Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
In my entrepreneurial life I have a saying: Proof-of-concept is 90 percent of the work, getting a real product to market is the other 90 percent. The point is that both invention and subsequent commercialization are critical tasks underestimated by those disinclined by temperament or job description to appreciate the unique challenges attending each. R&D types show that something is possible and then want to move on to the Next Big Thing, leaving behind a prototype rather than a real product. Market discipline works wonders to focus the entrepreneurial mind and create an appreciation for scale-up expertise.
But what happens when you remove the market discipline?
The Washington Examiner illustrates in a report on the bipartisan ethanol boondoggle:
To turn wood chips into ethanol fuel, George W. Bush's Department of Energy in February 2007 announced a $76 million grant to Range Fuels for a cutting-edge refinery. A few months later, the refinery opened in the piney woods of Treutlen County, Ga., as the taxpayers of Georgia piled on another $6 million. In 2008, the ethanol plant was the first beneficiary of the Biorefinery Assistance Program, pocketing a loan for $80 million guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayers.
Last month, the refinery closed down, having failed to squeeze even a drop of ethanol out of its pine chips.
....
Amid all this hopeful talk by politicians, there were naysayers among the scientists. One Nobel Prize-winning physicist talked to the New York Times about these startups trying to turn logging waste into fuel. "You have to look at starts with a grain of salt, especially starts where they say, 'It's around the corner, and by the way, can you pay half the bill?' "
But that same scientist, Steven Chu, is now the secretary of energy, and his Energy Department has recently offered a loan guarantee of as much as $1 billion to a Texas company looking to squeeze fuel out of wood.
The Texas company, KiOR, isn't trying to produce ethanol and methanol as Range Fuels is doing in Soperton. KiOR's end product would be synthetic crude oil, which can do everything ethanol can do (except spike a punch) and much more. This could be part of why the Soperton plant is having trouble finding new investors: Why turn wood chips into white lightning when you can turn them into black gold?
If KiOR's efforts produce a useful fuel, politicians will take credit. But the fact that it has apparently supplanted subsidized wood-to-ethanol makes you wonder what will supplant wood-to-crude before it ever gets to market.
Ten times more spending on the Next Green Thing under Obama is leading where? Probably another exciting proof-of-concept demonstration. Is anyone aware of any Green Jobs of the Future firms that have successfully transitioned from subsidized prototype to commercial market success?
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
It is simple. If a technology is viable, it will find investors. If it is not, it will need government support. Do not listen to Vice President Biden.
Edited on Feb 8, 2011 at 9:59amFeb '11
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
Great point. I can't think of any. And thinking about this brings me back to the bedrock of my views on being green. I am the greenest guy in the neighborhood if it saves me money. I have my kids trained to turn off lights when they leave the room because it makes economic sense.
I do have an idea for a green job of the future: Gyms hooked up to the power grid! Think of Americans pitching in to generate power and get in shape at the same time! Elipticals and rowing machines powering our cities! Sweat power.
Dec '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
Just how did we end up with exercise machines that consume power?
Using exercise machines to generate electricity will never happen. I used to work for a Diesel engine manufacturer. It seemed like a great idea to hook our dynamometers to the grid, but it could not be made to work. There are too many technical problems.
Edited on Feb 8, 2011 at 12:50pmJul '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
Foxman
Just how did we end up with exercise machines that consume power?
Using exercise machines to generate electricity will never happen. I used to work for a Diesel engine manufacturer. It seemed like a great idea to hook our dynamometers to the grid, but it could not be made to work. There are too many technical problems. · Feb 8 at 12:09pm
Edited on Feb 08 at 12:50 pm
Actually, it's been happening for some time.
May '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
The article does a sneaky bait-and-switch by conflating cellulosic ethanol with methanol in the later reference to the plant. I completely agree that we should not be subsidizing ethanol/green energy plants. Whether the feedstock is switchgrass or corn.
But only a moron would make the statement about methanol in this context- the stuff is otherwise known as "wood alcohol"- they imply that you can't make it out of wood chips. Excuse me?
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
I've always favored self-generated electricity for powering, say, your airliner's navigation instruments. All it takes is a set of pedals and a small generator under each seat. Just imagine the esprit de corps as you and your fellow highly motivated passengers pitch in for the greater good!
Dec '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
Subsidization is a mistake. That being said, I don't think that the process for converting waste to fuel is inherently flawed, if you first establish that something is a waste.
The obvious boondoggle is corn-based ethanol, taking a desirable product, throwing money at it, then burning it for fuel at a loss.
Citrus processing waste (rinds and pulp), is being used in an experimental program in Florida, but that has double consequences; it requires subsidies and it removes citrus waste from the feed supply to cattle and poultry farmers, farmers already hit hard by elevated corn prices.
Wood waste, mostly, has a market. It is used in the fabrication of fiberboard lumber and wood pellet fuels, amongst many other uses. Subsidizing its conversion to liquid fuel has the double consequence.
