$1/Gallon "Green Gasoline" In Sight

mattnyc99 writes "We've gotten excited here about the startup that claims it can make $1/gallon ethanol out of anything from trash to tires. But we've also seen how cellulosic ethanol is a better option, and how ethanol demand in general is only adding to the worldwide food crisis. So what about $1/gallon gasoline? NSF-funded researchers at UMass Amherst just completed the first direct conversion from cellulose using a new method of hydrocarbon refining, which they claim can be commercialized within 5-10 years and essentially make fuel out of anything that grows. Quoting: 'We already have the infrastructure in place to distribute liquid fuels. We're using them to power transportation vehicles today, and I think that's what we'll be using in 10 years and in 50 years,' Huber says. 'And if you want a sustainable liquid transportation fuel, biomass is the only way to go.'" The process is running at about 50% efficiency now; the $1/gallon figure is based on getting to 100%.

Comments

I say!

[jawtheshark]

Mr Fusion!

Seeing doc putting in that banana peel was just too much :-)

Re:I say!

[Erioll]

So this technology is 5-10 years away? Kinda like how fusion is always 20 years away?

Basically, I'll believe it when I'm pumping it into my gas/ethanol tank.

Re:I say!

[0racle]

Mr. Fusion only powered the time circuits and the Flux Capacitor, the engine runs on ordinary gasoline, always has, always will.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can't say exactly how long it will take to commercialize, but the company I work for, which may or may not have been mentioned in the article (wink) has a production-scale run of the catalyst scheduled for later this year. I wouldn't scoff too hard at a 5-10 year projection.

Re:I say!

[Rei]

Actually, it reminds me of thermal depolymerization. Anyone remember that?

Really, though, what we're looking at is one of the things that drives me crazy about a lot of environmental "trends" and congress's role in pushing them. And don't get me wrong; I say this as a hardcore green with CFLs in every socket who is on the waiting list for an electric car.

Most of these new biomass-to-ethanol plants work based on syngas. That is, partial oxidation of carbon-and-hydrogen-bearing matter into a mixture of CO and H2. They then either, through an wasteful catalytic process or an even more wasteful biological process, convert the syngas into ethanol. Great. Except that we've been converting syngas to gasoline, in a rather simple and fairly efficient process, for the past century. The main syngas source was coal. This Fischer-Tropsch process powered a large portion of Nazi Germany's war machine (until their plants were bombed flat). It powered South Africa during the Apartheid regime.

Let's state this again: they typically are using *more energy* to create *less output* of a product with *less energy density* that *can't be transported in normal pipelines* and can only be used in *small amounts* in cars unless they're *specially modified*, rather than, more efficiently, just creating gasoline. Why? Because gasoline is a dirty word. Because there aren't the same sort of subsidies for "cellulosic gasoline" as there are for cellulosic ethanol. Because cellulosic gasoline won't win you green cred, or get the investors lining up. So the inferior solution gets chosen.

Re:I say!

[chaim79]

So, what you are saying is that the Test is 5-10 Months away, and getting it to 100% efficiency is 5-10 years away.

So in theory we could be seeing this with $2 or $3 a gallon gas fairly soon, and after a while the production cost will be reduced (though the price will probably stay where it is.) :)

Re:I say!

[Mr. Slippery]

Those CFLs are *mercury free*, right? And that electric car isn't going to be charged from a coal plan, is it?

If you trashed the CFLs, the amount of mercury released would be less than the mercury released by coal-fired plants to power the equivalent in incandescent lights.

And CFLs can - and should be - recycled, so no mercury is released except for the occasional broken bulb. If you break one, you just take some simple precautions to clean up. They have about 1/100th of the mercury in a old thermometer, the type everyone had in their house not very long ago.

Environmentally, mercury in CFLs is a very very small issue.

And an electric car powered by a coal-fired generating plant still emits much less pollution than a gasoline car.

So what's your point?

Re:I say!

[Skillet5151]

Post to undo accidental modding. A long set of dropdown boxes that take effect immediately with no way to confirm or change...what could go wrong?
(Or have I missed something?)

Re:I say!

