GLOBAL BIOFUELISHNESS??
WIREC Presentation
March 5, 2008
by
Michael Totten
Chief Advisor, Climate, Water & Ecosystem Services
Conservation International
mtotten@conservation.org

Amory
Lovins
1 billion
gallons/day
Seattle Mayor
Greg Nichols
San Fran Mayor
Gavin Newsom

Source: Amy Raskin and Saurin Shah, The Emergence of Hybrid Vehicles, Ending Oil’s Stranglehold on Transportation and the Economy, June 2006,
AllianceBernstein, www.calcars.org/alliance-bernstein-hybrids-june06.pdf . Siting Feng An, Pew Center for Global Change and WRI Capital Markets Research.

Eliminating USA Oil dependency
$70 to $280 billion per year net savings (@ $25 to $100 per bbl)
“T]he book’s powerful summary…argues
persuasively that by 2035 we can be entirely
independent of imported oil and that ‘it will
cost less to displace all of the oil that the
United States now uses than it will cost to
buy that oil.’”
— Robert C.McFarlane (National Security
Advisor to President Reagan), Wall Street
Journal, 20 Dec. 2004
Dept. of Defense sponsored, peer-reviewed
technical report, preface by former Secretary of
State George Schulz, intro by ex-Chairman,
Royal Dutch Shell, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart www.oilendgame.org/

Fuel Efficiency Impact on USA Land
Requirements for Biofuel Production
PHEV
<20 mpg >100 mpg

U.S. Biofuel Subsidies per ton CO2
Low High
Estimate Estimate
Ethanol $300 ($600)
Biodiesel $240 ($700)
Efficiency -$11
Source: Doug Koplow, BIOFUELS - AT WHAT COST ?, Government support for ethanol and biodiesel in the United
States : 2007 Update, One of a series of reports addressing subsidies for biofuels in selected OECD countries, The
Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Geneva,
Switzerland, www.earthtracks.org/

Money-saving, Oil-reducing, land-conserving
Cost Comparison Biodiesel vs Truck Efficiency
$70
$60
$50
p er b arrel co st
$40
$65
$30
$20
$10 $12
$-
biodiesel truck efficiency
Amory B. Lovins et al., Winning the Oil End-Game, 2005, www.oilendgame.com/

6.4 mpg -- 17 billion gallons
Land required if
Switching from
Fossil Diesel to
BioDiesel from
265 million acres Soy Plantations
Texas + Kansas + For all Class 8
trucks in USA
Oklahoma

6.4 mpg -- 17 billion gallons
13 mpg – 7.6 billion gallons
If Efficiency instead
of biodiesel
265 80 million acres
19 mpg – 5 billion gallons

Connecting the 980 GW Utility Grid
and
The 2,700 GW of Battery Capacity
in Plug-In Vehicles

PNL 2006 Analysis Summary
PHEVs w/ Current Grid Capacity
ENERGY POTENTIAL
U.S. existing electricity infrastructure has sufficient available capacity to fuel
84% of the nation’s cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs (198 million),
73% of the light duty fleet (about 217 million vehicles) for a daily drive of 33
miles on average
ENERGY & NATIONAL SECURITY POTENTIAL
A shift from gasoline to PHEVs could reduce gasoline consumption by 85 billion
gallons per year, which is equivalent to 52% of U.S. oil imports (6.5 million
barrels per day).
OIL MONETARY SAVINGS POTENTIAL
~$240 billion per year in gas pump savings
AVOIDED EMISSIONS POTENTIAL (emissions ratio of electric to gas vehicle)
27% decline GHG emissions, 100% urban CO, 99% urban VOC, 90% urban NOx,
40% urban PM10, 80% SOx; BUT, 18% higher national PM10 & doubling of SOx
nationwide (from higher coal generation).
Source: Michael Kintner-Meyer, Kevin Schneider, Robert Pratt, Impacts Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles on Electric Utilities and
Regional U.S. Power Grids, Part 1: Technical Analysis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 01/07, www.pnl.gov/.

