HONR 229L: Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Governance

1. HONR 229L: Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Governance Biofuels Your name here 24 October 2016

2. As always, I suggest working the admission ticket questions into the presentation. You could begin with question #1: In the United States, a major effort had been extended to produce ethanol from corn, to supply a more sustainable source of liquid fossil fuel. This policy was also certainly motivated, in part, by the “United States’ overwhelming dependence on foreign oil” being “a direct risk to national security”. In Brazil, a similar effort was extended to produce ethanol from sugar. • in terms of sustainability, which effort seems better: ethanol from corn or ethanol from sugar? Feel free to use the term “Global Warming Impact” in your reply, which should be in form of a thoughtful explanatory sentence (or two). • briefly describe what cellulose is and why so much effort is being extended to extract combustible fuels from cellulose (note: proper answer will draw upon material in Chapters 4 and 5) You can ask the class to answer, then provide an answer in your own words. On the next page, I include a scan of the image from the book (sorry but the Google Play version of the book lacked images, hence I had to scan). You can use the scanned image, or use an illustration off the web.

3. Here is the scan:

4. I placed this question as #5, because it appears in the latter part of the two readings. Perhaps it goes well here. If you’d like, can next discuss: Chapter 5 describes two approaches to obtained combustible fossil fuels from cellulose: use of enzymes and use of thermochemical systems. a) what are the potential advantages of the enzyme approach and what hurdles must be overcome to make this approach viable? b) what are the potential advantages of the thermochemical approach and what hurdles must be overcome to make this approach viable? As always, best to get some discussion going, and at the same time, work in your take on these questions, either after the discussion has happened (i.e., prepare a summary) * OR* to facilitate the discussion (i.e., you can have topics for discussion that build off of how the reading addresses these questions)

5. Might want to provide an update to a few of the more notable companies. Looks like Amyris (introduced start of Chap 4 and discussed in Chap 5) has left the transportation fuel arena: http://www.fastcompany.com/3000040/rise-and-fall-company-was-going-have-us-all-using-biofuels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyris_(company) If you enter “amyris biotechnologies stock” into Google, you can get an image of the stock price … they say “an image is worth a thousand words” and this image below, which you are welcome to use, conveys the promise then demise of this company, which nonetheless is still intact:

6. Might want to provide an update to a few of the more notable companies. Looks like Amyris (introduced start of Chap 4 and discussed in Chap 5) has left the transportation fuel arena: If you provide an update to Amyris, might want to first ask students to describe the mission of this company, be prepared to summarize the mission if the students can’t answer, then fill in for them what happened 

7. Somewhere along the way, might want to build these threads into the material: Why might the guts of termites hold the key to making biofuel technology sustainable? (an AT question) Were folks surprised to read Jared Diamond’s name in the reading? What was the context of this cameo? Which of his books was mentioned? What was said about him? Note: no problem whatsoever if you do not pursue the Jared Diamond cameo … and if you do pursue, despite the large number of questions here, it is not worth spending too much time on this. If you include, this would be a “light moment”, which is often good to interject. I had forgotten about this cameo until doing the reading again for this class! I was amused! Also, interesting IMHO that Guns, Germs, and Steel is mentioned rather than Collapse. Turns out Guns, Germs, and Steel was published 9 years before Collapse and won a Pulitzer Prize … but we are reading Collapse because IMHO Collapse has a closer connection to “how use of natural resources and climate change shape national destinies”

8. Somewhere along the way, worth discussing this AT question: Investment in biofuels is quite controversial because some scientists argue apparent positive benefits might disappear when scrutinized under the entire life cycle of a large-scale effort. Summarize, in your own words, the tenant of either the August 2007 Science article or of the “unintended consequences of biofuels made from a particular oil” as stated in Chapter 4. Of course the 2007 paper is by Righelato and Spracklen (RS) and the particular oil is palm oil Can prepare discussion of both; for RS, the original paper is at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5840/902.full and a criticism of the paper is at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/318/5853/1066.2.full (note: I am not expecting you to fully digest the RS paper but you could, if you want, pull this image http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5840/902/F1.expansion.html and try to explain. Totally your call! for palm oil, can pull info from here http://www.saynotopalmoil.com or many other websites

9. Might as well touch on this … please don’t spend too much time on this but it is probably worth covering: While Professor Salawitch (aka Ross) tries to live a low carbon footprint lifestyle (he lives close to work and enjoys a vegetarian diet) , it turns out he does incur a significant carbon footprint due to his frequent air travel. Argh! He would very much like to see a breakthrough in the ability to make jet fuel from biomass, because until this occurs his personal carbon footprint will likely remain above the US norm. Why is jet fuel particularly hard to make from biomass? Could go over what the reading (Chapter 4) states about this challenge and pull in a bit of material from http://solazyme.com/solutions/fuel/?lang=en http://www.justmeans.com/blogs/airlines-look-for-sustainable-jet-fuels or other resources to provide an update on progress in this area.