[Rei]

not sure where you pulled that from? Their seams to be one clean coal plant in the US, and with batteries not being exactly green, and a pure electric car costs more to run than the same car running on hybrid (if battery replacement cost is not subsidized.) Throw in all the radio-active emissions of coal plants (none in gasoline.)

It's very, very simple. Gasoline engines are very inefficient. Non-hybrids average less than 20% tank-to-wheel efficiency. Hybrids, just over. Fuel-burning power plants, 30-50% efficiency. Transmission losses, ~8%. Charger losses, ~7%. Battery losses, ~0.1% in Li-ion. Motor losses, ~10%. Do the math. I can give you several peer-reviewed studies on the topic if you're prefer.

As for batteries, you're just not up to date with the technology. These aren't lead-acid or nickel-cadmium batteries here. For example, my Aptera is to use lithium phosphate batteries. These last 10-20 years and are almost completely nontoxic. Their raw ingredients are things like iron, phosphoric acid (the same stuff as in soft drinks -- made from fluoroapatite, the same stuff as in well cared-for teeth, plus sulphuric acid, which is an oil industry *byproduct*), graphite, and even sugar (for the carbon binding). These aren't "in a few years" -- they're already here. They're becoming the new standard for cordless power tools, for example.

Considering low emission gas vehicles currently exhaust cleaner air than they take in

That's nearly always a myth promoted by the manufacturers. If you look at the actual numbers, they usually lower one pollutant by a tiny amount (say, particulate matter caught up in the air filter) while still emitting the other pollutants.

Re:I say!

[nickname29]

(and was used to make gasoline in SA),

The sentence should read: Is still used to make gasoline (petrol, diesel) in SA, and Qatar.

however it's not energy efficient, and i hardly believe that this process is either.

CTL and GTL is energy efficient. It is cheaper to manufacture gasoline from gas or coal than to pump it out of an oil field. SASOL (the company in SA that makes gasoline from coal and gas) has grown considerably during the high oil prices. Their stock price doubled in a year. They made huge profits at $40 dollars/barrel - imagine what they are making now. There were even calls for a special tax on this company (since it makes humongous profits).

Here is a stock chart for SASOL (on the LSE). As you can see, the stock price is 6 times what it was in 2004.

Just a side note, making cellulistic ethanol is a much harder and difficult beast â" it is more difficult (by a few orders of magnitude) than making ethanol from corn.

Re:I say!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Electricity is a practical solution that is here NOW, not some future time which may or may not ever arrive. Well, if you consider "practical" to mean a car that has a third of the range of a gasoline powered car, needs hours to "refill", costs twice as much (when you consider the federal subsidies), needs battery replacements every 18-24 months (if you want to maintain range), and can't tow anything to be "practical" then you're right on the money! I'm sure people are flocking to electric cars because they're so darn practical! They are flying off the showroom floors, aren't they? Aren't they? Hello?

Practicality is only one of the issues facing your "practical solution." Electric cars need to be plugged in to something called "utility power" in order to recharge. Where do those magical electrons come from? I'll take "power plants" for $500, Alex. California already has a utility power shortage crisis, with rolling blackouts and brownouts thrown in for fun. Suppose the entire state went electric with their cars tomorrow? Just where do you think all that juice would come from? Pixie dust? Nano-solar isn't going to save you anytime soon, either.

Electric cars are neat. For some people they fit the bill. For the vast majority of people they do not. You've got a lot of learning to do about what the meaning of the word "practical" is for folks who aren't clones of you.

Re:I say!

[d3ac0n]

A couple problems with your argument.

Actually, most small (sub compact) size electric cars have similar ranges to gas powered cars

True. The problem is that most subcompact cars aren't practical either. Maybe for single people or childless couples, but for people with families these vehicles are entirely impractical. Thus the popularity of SUVs.

As for replacing the batteries, even with older systems like lead-acid, it has ALWAYS been cheaper to maintain electrics than gas powered vehicles. Things we take for granted like regular oil changes, tune ups, timing belts etc aren't on electrics at all. On top of that, newer battery systems are projected to last the life of the vehicle. Think about the only maint. you need to do is to change your tires.

