Beyond the oil market

Rob Price

Two news items I've come across recently point to the possibility the U.S. is moving toward a practical alternative to oil-based automobile fuels. But you have to be an optimist to believe this.

The first piece of news was the introduction in India of a $2,500 car. Built by Tata Motors, the sub-subcompact is a four-door model that seats four people, or five if they are small and don't mind squeezing.

The car runs on gasoline, of course; $2,500 doesn't buy you much in the way of new-fangled internal combustion technology. How then, you may ask, can a $2,500 car help us find effective alternatives to oil-based fuels?

Simple: If we don't, we're all going to die.

According to one media report I read, there are currently about 11 personal automobiles available for every 1,000 Indians (nine personal vehicles are available for every 1,000 Chinese, according to the same report). The introduction of a $2,500 vehicle, coupled with India's expanding economy, is likely to change that ratio. And if India's per capita oil consumption reaches even half that of the U.S. - where there are 1,148 personal vehicles per 1,000 Americans - India would need perhaps 50 million more gallons of oil per day. Even if that amount of oil could be found, the environmental impact of millions of Tata roadsters would be catastrophic. Talk about global warming. Try global frying.

Something will have to be done. Really. No arguments this time.

The good news is, something is getting done, although very slowly. Two weeks ago, General Motors bought a stake in the ethanol manufacturer Coskata Inc. In announcing its investment, GM said it wants to increase ethanol production in order to build a market for its flex-fuel engines, which use "E85 biofuel" - a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. The company appears ready to build the engines, but wants to ensure an adequate fuel market exists.

The really good news in all of this concerns the source of Coskata's ethanol. The company is an early player in the slowly emerging cellulosic ethanol market, a radical departure from the corn-based ethanol business. To date, most ethanol produced in the U.S. is derived from corn in a production process that is neither efficient nor sensible. Critics of corn-based ethanol note it takes as much energy to produce a gallon of corn-based ethanol as the energy that gallon of ethanol can generate.

Moreover, corn is a vital component of the American food chain. We use it to make everything from soft drinks to meat, pork and poultry products. Diverting fields of corn from the food industry to the fuel industry will make a lot of Iowan farmers wealthy, but it will also drive up the cost of your next hamburger.

Instead of corn, cellulosic ethanol uses a variety of bio-mass products, most notably a crop called switchgrass. When you hear President Bush or Congressman Kuhl use the word "switchgrass," you should clap your hands and cheer. It means they have figured out what's cool in the bio-fuel market.

Switchgrass is dense in cellulose, which contains a high quantity of carbohydrates - which, if you remember from your high school biology, break down into sugar and can be fermented and distilled into ethanol. Switchgrass is easy to grow in a wide variety of climates (A friend living in the Howard area grows it as a cover for pheasants).

The trick is in extracting the carbohydrates from the cellulose. As I understand it, Coskata is working with a combination of gasification and microorganisms that break down the cellulose to free the carbohydrates. And it is at this point that my meager background in science fails me. Of course, if I understood how to extract carbohydrates from switchgrass I would be making my own ethanol, instead of writing about it.

So we must leave that mystery to companies like Coskata and General Motors, which have plenty of venture capital to muck around with switchgrass and see what works best. What is not mysterious is the process of growing switchgrass, a crop that requires very little fertilizer and sinks its roots deep into the ground, thereby protecting valuable topsoil. Farmers of the Southern Tier should prepare for what is surely going to be a growing demand for switchgrass.

Meanwhile, the rest of us should keep our eyes on partnerships like GM/Coskata. Just think of 400 million new cars belching smoke In India. Something's gotta give.