10. This is a series of questions that was almost used as an AT … but got left on the cutting room floor. Would be most excellent if you could discuss. Here goes. I will write as a series of questions *but* I do not expect students to retain this precise numerical info. So, you might want to transform into a series of illustrative statements According to Chapter 4 of KH, how many gallons of gasoline are used in the United States each year? Chapter 4 states “The amount of land required to grow enough biomass to displace significant amounts of petroleum is daunting … At current average yields, according to a biomolecular engineering professor from Rice University, replacing just 30 percent of the gasoline consumed in the US with ethanol made from switchgrass would require 200 million acres, which is equivalent to about half the total cropland in the US”. • based on your answer to Q1 and the info above, how many gallons of ethanol can be produced per acre? • how many gallons per acre of ethanol based fuel is Verenium attempting to achieve, under their “demonstration plant designed to convert wood and perennial grasses to biofuels? (hint: answer is in chapter 5) • if the plan put forth by Verenium was successful, how much of the available US cropland would be needed to replace 30% of the gasoline consumed in the US? • if the plan put forth by Verenium was successful, how much of the available US cropland would be needed to replace all of the gasoline consumed in the US? (if you go this route, please email me your answer before class … I have done the calculation and have an answer!)

11. If you go this route, might was well provide an update to Verenium. I found this article to be quite interesting: it has a connection to DuPont, a company that came up in class on Wed, 19 Oct and that also have been a leading manufacturer of CFCs. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-20/basf-agrees-to-buy-verenium-as-it-attacks-dupont-novozymes

12. Would be most excellent if you could lead a discussion of: Why are researchers in the United States focusing on restoration of the native perennial grasses that once extended across the Great Plains?

13. followed by: Why are researchers so interested in potential uses of algae, nature’s building block, for various applications in the area of biofuels? doing your best to engage the class, summarize the reading, and perhaps interject a bit of new material along the way! Note: for the perennial grass thread, I do not think much action has happened: this is in the early research stage. For algae, a lot of research is ongoing, which I’ll touch upon in the next few slides you are welcome to use.

14. This is a link to a recent, 95 page report on the use of algae to extract CO2 from the stack of power plants: http://www.usea.org/sites/default/files/042015_Microalgae%20removal%20of%20CO2%20from%20flue%20gas_ccc250.pdf I don’t expect you to read! But you could work with the summary, which I have cut and paste below: Theoretically, using fast-growing microalgae to fix carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant is a promising alternative to conventional CO2 capture and storage approaches, as CO2 is converted to microalgal biomass, which could be utilised to produce commercially valuable products. Compared to current chemical/physical CO2 removal processes, microalgae mitigation of CO2 is more environmentally friendly and sustainable and it does not reduce the thermal efficiency of the power plant. Microlagal CO2 fixation is a complex process, especially in flue gas environments. The process is influenced by culture parameters, including physicochemical parameters (such as CO2 concentration, pollutants in the flue gas, initial inoculation density, culture temperature, light, nutrients and pH) and hydrodynamic parameters (for example, flow, mixing and mass transfer). These parameters are related and interact with each other. It is crucial to comprehensively consider the effects of all the process factors in order to improve microalgal growth and its tolerance to the environment. Beside the culture conditions, the choice of microalgal species is important as they directly influence the photosynthesis efficiency, and hence, the performance of carbon fixation and biomass production. The desirable attributes of microalgal species for capturing CO2 include fast growth rate, high photosynthetic rate, strong environmental tolerance/adaptability of trace constituents of flue gas, high temperature tolerance, the possibility of producing high value products, and ease of harvesting and processing. Microalgae cultivation can be carried out in open pond or closed photobioreactor systems. Open culture systems are normally less expensive to build and operate, more durable and with a large production capacity compared to large closed reactors. However, open ponds are more susceptive to weather conditions, and do not allow the control of culture medium temperature, water evaporation and light. Potential contamination is also a serious threat to the operational success of outdoor open ponds or raceways. Most importantly, they require an extensive land area and consume large amounts of water. In contrast, closed system photobioreactors can overcome the disadvantages of the open pond systems and have the advantages of better operational stability and condition control. However, the high capital and operation costs of closed photobioreactors are still barriers impeding the mass cultivation of microalgae. The key to promoting the use of microalgae to capture CO2 is to make the photobioreactors cheaper. Technologies are available to harvest, process and produce valuable products from microalgae. However, most of the existing technologies are adapted from technologies already in use in the food, biopharmaceutical and wastewater treatment sectors. They are not developed specifically for algae production. Therefore, they are inefficient and require a large amount of energy. These are the areas that need to be investigated in order to improve the economics of algae carbon fixation. In addition, the economics of CO2 capture can be significantly improved if the algae products can be sold. Therefore, selecting energy efficient harvesting and processing methods and high value strains to produce commercially sound applications is also a key to promoting microalgae capture of CO2. Nevertheless, the markets for algae are still in their infancy.

15. This should facilitate a 45 min (or so) discussion ... especially if your Prof does not keep interrupting the discussion. Feel free to use whatever you’d like of what I have provided. Feel free to diverge wildly! Of course, fine to grab whatever additional figures you’d like off the web, highlight whatever aspects of the KH reading you’d like, etc. Good luck: and I’ll be happy to preview a draft !