This one is COMPLETELY wrong, and shows a real lack of understanding of basic mechanics. Most of the "Electric" cars out there are actually HYBRID cars. Why? Because of the inherent problem of the lack of range of full electrics Since they are hybrids, they have small gasoline engines in them. These engines need all the maintenance of any other engine. So take the normal maintenance costs of a standard automobile, THEN add the costs of replacing the battery pack (roughly 3-5 grand US each 3-5 years) ON TOP of that. NOT cheaper.

Even for full electrics, the maintenance costs are still comparable, because even though there is no Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) in the vehicle, it still has plenty of moving parts that need regular lubrication and get worn out and need replacing over the life of the car. The average full electric vehicle needs about 50% to 75% of the year-to-year maintenance that a hybrid or a standard ICE vehicle needs. But you still need to calculate in the cost of replacing the battery pack every 3-5 years, which pushes the maintenance costs of an Electric to WAY over the cost of an ICE vehicle. if I may demonstrate with a simple chart:

ICE vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $5000.00 US

Hybrid vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US
Hybrid replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $7000.00 - $10,000.00 US

Full Electric Expected Maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $500.00 - $750.00 US
Electric replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $5500.00 - $8750.00

These are rough figures, but I'm sure you can spend some time on edmunds.com or Google and find similar numbers.

One additional point, you aren't taking in the disposal costs of the HIGHLY TOXIC batteries. Yes, some can be recycled, but many cannot. What do we do about those? ICE vehicles are 99% recyclable. Hybrids and Electrics are not, due to the batteries.

california would end up with GOBS more power if they simply redirected the gas for cars into powerplants

Power plants DO NOT run on gasoline. MOST are coal-NG plants, some are Nuclear, some are Hydro power, and a very small number of low-capacity plants run Diesel. So you CANNOT re-direct the gasoline to power plants, they can't use it!

Also, California's power grid problem is twofold:
1) Over-regulation by the California government has economically strangled the power plants, making it a loss-proposition to run a power plant in California.

2) The Eco-Freaks and NIMBYs have wrangled a practical ban on building any NEW power plants in CA, such that demand has now FAR outstripped supply. Thus the rolling blackouts and brownouts. There simply isn't enough power to go around, and no way to get more power plants built.

You will notice that NEITHER of these problems are IN ANY WAY related to Gasoline or automobiles.

You can talk all about supposed efficiency gai

"out of anything that grows" ...

[thrillseeker]

well, it should be fun driving the Hummer around in all that future desert such "cheapness" will lead to

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[moderatorrater]

I think that you're confused and assuming that this gasoline will add carbon to the atmosphere. In reality, the carbon that's being added to the atmosphere is carbon that was taken out to make the gasoline in the first place. The reason oil's such a problem is that the carbon was sequestered in the earth's crust and not being released until we got to it. In this case the carbon would have almost certainly made it back into the atmosphere, which means it's effectively carbon neutral (although there might be some electricity costs that would add more carbon to the air).

That brings an interesting thought to mind, though. I know that we can't sequester carbon very well in a gaseous form, and that other forms are expensive to produce, but what if we were to grow plants, cut them down, and stick them underground in some salt mines or something?

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Rorschach1]

That brings an interesting thought to mind, though. I know that we can't sequester carbon very well in a gaseous form, and that other forms are expensive to produce, but what if we were to grow plants, cut them down, and stick them underground in some salt mines or something?

It's been done before. Works great, until some stray asteroid happens by and wipes out your civilization, and 65 million years later those scrappy little mammals that survived the nuclear winter in their cozy burrows have evolved a civilization of their own and are busy pumping all your carefully sequestered carbon back to the surface to be burned and released into the atmosphere...

I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[ottawanker]

I'm willing to pay $2/gallon for the opportunity to use the 50% efficient stuff.. Why wait until you reach your target of $1/gallon when what you have is already cheaper than normal gas?

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[aliquis]

For the consumer or in some huge volume?
1 US gallon = 3.78541178 litre

Over here in Sweden the taxes put the gasoline price at something like 12.49-12.99/litre in this town right now according to a webpage.
Say 12.70 sek / litre * 3.785 = 48.07 sek.
8.36$ / gallon in the gasoline station.