Area to Power 100% of U.S. Onroad Vehicles?
Solar-w/storage
Wind turbines
ground footprint
Wind-w/storage
turbine spacing
Cellulosic ethanol
Corn ethanol
Solar-storage and Wind-storage refer to battery storage of these intermittent renewable
resources in plug-in electric driven vehicles, CAES or other storage technologies
COMPARISON OF LAND NEEDED TO POWER VEHICLES
Mark Z. Jacobson, Wind Versus Biofuels for Addressing Climate, Health, and Energy, Atmosphere/Energy Program, Dept. of Civil &
Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, March 5, 2007, http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/E85vWindSol

Figures of Merit
Great Plains
1,200,000 mi2
100% U.S. electricity
400,000 wind turbines
Platform footprint
6 mi2
Large Wyoming Strip Mine
>6 mi2
Total Wind farm area
37,500 mi2
Available for farming
and prairie restoration
34,000 mi2
CO2 U.S. electricity sector
40%

Although agriculture controls
about 70% of Great Plains land
area, it contributes less than
10% of the Gross Regional
Product.
Wind farms could enable one of
the greatest economic booms
in American history for Great
Plains rural communities, while
also enabling one of world’s
largest restorations of native
prairie ecosystems
How?
The three sub-regions of the Great Plains are: Northern Great Plains = Montana, North Dakota,
South Dakota; Central Great Plains = Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas; Southern Great Plains
= Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis 1998, USDA 1997 Census of Agriculture)

Wind Royalties – Sustainable source of
Rural Farm and Ranch Income
US Farm Revenues per hectare
Crop revenue Govt. subsidy
non-wind farm
Wind profits
windpower farm
$0 $50 $100 $150 $200 $250
windpower farm non-wind farm
govt. subsidy $0 $60
windpower royalty $200 $0
farm commodity revenues $50 $64
Williams, Robert, Nuclear and Alternative Energy Supply Options for an Environmentally Constrained World, April 9, 2001, http://www.nci.org/

Potential Synergisms
Two additional potential revenue streams in Great Plains:
1) Restoring the deep-rooting, native prairie grasslands that absorb and store soil
carbon and stop soil erosion (hence generating a potential revenue stream from
selling CO2 mitigation credits in the emerging global carbon trading market);
2) Re-introducing free-
ranging bison into these
prairie grasslands --
which naturally co-
evolved together for
millennia -- generating a
potential revenue stream
from marketing high-
value organic, free-
range beef.
Also More Resilient
to Climate-triggered
Droughts

In the USA, cities and residences cover 140 million acres.
Every kWh of current U.S. energy requirements can be met
simply by applying PV to 7% of this area—on roofs, parking
lots, along highway walls, on sides of buildings, and in other
dual-use scenarios.
We wouldn’t have to appropriate a single acre of new land to
make PV our primary energy source!

1% of land area receives 300 TWy
(TeraWatt-years) of solar energy.
At 20% conversion efficiency Solar PV
systems would yield 60 TWy – 400%
more than 2005 total global energy use.
UniSolar Roll-to-roll triple-junction amorphous
Sillicon deposition plant of 30 MW annual
Using PV to supply all US
electricity and all US energy
requires only 0.4% and 1.2% of
US land area, respectively.
US military bases and Farm Set-
Aside Land are each about 1% of
US land area now. NanoSolar roll-printing process of Copper-Indium-
Gallium-diSelenide (CIGS) solar cells in Calif.

Hypoxia Dead Zones due to Agriculture fertilizer run-off

Using Wastewater Pollutants as Feedstock for
Biofuel Production through Algae Systems

Nutrient Rich Water Clean water
(Sewage, polluted river water) Lower N P P, higher O2 + pH
ATS
+ atmospheric CO2 Less CO2 in atmosphere
(or power plant stack gases)
ALGAL
CO2 BIOMASS
Dis
tilla
Biobutanol tio
n Solvent
Fermenter Extraction
(Clostridium butylicum
Oil
Ethanol
C. Pasteurianum, etc.)
Acetone C6H12O6 C4H9OH + CO2 + …
Transesterification
Lactic Acid
Acetic Acid
Organic Biodiesel
Fertilizer
Source: Walter Adey, Director, Marine Systems, Smithsonian Institute, email: ADEYW@si.edu ph: 202 633-0923

Biofuel Production from ATS Biomass
(50 tons per acre per year, dry)
Estimated Biofuel Production
(gallons per acre per year)
Algae
butanol 1520
+
biodiesel 2000
Corn (ethanol) 500 ----
Soy (biodiesel) ---- 100
Source: Walter Adey, Director, Marine Systems, Smithsonian Institute, email: ADEYW@si.edu ph: 202 633-0923

Small Land footprint
Only Wastewater as Feedstock
Butanol, Biodiesel and Clean Water Outputs

Source: Walter Adey, Director, Marine Systems, Smithsonian Institute, email: ADEYW@si.edu ph: 202 633-0923

Food, Fuel, Species
Tradeoffs?
By 2100, an additional 1700 million ha of
land may be required for agriculture.
When combined with the 800 million ha of
additional land needed to support the
medium growth bioenergy scenarios, this
will greatly increase threats to intact
ecosystems and biodiversity-rich habitats.