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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."
It's nice to see that big oil companies are helping fund a project like this too.
Of course they'd fund it.
Around here "gasohol" is a 10% ethanol, 90% gasoline mixture. Any company can find a way to make that 10% ingredient cheaper than their competitors will find themselves in a very enviable position. It's smart business.
Trolling is a art,
It may be rare to hear about them, but long-term research certainly isn't dead. There are companies (3M, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, GlaxoSmithKline, and Lockheed Martin all spring immediately to mind) that have been conducting long-term research projects older than most of the Slashdot crowd.
That we don't hear a lot about them has less to do with their scarcity than it has to do with the relative non-newsworthiness of the progress these projects make. People don't want to hear about the bricks being put in place; they want to hear about the store opening.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Not just alcohol! Alcohol by the gallon! What's more Canadian than that?
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.
Uhm, Canada (like most of the civilized world) uses metric.
In Soviet Russia we are making ethanol (C2H5OH) even from rotten potatos. By the way, why are you trying to burn it?
Regards, Sir Raorn.
Ok, alcohol by the 3.79 Litre full!
all cars built after 1995 are flexible fuel cars. and since then, cars have been certified to run on E85 which is 85% ethanol 15% gas.
add to that the ethanol fuel cell, and screw hydrogen. if we can produce enough ethanol from ag waste and yard clippings, we can just use ethanol as it is easier to make, easier to transport, and is closed with regards to the carbon cycle (i.e. no negative impact on the environment from the CO2 used since the plants used have to use the same amount to grow.)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Brings up an interesting question: Do all Canadian petroleum companies get use of this tech since Canadian taxes helped pay for it? Or does just the consortium get to profit from it for a while since they did the actual research?
Either way seems fair from certain perspectives, but if Shell and Petro-Canada are the only ones to profit then what percentage of Canadian cars will actually run the stuff? How many petro companies are there in Canada? How many Canadians will really benefit from their taxes?
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
No, no, in Canada the gallons are Imperial, which is 160 Imperial oz (28.41 mL/Imp oz) or 4.546 L, compared with a US gallon being 128 US oz (29.57 mL/US oz) or 3.785 L.
More importantly, we drink beer in Imperial pints (1/8 Imp gal, or 20 Imp oz) which is 568 mL verses a US pint (1/8 US gal, or 16 US oz) which is 473 mL.
No idea, but that is irrelevant. It appears that nearly any farm waste can be used, as well as other cellulose-based waste (e.g. wood chips, sawdust, yard waste) that people/companies often pay to have removed. It may not be the solution to the world's energy problems, but it is a lot more of a step in the right direction than you give credit for.