So yes, people would gladly pay 2$/gallon here. In face people already pay almost 1.5 $ / litre for etanol/E85. (And we do have tax reduction / no taxes(?) on that.)

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[CowboyNealOption]

... I, along with a few million of my closest friends, would literally shit bricks....

So this would be a boon for the construction industry as well?

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Valdrax]

Because gas is cheaper than even the USD 1.00 figure. Some countries see prices below USD 0.50 . This is purely because these countries subsidize fuel costs as part of public welfare programs.

See here for a nice, detailed breakdown, week-by-week of gas prices in California. Admittedly, CA is one of the most expensive gas markets in the country, but as of April 21st, $3.08 of $3.85 in average gas prices there come purely from the fuel itself. 11 cents goes to marketing & distribution. 66 cents goes to taxes (many of which rise with fuel costs).

Dropping $3.08 to $1 or even $2 would be a *huge* savings in gas prices there.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Zymergy]

Remember that we use "Heat Engines"... The more BTU's per gallon of fuel translates into more miles per gallon!
With the new mandate for 35 MPG cars on the horizon, I'd imagine they will be using Diesel. (Anyone notice the new Volkswagen "clean Diesel" commercials?)
Also, the US Government pays a $0.50 per gallon as a subsidy. (I think this is at the production level). Otherwise, Ethanol production could not compete with oil.
FYI:
Methanol 64,600 BTU per gallon
Ethanol 84,600 BTU per gallon
Gasohol 120,900 BTU per gallon (10% Ethanol to 90% Gasoline)
Gasoline 125,000 BTU per gallon
Biodiesel 130,000 BTU per gallon
Diesel 138,700 BTU per gallon
Most from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

Huh What?

[tgd]

FWIW, we do NOT have an infrastructure for distributing liquid fuels that are predominantly ethanol... thats one of the real big problems. It corrodes the living sh#% out of virtually all of our liquid fuel transportation infrastructure.

Cheap ethanol is good if the production of biomass to produce it doesn't displace food production, and $1/gallon would certainly be nice, but we have to be realistic about ALL the problems an ethanol-based fuel economy will entail... replacing all the pipelines being just the start.

Re:Huh What?

[Dr. Eggman]

The article appears a bit vague, but it appears they are not talking about running ethanol through the pipelines, but gasoline. Infact, talking about converting Biomass into gasoline, not ethanol. Atleast that's the idea I got from the quote:

Huber and his colleagues aren't the first to derive hydrocarbons from renewable sources. Virent Energy Systems, for example, just signed a deal with Shell to produce gasoline from plant sugars and expects to open a pilot facility in the next two years. UOP is working on a project to produce jet fuel for U.S. and NATO fighters from algal and vegetable oils. But Huber's work stands out as likely the first direct conversion from cellulose, opening up as potential fuel sources virtually anything that grows. Commercialization of the technology may take another five to 10 years, the researchers predict.
...
Developments in so-called "green hydrocarbons" arrive as ethanol continues to come under attack as expensive, inefficient and a contributor to rising food prices around the world. (More than a billion bushels of corn are diverted to ethanol production each year.) "There's certainly a lot of historical inertia for ethanol. It's gotten us off to a great start, but I can't see the country transitioning to flex-fuel," says John Regalbuto, director of the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at the National Science Foundation. "I almost think, long term, that we will go to plug-in hybrids. But we're still going to need diesel and jet fuel--you can't run trains or fly planes with ethanol or hydrogen." But, then again in describing the process it goes back to vague (emphasis mine:)

Using a catalyst commonly employed in the petroleum industry, Huber and his colleagues heated small amounts of cellulose very quickly for a matter of seconds before cooling it, producing a high-octane liquid similar to gasoline. The article seems to be trying to distance this technology from ethanol, stating that ethanol has its problems and that it's not going to be the right direction

Re:Huh What?

[hey!]

It also doesn't address the ongoing problem of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate that can't be reabsorbed naturally.

