I recently published a diary on the potential for famine in 2009 due to a mix of weather, credit, and fossil fuel availability. I hope that I'm wrong, badly wrong about the impending effects and timeframes, but I wouldn't want you to think I'm all negative, all the time.
I can see a path forward for my home state of Iowa that leaves us completely free of fossil fuels. It doesn't require any magic, just a bit of time and a whole lot of hard work. This isn't a path for the whole country, but for the corn belt it just might do the trick.
(UPDATE: credits added at the end)
Iowa is about thirty six million acres in area and twenty seven million of those are under cultivation. The primary crops are corn and soy beans, we used to see small amounts of oats on marginal land raised primarily for the straw it produces, there is a bit of alfalfa, and hilly terrain gets used for pasture.
Cultivated fields and pasture land
If we assume the traditional corn/soy biennial rotation there would be thirteen acres of corn and the same amount of soy. The corn crop would need 1.3 million tons of ammonia for fertilization. Soy is a nitrogen fixer but even so it gets supplemented but it's only about a tenth of the amount corn gets. 1.5 million tons is a nice, easy number for estimates.
Corn on the left, soy on the right, my Cannondale 400 for scale
You get a thousand tons of ammonia a year from a megawatt of electricity. A typical 2.5 megwatt turbine produces about that much power given the 40% capacity factor associated with the available wind in the developable parts of Iowa. This means 15,000 turbines would cover our need for ammonia, employing 3,000 support technicians, and keeping a billion and a half dollars within the state that would have otherwise gone overseas.. This development would start near my home in the northwest part of the state and then spread
Iowa wind map
2,500 ton UAN (urea and ammonium nitrate) tank
Wind turbines need power transmission corridors and we need to get off fossil fuels for transportation as well as fertilizer and field work. We have a pretty good rail network now in terms of the footprint, it badly needs upgrading for faster service, and we should convert all of it to electric power, taking advantage of the natural synergies of wind and rail.
Iowa rail map
The corn crop from this effort would be about two billion bushels a year. A bushel of corn will feed a single chicken for a whole year ... or produce 2.66 gallons of ethanol.
grain elevator with rail siding
We're going to continue making ethanol. We have massive investment in the plants and without liquid fuel we can't do what is required. Tractors and combines need diesel which will be derived from the corn oil that is extracted before fermentation begins. Iowa farmers drive and genuinely need large four wheel drive trucks for what they do and those can run on gasoline, ethanol, or methanol so long as the upfit kits are available. It is likely that corn based ethanol will give way to sweet sorghum and soy based biodiesel will do the same for canola, but this area requires some policy changes at the federal level. The two alternate crops named are each about twice as effective in terms of yield as the corn/soy duopoly we have now.
If you're really troubled by the use of corn or soy for biofuels I will recommend that you have a look at what the Ammonia Fuel Network is doing. If we build enough turbines and ammonia plants we'll be able to use it as a fuel as well as a fertilizer; it's the only hydrogen carrier we can actually make and handle at this time. Yes, it can be used safely and no, it doesn't produce lots of nitrous oxide pollutants, it's actually cleaner burning than gasoline or diesel.
Green Plains ethanol plant, Superior, Iowa
These ammonia plants make a good bit of waste heat. We'll be able to redirect that heat into pesticide free, herbicide free greenhouses. Researchers will focus on biocontrol of the inevitable root fungus that hydroponic setups develop and once that is mastered we'll have a surplus of organic hydroponic produce even in the depths of winter.
Greenhouses, currently abandoned due to heating costs
Once our rail and ammonia production are entirely electric and our liquid fuels are derived from biomass grown locally we'll need to address heating and cooling. The corn crop drying should migrate from propane and natural gas to corn powered dryers, assuring that we won't have another mess like this year in the Dakotas, with harvest stopped due to lack of dryer fuel.
Center bin equipped with propane powered drying setup
Home heating can be accomplished with ground loop systems – the glacial till in Iowa is deep so there will be no trouble burying the loops deep enough to do the job. Corn fueled outdoor boilers are another option. Right now urban heating is natural gas and rural heat is propane, so the rural homes get done first and biological production of methane will be directed towards the urban areas, making the best use of our local natural resources and limiting total capital expenditure for the conversion.
Central Boiler outdoor units
So, this is my vision of how to fix fossil fuel consumption in the one state with which I am most familiar. The construction of the wind, ammonia, rail, and greenhouse industries will actually cause the economy to grow as we drive to the use of no fossil fuels.
(CREDITS:
Giving credit where credit is due, none of the work we've done this year to set our fertilizer industry on a renewable footing would have happened without the assistance of Jerome a Paris, who provided advice on the path we're taking and initial introductions. 'twas he who first lead me to The Oil Drum, the crucible where this plan was first forged.
The guy behind our plant designs, Kossack nb41 is a member of Energize America 2020 and Kossack A. Siegel introduced us.
I'd have died last spring without the timely assistance of Alan from Big Easy over at The Oil Drum. Seriously, dead and buried.
Dr. John Holbrook and Dr. Norm Olson invited us to appear at the fifth annual ammonia fuel network conference and they've otherwise been a tremendous resource for us as we've tried to set our nitrogen fertilizer business on a renewable footing. I should also point at that ammonia powered truck that was driven from Detroit to San Francisco last year - the first bank deposit I ever made for work in this area came from NH3car.com.
)