Many real wastes can be converted to energy. Oil saturated soils from environmental clean-ups, if they are free from certain critical contaminants, burn quite well. Many landfill sites also use garbage as fuel in waste-to-energy projects, though those are subsidized, so they have a hidden cost.
To have a real, attractive, source for alternative energy, I personally look to real waste.
Continued
Oct '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
You are overlooking the thousands of already functioning highly profitable green jobs. They're the innumerable government hirelings who oversee these programs. Now, if you are expecting productive green jobs, you're living in the wrong century. Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone and John C. Fremont were the people who brought profits from exploitation of the environment. What we call green jobs now are merely an inversion of the process that built America.
Oct '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
CJRun: To have a real, attractive, source for alternative energy, I personally look to real waste.
Continued · Feb 8 at 3:04pm
Do you mean piling up all those bureaucrats employed to monitor our green fuels efforts into a heap, and discovering how much energy is produced from the heat created when they rot.
Dec '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
My definition of real waste is something that nobody else wants, as the first criterion. That's consequence number one. Then I look at what it costs us, as a society, to get rid of that waste, as criterion number two.
I have addressed garbage combustion and, yes, to an extent, I think that meets George's challenge; it's a green job. However, it is not self-sustaining, as we subsidize what little power is generated, uncompetitively.
Besides garbage, I find another waste stream interesting. I will generalize it as Grass Clippings. Whether we are trimming our rose bushes or mowing our lawns, an extraordinary volume of Grass Clippings hits the ground. Whether we neatly bag it and pile it at the curb, or have it blown down the sidewalk by a lawn crew, it all winds up decomposing and leaching into our lakes and rivers. We then pay to have our lakes and rivers "harvested" of choking weeds and algae, which harvested waste then decomposes in the uplands to leach into our lakes and rivers. At nearly every step in this process, we pay as a society to eliminate this waste. Which decomposes, then we pay again.
Fuel?
Feb '11
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
George Savage
I've always favored self-generated electricity for powering, say, your airliner's navigation instruments. All it takes is a set of pedals and a small generator under each seat. Just imagine the esprit de corps as you and your fellow highly motivated passengers pitch in for the greater good! · Feb 8 at 2:53pm
Having been an aircraft navigator (B-52s), I read this with some amusement, recalling a line from the movie version of 'The Guns of Navarone.'
"There's just one problem, sir. Finding someone to pilot the plane!"
Edited on Feb 8, 2011 at 5:16pmMay '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
CJRun: Subsidization is a mistake. That being said, I don't think that the process for converting waste to fuel is inherently flawed, if you first establish that something is a waste.......
Wood waste, mostly, has a market. It is used in the fabrication of fiberboard lumber and wood pellet fuels, amongst many other uses. Subsidizing its conversion to liquid fuel has the double consequence.
You should never subsidize anything- that way, the feedstock will move to the best market, and there is nothing inherently superior about using chip waste for pellets as opposed to liquid fuel (however, it is easy to make liquid fuel from coal, so why not). By the way, most manufactured wood is made from fast-growing timber on plantations specifically for the purpose. Waste as feedstock for OSB is too unreliable, so they grow aspen and birch, plus a bunch of dwarf rootstocks that are coppiced every year.
Dec '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
Kenneth
Foxman
Just how did we end up with exercise machines that consume power?
Using exercise machines to generate electricity will never happen. I used to work for a Diesel engine manufacturer. It seemed like a great idea to hook our dynamometers to the grid, but it could not be made to work. There are too many technical problems. · Feb 8 at 12:09pm
Edited on Feb 08 at 12:50 pm
Actually, it's been happening for some time. · Feb 8 at 1:40pm
Let me know about the return on investment in a few years.
Jan '11
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
George Savage
I've always favored self-generated electricity for powering, say, your airliner's navigation instruments. All it takes is a set of pedals and a small generator under each seat. Just imagine the esprit de corps as you and your fellow highly motivated passengers pitch in for the greater good! · Feb 8 at 2:53pm
That would be a very 'aeromatic' experience.
Jan '11
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
Does this count?
Dec '10
Re: Those Subsidized Jobs of the Future
fullfrontal: not in real terms. I wish it did. I use solar panels, but they are expensive to manufacture and expensive to buy. They are also environmentally intensive; you have to consider how much waste is left behind, plus how much energy it takes to manufacture them, at every step.
I use solar panels to charge batteries, that then keep my beer fridge running in the carport. I like that. However, batteries cost money to manufacture and have a huge waste cost in that process. I use lead acid batteries, but lithium ion batteries have even greater environmental costs and energy costs, in their manufacture. Nickel cadmium batteries are just insane. Batteries, today, are just not cost efficient, or energy efficient. Liquid sodium technology may change that.
When you look at the whole process, cradle to grave, today's batteries cost us more in energy and environmental impact to produce, than they are worth during their lives, plus costs for disposal.
For myself, I defeat this equation by salvaging old batteries; when they are spent, I sell them to recyclers. That pays. I also buy scrap from solar panel manufacturers and piece it together to make something. That's cheap.