The carbon in biomass comes from the atmosphere. You have to take it out of the atmosphere before you put it back into the atmosphere via your tailpipe. Increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by burning biomass is like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Of course the reabsorption process isn't natural, but that's the point. It kind of balances the books on humanity's use of atmospheric carbon.

doing research != speaking well

[l2718]

Quoth the scientist:

"Crude oil looks more similar to gasoline than biomass does"

More importantly, if they get 50% of the cellulose's energy into hydrocarbons then processing twice as much cellulose should given them a $2/gallon hydrocarbon. What they should tell us is whether a gallon of their hydrocarbon mixture has the same amount of energy as a gallon of oil For example, a gallon of ethanol has about 2/3rds the energy of a gallon of regular gasoline, so if it's only priced at 2/3rd the price of regular it won't break even.

The bottom line: we need price in dollars per kilojoule, not in dollars per gallon.

Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

The minute the government stops subsidizing the production of ethanol, not only will farmers start moving back to wheat and other foods that the world needs, but ethanol will be forced to survive on its own next to gasoline, and it will vanish in the puff of bad logic that brought it into existence. Let's not forget the recent story about increases in beer cost as farmers switch over to corn for ethanol. Also informative is this recent Time magazine article debunking the benefits of ethanol. This is just another political stunt at the expense of the world's food crops and my inebriation. When will Congress learn that manipulating the economy never has the desired effects.

PopMech!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was a joke, then I saw that the article was in Popular Mechanics and thought "whew" (because every story that has ever run in popular mechanics about technologies of the future has been spot on).

i want a car that runs on patent applications

[blair1q]

if i had a car that ran on patent applications, i could literally shovel garbage into it and get wherever i needed to go

and it wouldn't cost anything

heck, they'd pay me to take the stuff away

I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[bill_kress]

I just bought a car that happens to take this E85 ethanol combo gas.

It dropped my mileage from city 22 to like 16, highway 30 to 22.

It was a little cheaper due to government subsidies ($2.77 vs $3.30 at the time), but it didn't come close to breaking even with the drop in mileage.

Overall very disappointed.

Where are the plug-in hybrids?

CELLULOSE != FOOD

[jnadke]

[rant]

Cellulose is plant matter. You know. Grass clippings, corn stalks, etc. I see you really must like eating GRASS CLIPPINGS along with the COWS. Similar intelligence, perhaps?

CELLULOSE IS NOT FOOD!

Cellulostic Ethanol: Educate Yourself!

[/rant]

I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anything.

[Regul8or]

I've been putting used motor oil, hydraulic fluid, transmission fluid, gasoline, solvents, and misc. oils in my truck's tank for years now. I mix in these waste products with clean bio/#2 diesel at a rate of about 33%. Of course I filter down to 20 microns and check for water in my fuel.

When I calculate my fuel mileage based on ONLY how much diesel I actually pay for, I get about 30-33 highway mpg in my 7900 pound 3/4 ton diesel truck.

Gasoline engines are a flawed design and gasoline/ethanol is a flawed fuel. It does have a place such as in motorcycles or small engines. I'll take my diesel powered vehicle any day of the week over some inefficient gasoline powered vehicle.

Re:no way.

[__aajfby9338]

why wouldn't they? claiming ANY process is 100% efficent is plain out lieing.

Only if it's claimed that the thermodynamic efficiency is 100%. The word "efficiency" is also used in other contexts where values of 100% or more make sense, and do not violate the laws of thermodynamics.

For example, home heat pumps are generally given an efficiency rating that indicates the ratio of heat output vs. electrical input (i.e., how many watts of heat are blown out the vents divided by how many watts of electrical power are consumed). This value is usually greater than 100%, but this is OK because this definition does not include the heat which is removed from the outside air and transferred to the indoor air. In other words, that specific definition of efficiency does not consider the complete system, and it deliberately ignores some of the energy that's being consumed.

Heat pump efficiency is defined this way because it allows useful comparisons to other kinds of climate control devices. A plain electric space heater would consume 1000W of electrical power in order to dump 1000W into the room, while a heat pump might only consume 500W of electrical power (I made that number up) in order to dump the same 1000W into the same room. While that doesn't reflect the thermodynamic efficiency of the heat pump, it does let you see that this example heat pump will consume half the electrical power of a space heater in order to heat the same room.

