Ethanol from Coal, Natural Gas and Coke, not from Corn

Once in a while a real solution to a vexing national or international problem comes up to append the popular, invariably politically correct but almost certainly, wrong hype. The announcement on November 10 by Celanese Corporation that it has developed an “innovative process technology… to produce ethanol using basic hydrocarbon feedstocks” surely fits the bill. Anything from coal to natural gas to pet coke can be used.

There has been a lot of noise in the energy scene in the last two years: $150 oil, collapsing to $40 after the economic meltdown of 2008 and now back en route to $100; the election of decidedly anti-fossil-fuels (at least in the beginning) Barack Obama; widespread talk of a carbon constraint future which was supposed to reach a crescendo of resolution in Copenhagen last December but ended with an ignominious whimper. China will simply never acquiesce to any carbon cap and it looks like the American public will not either. This will last for decades.

In the unreasonable environmentalist fervor of the last few years, imbued by alarmism after alarmism, preposterous solutions like wind and solar have been offered, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they cannot substitute fossil fuels for decades, if ever. It is not just the costs which, the only conceivable source, governments, can no longer afford; thermodynamics is simply prohibitive.

Corn-based ethanol has been an even more spectacularly silly idea. It is of course supported heavily by the agricultural lobby in what my colleague, Robert Bryce, has routinely called the ethanol scam. With a very adverse impact on food prices, this ethanol is both highly inefficient (as it is done today it takes 1.6 gallons of gasoline equivalent to produce one gallon of ethanol) and much ado about nothing. If we use all of the corn grown in the United States to produce motor vehicle ethanol it would amount to about 20 percent of our gasoline demand.

There is nothing wrong with ethanol up to 10 percent as a gasoline oxygenate, a necessary ingredient to boost the performance of conventional gasoline, something that the highly discredited tetra-ethyl lead used to do in the 1970s and earlier, followed by MTBE, also recently outlawed. But the corn ethanolists have not been satisfied pushing for 15 percent ethanol and even more.

The Celanese announcement is spectacular. While it is now suggested as a means to produce ethanol for industrial use, it can throw on its head the entire corn-based ethanol idea. It can produce massive quantities of the material using an economically advantageous process that would readily fulfill global needs without resorting to any corn-based ethanol.

It is also not surprising that Celanese, in an obvious move, will start its production in energy-hungry China, first with one and then two industrial complexes each producing about 400,000 tons per year. Combined, they could provide over 25 percent of China’s current demand of 3 million tons per year, a demand expected to grow by 10 percent annually. The feedstock for the Chinese plants will be coal which has a two-pronged benefit. It uses an abundant local energy source and it converts it into a highly environmentally benign fuel instead of the alternative, burning the coal for electricity generation and furthering China’s already insidious pollution. The US will also benefit. A 40,000 ton industrial ethanol production unit will also be built in Celanese’s Clear Lake, Texas, facility. Natural gas will be the feedstock. It is certain that this will not be the end of it.

It is trite to count the multi-win-wins that the Celanese announcement entails. It is a real energy solution; it is a deployment of the quintessential American strength, technological ingenuity; it is an obvious reversal of the trends where China mostly sells to America; it is poised to put a stop to the preposterous corn-based ethanol.

It is also transparent where the next step is likely to be for Celanese. As its Chairman and CEO Dave Weidman said: “While we are focusing on industrial uses at this time, we are also exploring opportunities to apply this technology to fuel ethanol applications in regions where the commercial environment is supportive.”

source: energytribune