Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Create New Gasoline Substitute Out of Plants
destinyland writes "California scientists have just created a new biofuel using plants that burns just as well as a petroleum-based fuel. 'The discovery, published in the journal Nature, means corn, sugar cane, grasses and other fast-growing plants or trees, like eucalyptus, could be used to make the propellant, replacing oil,' writes the San Francisco Chronicle, and the researchers predict mass marketing of their product within 5 to 10 years. They created their fuel using a fermentation process that was first discovered in 1914, but which was then discontinued in 1965 when petroleum became the dominant source of fuel. The new fuel actually contains more energy per gallon than is currently contained in ethanol, and its potency can even be adjusted for summer or winter driving."
How much energy does it take to create given a requirement of infinite sustainability? i.e. you have to replenish the soil in which the trees grow with fertilizer, etc.
I know bio-diesel requires oil-producing crops vs. sugar producing crops, but other than that I'm curious how this fuel might be "better" than bio-diesel. Given that bio-diesel can be produced using hemp seed oil (a plant that literally grows like a weed in the worst of conditions), I'd think the hemp alternative would be better.
The milled hemp kernels left behind by the oil extraction provide a high-protein animal feed, and the stalks produce fiber that can replace a wide number of products.
I'd guess the remaining hemp stalk material after the fiber has been extracted could still be put through this fermentation process.
So enlighten me.
Why aren't we pursuing hemp-based bio-diesel instead?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What is with these people that think we can meet any reasonable amount of our energy needs, nationally or globally, with alcohol? It takes literally seconds to look up the maximum arable land in a country, determine how much fuel you could make if you used all of it at 100% efficiency, and then see that this is nowhere near enough fuel to replace gasoline. During this exercise you're allowed to ignore the impact this would have when that land is no longer available for current purposes.
Until there are major advances in where this stuff can be grown, to get the energy produced per acre much higher than it actually is, and prevent "simple" natural disasters from ruining entire crops for the season, this stuff is never going to take off no matter the hype.
Why aren't we pursuing hemp-based bio-diesel instead?
Because aerial surveillance can't tell the low-THC strains of C. sativa grown for hemp from the higher-THC strains grown for a psychoactive substance. Perhaps one of the U.S. states that has legalized pot on a state level (with President Obama's announced lack of enforcement priority) can experiment with a hemp industry.
Not to shatter your conspiratorial fantasy, but this research was actually funded by BP. A lot of big oil companies are investing in alternate energy these days as a hedge for when oil is no longer needed. They say, "We're not in the oil business, we're in the energy business."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
but can you use it as an excuse to invade?
You've got it backwards man, oil is the reason to invade. Evil dictators and terrorists are the excuse.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Hunger in poor countries is not a production problem quite as much as a distribution problem.
NIMBY.
There is a major difficulty between the US and countries like Brazil for extracting oil: in the US, all the oil countries are private, so politicians have no problem restricting them for environmental reasons. Politicians in California complain when a new oil reserve is found.
When the politicians have a major stake in the oil company, like Petrobras or Gazprom, they are more than happy to ignore environmental concerns to fund their projects. Politicians there celebrate when a new oil reserve is found.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not to shatter your conspiratorial fantasy, but this research was actually funded by BP. A lot of big oil companies are investing in alternate energy these days as a hedge for when oil is no longer needed. They say, "We're not in the oil business, we're in the energy business."
Correction: A lot of big oil companies are interested in patenting alternate energy sources these days, because patents can stifle innovation...
1. Switchgrass average production: 14.6 tons / hectare
2. Ethanol 100 gallons/ton
3. Total land area (not arable, total for CONUS, period) 766 million hectares
Total fuel production per year: 1.1 trillion gallons
Gasoline and diesel consumption in 2011: 200 billion gallons.
So you tell me. Do you think it's realistic to convert 20% of the total land area of the country to switchgrass production? It would certainly make sense to use it to replace corn, once the technology matures, but it's never going to replace petroleum unless they figure out a way go grow it much more densely without raising the cost of production too much. There are better alternatives to solve the oil crunch than plants-as-fuel. CNG is one. LPG is another.
great, but when you burn it does it still spew CO2 into the atmosphere?
when are we going wake up and start using cars powered by hydrogen separated from water in LFTRs?
Don't you think it would be easier to get it in your backyard, considering that the US has tons of it?
Growing fuel crops on US soil just creates a new problem when agricultural production is boosted and aquifers become massively overused. They already are overused but making fuel from plants would aggrivate the problem enormously. Then the free market bullshotters would crawl from under every rock preaching how that is nothing to worry about bcause the invisible hand will fix that problem sooner or later and Fox News goes into overdrive with discussion panels full of useful idiots explaining to an eager public how aquifers are an inexhaustible resource and that god will provide. Meanwhile lobbying groups in congress will get busy ensuring that efforts to fix the aquifer exhaustion problem will only get underway when it is way too late to fix the problem anyway.
Yeah, I see the US government really making things difficult for Exxon all the time. They are always so worried about the environment! Thankfully, because the US government never, ever gives in to big corporations, and always has them in check, the environment is preserved.
Of course, if American oil fields were a property of the State, THEN there would be trouble, because all those environmentalist politicians would have no way to control them, and would have no other choice but to open the taps and let the oil spill onto the tundras and the seas.
Your truth is blinding! Can't see how wasn't I aware of that before. Anyway, you should learn the difference between politicians and the Government. Politicians, as individuals, may have stakes in private companies where the Government might not participate (or might do). Though either way, you make no sense.
Actually, in this case the free marketers are probably right.
If there was a free market, no one (outside of Brazil) would grow plants for fuel-ethanol. It's just too expensive at the moment.
Also, in a proper free market, producers would have to pay for the externalities. Use of common resources - e.g. aquifers - must be paid for properly.
no taxation without representation!
I am usually very concerned with EROEI but there is one instance where and EROEI of less than 1 is not a problem. The is in converting the energy into something much more transportable. For example geothermal heat does not travel well or store well. We currently are very good at converting it into electricity. That travels better but still has limits and storage is very expensive. We can convert the energy into hydrocarbons that store very well and transport very well. It does not matter if we only get half the energy out that we put in if the energy we put in is not usable where it is now.;
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that all of the oil fields in Alaska are owned by the state, and that the reason taxes are so low is that the state government makes more than enough money from the oil. That was always one of the amusing ironies of Sarah Palin, that for all her neo-conservative talking points, she was governor of what was a pretty communist state.
You're comparing burning old growth forests that take decades or centuries to grow to burning grasses that can grow 10 ft tall in a single season?
I'm saying you are either underestimating how much energy we use today, or overestimating how much net energy you can grow per area unit of land. Switchgrass may be a way of making areas productive that are now too dry for agriculture other than low intensity cattle farming. This means turning land that is now essentially wilderness into mono culture farmland, which is just another form of the same ecological disaster I described earlier.
Bio fuels should not be mistaken for the green, organic, nature lover's wet dream. It will require an awful lot of land to cover the energy needs of our current standard of living. As we will still want to eat food as well, this extra land will have to come from wilderness or forests, rather than from existing farm land. This is not a happy solution for bears, deer and buffalo. The only ones cheering will be people who bought prairie land wilderness for a dollar per acre.
It's offtopic, and all that, but... a friendly note to say that if you took some time to format your posts into paragraphs, it's much more likely that someone would read it.
A quick glance shows that you've put some time time and thought into your post, which everyone can appreciate. But at the present time, its composition looks a lot like the emails I get from my mother: one long stream of consciousness with no breaks or separation of thoughts/ideas.
Don't be hating, mods. Just trying to help a fellow out.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.