I'm not trying to debate whether the "100%" value in TFA makes sense here, because I haven't read TFA yet. I'm just pointing out that there are valid and honest uses for the word "efficiency" where values of 100% or more make sense, without implying any sort of perpetual motion.

Re:Think again

[cayenne8]

"Even assuming we built enough reactors and the bacteria work fast enough, do you have any idea how much organic waste we have to rustle up to make 588 million gallons?"

I do wonder how much organic waste we are just letting go in the garbage every year now, though? I mean, millions of yards get mowed weekly (or more depending on where you live)....not to mention golf courses, stadiums, parks...etc. Then as someone said, we have tons of paper and boxes that are garbage each day. How about recycling most all of that waste paper into fuel?

I'd say at the start...that amount of ethanol, combined with the domestic oil reserves we have....could get us off the world 'grid' pretty quickly. Eventually..we could get off the fossil fuel altogether, but, this would be a huge stop-gap answer.

I wonder how much organic waste we currently just throw in the trash now, which could go for this type of ethanol generation? We could quit using corn for ethanol (well, except for consumption) right away too.

Now, if we could just do away with the fscking corn subsidies, and lift the sugar tariffs we could also kick the HFCS problems we have, get food prices back down a bit, and have real Coke with real sugar again in the US.

i couldn't have said it better myself

[circletimessquare]

same reason i was apopleptic about the idiocy of hydrogen power. which, as a fashionable topic for science morons, seems to have run its course thankfully

please, science idiots, learn:

if you expend lots of energy manufacturing your energy medium, you are being more wasteful than just choosing a more intelligent energy medium

hydrogen is great, of course, because it burns clean. but it is a b*tch to store and transport, and most importantly, although something clean is coming out of your exhaust, everything that went into getting hydrogen into your fuel tank created more pollution than if you were burning coal in your car

the solution to our energy crisis is nuclear and electric cars

japan and france: show us the way to a cleaner, cheaper energy future, without the security concerns: nuclear

its safer than it ever was (you can walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it will just gradually shut down: no active management needed), and horrible waste is only a product of the usa's hesitance to use breeder reactors (because they make bomb grade materials). but if you use breeder reactors, you have a tenth of the nuclear fuel waste which loses its radioactivity in a few centuries, rather in 10,000s of years, AND you get way more energy output. as uranium runs out, use thorium like india. and as we begin to run out of thorium in a few centuries, mankind better have been able to master fusion power by then, or we are doomed anyways

i think, to provide security to nuclear plants, you would need one one hundredth of the amount of security resources you need now to make sure oil still flows to our shores

or just keep counting the body bags coming from iraq because your mind still believes propaganda about nuclear power based on 1960s technology

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Mr. Slippery]

show us the way to a cleaner, cheaper energy future, without the security concerns: nuclear

Uh, no, at least not nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium.

its safer than it ever was (you can walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it will just gradually shut down: no active management needed)

No. There's already been one accident with radiation release at a pebble bed reactor, and adding a whole bunch of graphite - the stuff that caught fire at Chernobyl - to a reactor is not a good idea.

the usa's hesitance to use breeder reactors (because they make bomb grade materials). but if you use breeder reactors, you have a tenth of the nuclear fuel waste which loses its radioactivity in a few centuries, rather in 10,000s of years, AND you get way more energy output.

And you have plutonium factories all over the place. If you don't see the problem with that. Google the news for "Iran nuclear". >

And remember that that these plutonium factories would not be built to U.S. safety standards, no; many would be being built in China or other developing nations. If you don't see the problem with that. Google the news for "China contaminated".

And the waste problem remains unsolved.

as uranium runs out, use thorium like india.

Skip uranium entirely. Go to an "energy amplifier", where thorium is hit with a proton beam. It's subcritical - pull the plug and it shuts down. It's proliferation-resistant, and it can even be used to burn up plutonium. And it produces a lot less waste.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Upaut]

What your missing is that the hydrogen economy is actually a nuclear economy. It would be a seamless transition from whatever energy source is used to derive the hydrogen. Most hydrogen proponents know this, and simply promote hydrogen because there is a good chance that with proper research you could get a greater energy density packed into a fuel cell then a battery, and fuel cells refuel faster then many batteries recharge, enabling the 'pumps' to still be scattered across the landscape.

