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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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.