The biofuel zealots falsely claim that our current disastrous use of corn for ethanol production is only temporary, and is somehow a building block or stepping stone for future ethanol production from switchgrass, crop waste, wood chips, and other sources of cellulose. The problem is that the equipment (manufacturing plants) used to make corn vodka (ethanol) are of no use in making ethanol from cellulose, which is a complex and expensive two stage process requiring new plant construction and costing millions upon millions of dollars. The current cost of making ethanol from cellulose is the same as making gasoline from crude oil that costs $305. a barrel. As ethanol has 30% less energy than gasoline and thus delivers poor gas mileage, this product is currently economically dead. If we can improve our methods and cut the cost in half, that still brings us to an oil equivalent price of gasoline made from crude oil at about $150 a barrel, plus we still have the 30% loss in energy per gallon compared to gasoline. Even if they got the cost down to an oil equivalent of $100. a barrel, it is still not a good deal because of the 30% energy loss inherent to ethanol, which cannot be changed unless you make another fuel product altogether.
As expected, many money hungry companies are making big claims about having bacteria that can make ethanol from cellulose work, but ask yourself how and at what price? If they had a bacteria that could do the job instantly it would be the ultimate anti-human life weapon, because if it got loose it would eat up the earth's biosphere and we would have nothing left but bacteria. Obviously, you can make ethanol from lots of substances given enough time and money, and "time is money." It takes time and specific conditions (usually higher temperatures) to make these bugs work, and the time it takes to rot or dissolve wood chips and switchgrass into something that can then be fermented into alcohol is a complex, time consuming, and expensive process.
A new study from three agricultural economists at Iowa State University with insider information on the latest biofuel technology says ethanol made from cellulose will likely NEVER be affordable The Federal tax credits for ethanol made from cellulose would have to be raised from the current $.51 to $1.55 per gallon, which will be unacceptable to Congress and the American public. Switchgrass, crop waste, and wood chip biofuel schemes are too expensive to ever work!
Coming soon after the Princeton study published in SCIENCE showing that all biofuels are far worse for the environment and global warming than gasoline leaves the biofuel zealots little cover to hide behind. SEE - http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861
Another problem with our current corn vodka infrastructure is that it is located in the wrong areas, and not near the "marginal" prairie lands" that Bush wants to grow switchgrass on. So the idea that corn ethanol is a stepping stone to anything but more corn ethanol is a BIG LIE!
Quoted from my web page.
"The outlook for biofuels is dismal - Growing massive amounts of switchgrass to produce ethanol from lignocellulose has most of the same drawbacks as making ethanol from corn. We will use land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor to grow switchgrass that will be diverted from food production, with soaring food prices a result. If we grow switchgrass on land currently used to graze cattle, we will reduce beef and milk production. If we grow switchgrass on unused "marginal" prairie lands, we will soon turn those marginal lands into a new dust bowl, which they may turn into anyway due to global warming. Computer models for the progression of global warming show the America Midwest and Southwest getting hotter and dryer, with much of our farm and grazing land turning into desert. We know that biofuel production will speed up global warming, so why are we pinning so much hope on an environmental battle plan that any fool can see will blow up in our face over time? We won't be able to produce enough biofuels to run our cars, or enough food to fill our bellies.
The very process of making ethanol from lignocellulose has not been proven to be economically viable (cellulosic ethanol not affordable, pdf 180kb), and the Bush energy bill assumes new scientific breakthroughs that have not occurred. Some new biofuel crops are toxic weeds which will have a destructive impact on wildlife and biodiversity around the world. In practical terms, there is not enough usable land area to grow a sufficient quantity of biofuel plants to meet the world's energy demands. Even if the USA dedicated 100% of our corn and soybean production to biofuels, we would only satisfy 12% of gasoline demand and 6% of diesel demand. To quote Stuart Staniford, "The biofuel potential of the entire human food supply is quite a small amount of energy compared to the global oil supply - somewhere between 15 to 20% on a volumetric basis, so 10 to 15% on an energy basis." Every year the human race burns up the equivalent of 400 years worth of planetary vegetation in the condensed form of fossil fuels. How are we going to replace all that concentrated energy by growing biofuel crops on our desperately overpopulated, pure water starved little planet?
Growing algae to make biodiesel is being touted as a cure-all for all our biofuel problems, but we are still stuck with the fact that algae need solar energy to turn carbon dioxide into fuel. To make biodiesel, algae are used as organic solar panels which output oil instead of electricity. Research reports brag that algae can produce 15 times more fuel per acre of land than growing corn for ethanol, but that still means we would need approximately 30 million acres of concrete or plastic lined algae ponds to meet 100% of projected US automotive fuel usage by the year 2022. Those algae schemes that use less land invariably call for feeding algae sugar. Sugar must be made from corn, beets, or other crop, so you are simply trading ethanol potential to make oil instead of vodka. If you grow genetically engineered super-algae in open-air ponds, the genetically modified algae will be immediately carried to lakes, reservoirs, and oceans all over the world in the feathers of migrating birds, with unknown and possibly catastrophic consequences. Using agricultural waste water for algae production is a good idea, but algae may be more logically used for making modest amounts of animal feed, as algae is very costly to turn into fuel.