Remember, "Hydrogen" supporters are "Nuclear Energy" supporters, even if they do not know it yet...

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[drinkypoo]

And you have plutonium factories all over the place. If you don't see the problem with that. Google the news for "Iran nuclear". >

Actually, you're wrong. That's a POSSIBLE consequence, but not a necessary one. The reactors do not need to be of a type useful for making weapons-grade material in order to be useful for making useful nuclear reactor fuel.

And the waste problem remains unsolved.

The reprocessed waste has a half-life which at least seems manageable on a human time scale, and is not nearly as nasty in any case.

Skip uranium entirely. Go to an "energy amplifier", where thorium is hit with a proton beam. It's subcritical - pull the plug and it shuts down. It's proliferation-resistant, and it can even be used to burn up plutonium. And it produces a lot less waste.

Per your source, This design is entirely plausible with currently available technology, but requires more study before it can be declared both practical and economical.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[UnanimousCoward]

How are your emissions?

I've been putting used motor oil, hydraulic fluid, transmission fluid, gasoline, solvents, and misc. oils in my truck's tank for years now.

Terra Petra - burying your stable carbon biomass

[filmotheklown]

This is being done/worked on. It's called Terra Petra "Black Earth" and is being developed for use in biomass gasification.

Basically you gassify carbonaceous materials such as wood or other biomass. Instead of allows all the biomass to be consumed in the process, you pull a portion of the charcoal out of the gasification stream and then disc it into the earth. Charcoal, being a fairly stable version of high density carbon will remain in this state for a very long time and in a sense becomes fertilizer for the soil (over time). Charcol is a more stable form of carbon than just raw biomass which will otherwise decay into CO2 as it rots

In fact, in the amazon, this has been going on for 1000s of years and is a way to make otherwise not so great tropical soils fertile.

Gasification combined with Terra Petra has the possibility of not only being carbon neutral, but carbon negative. If you gassify existing biomass (in particular the waste wood and garden clipping stream of most municipal wastes) you start out carbon neutral. The carbon in the waste stream is already destined to either be incinerated or 'mulched' which releases the carbon as CO2 either way.

If during the process of gassifying this biomass stream, you extract a portion of the charcoal that is created, you can then sequester it in the soil. Thus becoming carbon negative to the extent you pull from your gassifier. The trade off is that you have less carbon to convert to CO for use as a producer gas.

Incinerator

[CustomDesigned]

Here in Fairfax, VA we have an incinerator. It burns the trash to make electricity, and separates out glass and metals for resale, and traps and separates gases in the exhaust for resale. All the separation is run by its own electricity - and it sells the excess of that also. It is a highly successful installation. They are digging up landfills for more trash to feed it.

The only drawback is that the landfills are being refilled with ash, and eventually will run out of room again.

Recycling SAVES Oil

[Somegeek]

1) The whole point of recycling is to keep from having to drive stuff way out to a landfill. It gets, you know, recycled instead. I believe that Portland has over %50 less waste going into their 'distant landfills' since they have started recycling.

2) If the garbage was not being separated then the one garbage truck would fill up faster and have to make more trips back and forth between the 'distant landfill' and the pickup route.

Think about it. The total amount of garbage didn't magically triple overnight. They didn't suddenly have to purchase and run three times the number of garbage trucks; the existing trucks are just used for different tasks now. I bet the total fuel consumption won't be all that different.

3) Where Portland wastes diesel fuel in the garbage industry is that they have multiple companies serving the same routes which is less efficient than it could be. This would be true whether they are recycling or not.

4) You are seriously underestimating the energy saved by recycling. The energy saved by recycling aluminum cans alone will probably cover all the fuel costs for the whole garbage truck fleet. A can manufacturing industry website states that for every 40 aluminum cans recycled the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline is saved.

http://www.cancentral.com/recFAQ.cfm

Please find something more constructive to bitch about.