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Ethanol From Waste Straw
phcrack writes "The CBC is reporting that 'Iogen Corporation of Ottawa has developed enzymes to break down waste straw and wood chips into ethanol on a commercial scale.' Apparently traditional ethanol from food crops like corn used at least as much energy to create as they released when burned. It's nice to see that big oil companies are helping fund a project like this too. It's very rare today to hear of a major company throwing money at a research project since the '80s."
Nope. No company does research any more.
Because it doesn't provide enough biomass per acre. The more conventional crop to make ethanol out of is sugarcane. It *is* feasable to make ethanol out of high biomass crops like sugarcane.
The reason this corn statistic keeps coming up is because America has a large corn surplus and the government were wondering what to do with it.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Nice opportunity to re-look up enzymes and ethanol. Too bad there's no good Wikipedia entries on "profit margin" ...
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
The only reason that methanol is touted as the ideal solution for fuel cells as opposed to ethanol is because of various regional regulations on alcohol. You can't (or at least you shouldn't try to) drink methanol.
I, my father, and some of my closes friends have worked in ethanol production from food crops, and we have 2 observations to present.
1. Farmers around the midwest are being paid not to raise crops. The crops they do raise are at times bought by the US and dumped at sea. Others are mixed with the maximum amount of dirt to make sure the maximum profit can be made on sales by weight & volume without violating health rules. From here, we can't see why there is any need to preserve food crops for "eatin'"
2. Ethanol from corn uses as much energy to make as it provides when you burn it right now. Like any new effort the process is going to be inefficient at the start. As we continue to streamline the process, produce continuous flow rather than batch production, and become more selective in the corn we use, this problem should fade away.
3. Ethanol generates a lot of money for my state. Use it and I get lower taxes.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
They aren't used up when they react, so you don't need massive volumes of them as a feedstock.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
...to an alcoholic vehicle. Fuel efficiency and "greenness" would be greatly improved if you used plain ethanol, 50 proof...you just modify your car's fuel injection system and away you go. (Regular gas, for comparison, burns with 12.5% efficiency, and diesel with 25%; if you have 50proof alcohol, it's probably somewhere between the two and not difficult to distill to that level.) The benefits of alcohol are renewability and the safe emissions, of course; how does gasahol compare with unleaded gasoline? Not terribly favorably, I imagine.
The oil companies are funding this research so they can receive the patents on it. Then they basically bury the inventions. Take solar energy. Oil companies own somewhere around 90% of the patents on solar energy. Why do you think they do this? Simple, better to fund the research themselves so they own the patents. This prevents anyone else from actually inventing something new and possibly marketing it. Do you think the oil companies will ever push solar energy? Not on your life. The same goes with ethanol.
Novozymes Biotech in Davis, California is selectively breeding better enzymes for converting the cellulose in corn by-products to fermentable sugars. They passed their economic goal some time ago, but they are still making improvements.
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
It's smart business.
Ethanol is only a smart business because it is subsidized (like oil, but that is another story). The only smart energy business is that in which net positive energy can be attained. That is, the product will produce more energy than it takes to manufacture it. Out of all forms of synthetic energy, wind, hydroelectric and some solar types will produce net positive energy.
We need to use what is left of our non-renewable fossil fuel supplies to build these replacement supplies. Unfortunately, these all generate electricity and there is no current method of storing electricity with the density of current oil-based products. We'll need some of that energy to develop hydrogen and electrical storage.
Water is a remarkable battery if we could manufacture a fuel cell affordably (i.e. - out of non-noble metals like platinum). Just add electricity and you've got H2 and O. Lovely.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Healthy soil needs a lot of that "waste material" in the form of composted organic matter. Without it, the soil will eventually become far less friable and/or fertile and farmers will need to use even more petroleum based fertilizers to grow their crops in a sand or clay base. Perhaps the oil companies are hedging here?
That's actually not true. There is a lot more carbon mass in ethanol (not to mention different binding strengths that require more efficient proton exchange membranes). Your efficiency per unit mass of an ethanol fuel cell is definitely going to be less than that of a methanol fuel cell. In fact, the nice thing about an ethanol fuel cell is that it's not toxic and ethanol is safe and easy to transport around. While it's true that there might be fewer regulatory hurdles to using methanol in fuel cells, that's definitely not the _only_ reason to use methanol instead of ethanol (remember, the only reason not to just use hydrogen in fuel cells directly is the difficulty and cost of transporting and storing significant quantities of hydrogen - a hydrogen fuel cell will always be much more mass efficient than methanol or ethanol).
I'm not sure that it is. Ploughing under the remains of the previous year's crops provides a green manure that, if gone (converted to alcohol), may require more artificial fertilizers. I wonder what the net effect on oil consumption would be?
Another point is that internal combustion engines require modification beyond a certain ratio of alcohol, so there is a limit to gasohol's use until the car fleet is replaced.
On the other hand, external combustion engines have no such problem; if you can burn it, it will provide fuel. I also believe (but haven't looked at them for several years) that external combustion engines are more efficient and, using today's technology, quite compact and quick starting. I wonder why there isn't more research in this. A particular advantage is that such engines can make immediate use of the current infrastructure (gasolene/diesel oil/furnace oil...) while hydrogen (fuel cell) and electric engines cannot.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
It's very rare today to hear of a major company throwing money at a research project since the '80s.
Of COURSE it's rare for an oil company to fund any research into alternative energy sources.
We are close to the point where we are using oil faster than we are discovering new supplies. The only direction for oil prices is up.