Using agricultural "waste" to make biofuels has its own problems. Removing unused portions of plants that are normally plowed under increases the need for nitrogen fertilizers, which release the most potent greenhouse gas of all; nitrous oxide. Much of the residual crop biomass must be returned to the soil to maintain topsoil integrity, otherwise the rate of topsoil erosion will increase dramatically. If we mine our topsoil for energy, we will end up committing slow agricultural suicide like the Mayan Empire. Without topsoil, the world starves! Using wood chips to make ethanol sounds like a good idea until you remember that we currently use wood to make pellet fuel for stoves, paper, particle board, and a thousand and one building products. Every part of the trees we cut down for lumber are used for something, including the bark which is used for garden mulch. The idea of sending teams of manual laborers into forests to salvage underbrush for fuel would be prohibitively expensive. Our forests are already stressed just producing lumber without tasking them with producing liquid biofuels for automobiles, a scheme which will inevitably drive up the price of everything made from wood, creating yet another resource crisis."
On Apr 5, 9:49 am, "calderh...@yahoo.com" <calderh...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Why ethanol from cellulose is a hoax!
> The biofuel zealots falsely claim that our current disastrous use of > corn for ethanol production is only temporary, and is somehow a > building block or stepping stone for future ethanol production from > switchgrass, crop waste, wood chips, and other sources of cellulose.
Excuse me, but I though cellulose was to be converted to methanol, not ethanol.
On Apr 5, 7:11 pm, Roger Coppock <rcopp...@adnc.com> wrote:
> On Apr 5, 9:49 am, "calderh...@yahoo.com" <calderh...@yahoo.com> > wrote:
> > Why ethanol from cellulose is a hoax!
> > The biofuel zealots falsely claim that our current disastrous use of > > corn for ethanol production is only temporary, and is somehow a > > building block or stepping stone for future ethanol production from > > switchgrass, crop waste, wood chips, and other sources of cellulose.
> Excuse me, but I though cellulose was to be converted > to methanol, not ethanol.
Well, ok. Switch to growing sorghum. A U of Ga website says sorghum will produce 100-120 gallons of ethanol/acre, which can then be further processed to produce butanol, which has the same fuel energy as gasoline and will burn in the same engine.
The USDA website says sorghum can be grown in my area (Ozarks 36deg No) for 3.5 gallons of tractor fuel/acre. It is gonzo easier to deal with than corn.
Its green all right; the problem is not green, its the red ink for the BATF. If you ferment the juice of sorghum, you get rum, not whiskey, and there's no isopropyl alcohol to worry about. You drive on it, but you can also drink it. The BATF would loose control of the liquor industry!
> Its green all right; the problem is not green, its the red ink for the > BATF. If you ferment the juice of sorghum, you get rum, not whiskey, > and there's no isopropyl alcohol to worry about. You drive on it, but > you can also drink it. The BATF would loose control of the liquor > industry!
> I dont have a problem with that. Do you?
Oh look. The drunk RepubliKKKan is manufacturing yet another conspiracy before our very eyes.
> Well, ok. Switch to growing sorghum. A U of Ga website says sorghum > will produce 100-120 gallons of ethanol/acre, which can then be > further processed to produce butanol, which has the same fuel energy > as gasoline and will burn in the same engine.
> The USDA website says sorghum can be grown in my area (Ozarks 36deg > No) for 3.5 gallons of tractor fuel/acre. It is gonzo easier to deal > with than corn.
> Its green all right; the problem is not green, its the red ink for the > BATF. If you ferment the juice of sorghum, you get rum, not whiskey, > and there's no isopropyl alcohol to worry about. You drive on it, but > you can also drink it. The BATF would loose control of the liquor > industry!
> I dont have a problem with that. Do you?
N-butanol can be used to eliminate migraines in about two minutes. It's been done thousands of times in Europe.
It was also used in a medical trial consisting of catatonic schizophrenics by injection. This was done about 1949.
Some of the patients began to behave normally. One patient who hadn't spoken in two years began to joke with the nursing staff. The study was discontinued apparently because it caused a rash for some patients.
In Germany, the n-butanol form of butanol was included in the first aid kits of the Mercedes Benz automobiles. It can stop arterial bleeding without dropping blood pressure.
It will also stop spontaneous bleeding in cancer patients for a period of 2-3 days.
Day Brown wrote: > Well, ok. Switch to growing sorghum. A U of Ga website says sorghum > will produce 100-120 gallons of ethanol/acre, which can then be > further processed to produce butanol, which has the same fuel energy > as gasoline and will burn in the same engine.
> The USDA website says sorghum can be grown in my area (Ozarks 36deg > No) for 3.5 gallons of tractor fuel/acre. It is gonzo easier to deal > with than corn.
> Its green all right; the problem is not green, its the red ink for the > BATF. If you ferment the juice of sorghum, you get rum, not whiskey, > and there's no isopropyl alcohol to worry about. You drive on it, but > you can also drink it. The BATF would loose control of the liquor > industry!
