Using Winemaking Waste For Making Fuel

Tator Tot writes "Grape pomace, the mashed up skins and stems left over from making wine and grape juice, could serve as a good starting point for ethanol production, according to a new study (from the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry). Due to growing interest in biofuels, researchers have started looking for cheap and environmentally sustainable ways to produce such fuels, especially ethanol. Biological engineer Jean VanderGheynst at the University of California, Davis, turned to grape pomace, because winemakers in California alone produce over 100,000 tons of the fruit scraps each year, with much of it going to waste."

Comments

Not a practical solution to our energy problem

[hessian]

I am not opposed to gathering up all the organic waste that we can, fermenting it and making alcohol. Nor am I against flushing all toilet and livestock waste into giant fermentation tanks to capture the methane energy.

However, I don't think this is a "solution" to the problem of energy in the future. It will produce some, but not all of our needs, and there will be significant energy inputs required to make it work.

I am more interested in throwing all of our spare money, time and energy into long-term solutions, like cleaner nuclear reactors, better fuel cells, solar sails and even personal methane harvesters.

Look at it another way

[Grayhand]

Even if you are only getting half the alcohol as corn this is a waste product so it's not taking anything away from the food supply. This would offset 50,000 tons of corn just for California alone. Remember grapes are commonly grown all along both the east and west coasts from California to Washington state and from Florida to coastal Maine. The total supply has to be several times that. We're talking several hundred thousand tons that would offset easily a 100,000 tons of corn. The scary thing is I just did the math and 14 million tons of corn are used for ethanol. Recycling waste is important but it won't offset 1% of the corn used now. This isn't because corn is superior, it's a poor source of ethanol, but the massive corn subsidies mean the only practical source for ethanol is corn. Sorghum is a better sugar crop, it grows on poor soil and uses little water. Replace all the corn being grown for ethanol with sorghum and you use less water and less fertilizer and probably get twice the ethanol. Sadly there's no massive sorghum lobby. Other waste sources are maple sugar production, honey production and apple pulp and peels as well as other fruit waste. We can probably replace 10% of the corn from other sources then if we switch to better sources like Sorghum we could double the ethanol output without reducing the food supply. When they say biofuels are no replacement they ignore the fact that the northern states can grow sugar beets as well as some types of sorghum. Increase flowering plants and raise more bees and the honey can be used for biofuels. With some creativity and effort we could replace half the petroleum with either ethanol or methane based bio-gas. Increase efficiency by a 100% which is possible and we no longer need fossil fuels. This ignores electric cars running off wind and solar. We can fix the mess we just need the will.

Re:You dont say?

[niftydude]

Who knew a process by which the ultimate goal is to produce ethanol would be a good starting point to produce ethanol?

True that. I'm far more impressed by the people who realized that you could make dresses from wine making waste.