Alternative energy sources are now becoming profitable. We are going to see a lot more of this kind of thing.
My current favorite project converts turkey guts to oil. (www.changingworldtech.com) The latest I have heard is that they are now running a profit. They calculate that if America's agricultural WASTE could be converted to energy, there would be no need for oil imports.
These are exciting times. Building 'refineries' all over the country to convert waste to oil will create many jobs. This will be a good thing for the economy. It will also be good for the environment. If we use biomass rather than dug-up oil, we will not be contributing new CO2 to the atmosphere.
Actually I have heard that hemp is one of the best producers of biomass. If all you want is cellulose then you don't need the sugars and starches found in corn and sugar cane.
Seriously, these are the kind of stories which make the populace at large think that the solutions to the world's energy problems is just around the corner, so in the mean time lets squander our remaining oil reserves and pollute the atmosphere.
Yeah, generally I view this sort of thing with skepticism. But if you take a look at Iogen's website, you'll see that they can take 1 ton of cellulose-rich farm waste and turn it into about 300L of ethanol.
Not only could you have a hell of a party with that, but there are other possibilities.
They can use wood chips. So, probably paper too. I'm sure there's a fairly large waste stream from paper recycling, of paper and pulp which can't be used to make new paper. How about tree bark? How about compostable waste from the garbage? Maybe even cotton fibers?
This is a *massive* quantity of raw material which is all waste anyway. And all of it is plant-derived, so consuming it as fuel causes no net increase in CO2.
All they need to do is not tax the fuel, and you've instantly provided cost competitiveness and a powerful incentive to convert your vehicle (if it isn't already ready for it).
I read that there's an ethanol/methanol gas station here in Ottawa, but they're for the federal government vehicles. It's just down the street from me, in fact. I'm a federal government employee, I wonder if I can fill up my personal vehicles there?
My 1976 Dodge Ram has an aftermarket fuel pump on it. The fuel pump is a high-volume unit, designed for drag racing, and I put it on because it was cheaper than an original replacement part (more competition in the aftermarket). But it's rated for 100% methanol. The carburetor, which I rebuilt soon after I bought the truck in 1999, has a brass float - also safe for methanol. I replaced the rubber body-to-engine fuel line at the same time as the fuel pump; it's also safe for methanol.
In short, I can fill up my Ram with ethanol or methanol. If the cost is competitive, I'll happily throw a vacuum gauge on it and adjust the timing and mixture for the new fuel.
The old big-block, with bores the size of paint cans, really won't care what the fuel is as long as it pushes the pistons back down at the right times.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Why avoid it? There used to be a lot of horror stories about how it would make your engine run too hot. I've never seen any evidence that it does.
I have used gasahol (10% ethanol), when available, since the early 80's. My 2002 S-10 has been using it since I drove it off of the dealers lot.
Then there's the whole aluminum engines can't use it theory. We were just talking about this at work the other day. One of my co-workers has a Geo (3 cylinder) and he uses gasohol religiously. 150k miles and counting. No major engine repairs.
And then there are benefits to using it. There will never be any water in the gas you buy or the gas tank. No more wasting money on Heat or dealing with frozen fuel lines. I don't know if it's related, but I've never had an injector problem or needed to clean a carburetor since I've been using it.
Rumor has it that fuel economy is slightly lower because alcohol doesn't store as much energy as gasoline. But I don't notice a significant different in mpg or power.
One final plus, midgrade octane and the lowgrade price.
At a municipal solid waste to energy conference in CA last week, a PHd and consultant from EPRI said biomass to energy is viable energy source and will soon be economic.
Unfortunately, if ALL of CA production were converted to energy, it still would meet only 5% of total energy used in CA.
It seems Marijuana grows quite well in many climates. I believe BC has sizable production, but then again, that my be hydroponics.
:-)
But still you could get pot from the buds and alcohool from the wasted stalks. Two vices from one plant.
As much as I think the tech I am about to push has been overhyped, I am going to push it anyway...
Electric cars will not be lugging much battery, they will have a fuel cell (and maybe a relatively small battery for regenerative braking).
Now, this easy, cleaner source of ethanol would be an excelent way to get the necissary hydrogen...
Even thought ethanol is cleaner than petrol, it is still dirtier when burned in an engine that may not have as many polution controls, or be as well tuned as a central hydrogen processing plant would be...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
it's not a person.
Actually, that's part of the problem. Legally, corporations *are* treated just like a person in many respects, meaning that they are given the same rights and priveleges that a human being has. In Unequal Protection , Thom Hartmann argues that this legal standing in fact has no real legal basis, and that it has had a negative effect overall:
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Just a quick comment on the toxicity vs. medicinal value of Lithium:
Common "therapeutic" dosage of Lithium is 14-28 mg/kg/day.
LD50 (kills 50%) is officially around 710 mg/kg/day.
However, permanent neurological damage has been documented at levels as low as 170 mg/kg/day.
Not exactly a safe substance. A friend once took a weeks supply of his Lithium in a suicide attempt. Left him severely retarded.
The point was more about the hazard from a spill from a vehicle.
Quickie estimate: Suppose you crash a car into a pond containing half a million gallons of water. The car has 600 pounds of lithium-ion batteries, and 100 pounds of lithium dissolves into the pond. This is 45 kg of lithium in ~2 million kg of water, or about 2.2 ppm. If you weigh 45 kg and you want to get the therapeutic dose of 14 mg/kg, you'd need to get 630 mg of lithium which would require drinking ~280,000 liters of water.
The stuff is safe enough to use in cars, QED.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist