stigma against nuclear energy after Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, but education about why there were disasters involving the reactors needs to be done. Additionally, advances in reactor design, waste management, and heavy regulation by the NRC have addressed those problems.

I really believe that nuclear energy should be looked at seriously for the future.

David Wogan
http://davidwogan.us