> I dont have a problem with that. Do you?
Liquor TAX, that's what they would lose control of.
>Excuse me, but I though cellulose was to be converted >to methanol, not ethanol.
Either is possible, but most current R&D is toward the production of cellulosic (lignocellulosic) ethanol.There are many issues involved in such, it is not as simplistic an analysis as some are trying to portray it. Of primary importance, with relation to biofuels, is the understanding that they are not a substitute for crude oil derivatives in a business as usual future. They can however, provide a valuable supplement to help us wean and transition our technological base off of and away from fossil transportation fuels.
> Either is possible, but most current R&D is toward the production of > cellulosic (lignocellulosic) ethanol.
Breakthrough In Biofuel Production Process
James Dumesic of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his former student George Huber, now at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, are breaking new ground in the development of an alternative fuel called "green gasoline." (Credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison)
ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) - Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.
Reporting in the April 7, 2008 issue of Chemistry & Sustainability, Energy & Materials (ChemSusChem), chemical engineer and National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER awardee George Huber of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) and his graduate students Torren Carlson and Tushar Vispute announced the first direct conversion of plant cellulose into gasoline components.
In the same issue, James Dumesic and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison announce an integrated process for creating chemical components of jet fuel using a green gasoline approach. While Dumesic's group had previously demonstrated the production of jet-fuel components using separate steps, their current work shows that the steps can be integrated and run sequentially, without complex separation and purification processes between reactors.
While it may be five to 10 years before green gasoline arrives at the pump or finds its way into a fighter jet, these breakthroughs have bypassed significant hurdles to bringing green gasoline biofuels to market. "It is likely that the future consumer will not even know that they are putting biofuels into their car," said Huber. "Biofuels in the future will most likely be similar in chemical composition to gasoline and diesel fuel used today. The challenge for chemical engineers is to efficiently produce liquid fuels from biomass while fitting into the existing infrastructure today."
For their new approach, the UMass researchers rapidly heated cellulose in the presence of solid catalysts, materials that speed up reactions without sacrificing themselves in the process. They then rapidly cooled the products to create a liquid that contains many of the compounds found in gasoline.
The entire process was completed in under two minutes using relatively moderate amounts of heat. The compounds that formed in that single step, like naphthalene and toluene, make up one fourth of the suite of chemicals found in gasoline. The liquid can be further treated to form the remaining fuel components or can be used "as is" for a high octane gasoline blend.
"Green gasoline is an attractive alternative to bioethanol since it can be used in existing engines and does not incur the 30 percent gas mileage penalty of ethanol-based flex fuel," said John Regalbuto, who directs the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and supported this research.
"In theory it requires much less energy to make than ethanol, giving it a smaller carbon footprint and making it cheaper to produce," Regalbuto said. "Making it from cellulose sources such as switchgrass or poplar trees grown as energy crops, or forest or agricultural residues such as wood chips or corn stover, solves the lifecycle greenhouse gas problem that has recently surfaced with corn ethanol and soy biodiesel." Beyond academic laboratories, both small businesses and Fortune 500 petroleum refiners are pursuing green gasoline. Companies are designing ways to hybridize their existing refineries to enable petroleum products including fuels, textiles, and plastics to be made from either crude oil or biomass and the military community has shown strong interest in making jet fuel and diesel from the same sources.
"Huber's new process for the direct conversion of cellulose to gasoline aromatics is at the leading edge of the new 'Green Gasoline' alternate energy paradigm that NSF, along with other federal agencies, is helping to promote," states Regalbuto.
Not only is the method a compact way to treat a great deal of biomass in a short time, Regalbuto emphasized that the process, in principle, does not require any external energy. "In fact, from the extra heat that will be released, you can generate electricity in addition to the biofuel," he said. "There will not be just a small carbon footprint for the process; by recovering heat and generating electricity, there won't be any footprint."
The latest pathways to produce green gasoline, green diesel and green jet fuel are found in a report sponsored by NSF, the Department of Energy and the American Chemical Society entitled "Breaking the Chemical and Engineering Barriers to Lignocellulosic Biofuels: Next Generation Hydrocarbon Biorefineries" released April 1. In the report, Huber and a host of leaders from academia, industry and government present a plan for making green gasoline a practical solution for the impending fuel crisis.
"We are currently working on understanding the chemistry of this process and designing new catalysts and reactors for this single step technique. This fundamental chemical understanding will allow us to design more efficient processes that will accelerate the commercialization of green gasoline," Huber said.
Adapted from materials provided by National Science Foundation.
> "Trakar" <TShaitanaku-at-comcast-dot-net>\ >> Either is possible, but most current R&D is toward the production of >> cellulosic (lignocellulosic) ethanol.
You can hydrolyse the cellulose with sodium hydroxide then catlytically convert it to petrol. Is Petrol IsoPentane? Cellulose is (C6(H20)6)n with the C6 as a ring. The takes out the OH to make C6H6 plus H2O then catalyitcally convert it with hydrogen to make it into C6H14 then crack it to make isopentane. C5H12+CH4.
I would think the price would be similar to making petrol from tar-sands.
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