Biomass Conversion...Is this a sham?

[AboveRedline]

http://news.ifas.ufl.edu/story.php?id=963

Alright gentlemen... let's dig in and analyze this one. My intuition tells me it's just another way to fleece the government for research and subsidy money.

We'll need U.S. gasoline consumption data, agricultural data such as bushels/acre and lbs/bushel, farm capacities etc... or?

 

[AMDSpeedTeam]

It seams possible. Brazil (at least) survived the 70's fuel crisis converting a big part of the Brazilian cars to ethanol. True, the ethanol was produced from sugar cane and the process was not cheap. The advantage of the process mentioned here is that alledgely is cheap. I think it is not possible further discussion without knowing the relation needed biomass/ethanol produced (process eficiency). Nothing in the article shows that relation neither the speed of such process.

 

[swall]

I get skeptical when I see phrases like "...could replace half of the automotive fuel in the U.S.". A figure of 10% maybe, but half? I don't think so.

 

[dfish67]

Check out-

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

Having been in some of these ethanol plants, I would tend to agree that the energy consumption of these facilities exceeds the energy production.

 

[aspearin1]

I find it promising. I've done fairly extensive research in this area, and I'll agree, the most current methods are a greener technology than oil processing, but expensive. However, conventional means utilize yeast, which ferment anaerobically, and ferment best preprocessed simple sugars. E. coli is an extremely robust bacteria that can both digest food aerobically and anaerobically. This means that E. coli cutting off of oxygen or overexposure of oxygen won't choke the colony. E. coli also replicates at rates subsantially higher than yeast. E. coli can also survive harsh conditions. After all, it lives in our stomach acid... (1M Hydrochloric). It's reasonable to believe that it can survive in higher ethanol concentrations than yeast. The real cost eater is distillation of product, separating the ethanol from water. If the E. coli can survive in greater ethanol concentrations than yeast, then it has already acheived half the battle, and reduced the energy consumption for distillation. E. coli has been engineered to do amazing things. We will see a lot more of this stuff come out.

I would worry less about the feasibility of acheiving these claims and worry a little more about, what if it gets loose. We could see full crops fermenting in the field. Aquatic plants completely consumed. Everyone here of Calerpa? It's a one-celled plantlike organism, and it covers miles of ocean floor in an around the UK. It was a grand genetic engineering acheivement. Fish tank algae that you don't need to maintain and will still grow. How pretty. Only, someone dumped some down the storm drain. And that's the rest of the story.

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[rmw]

Do you think this e-coli could be trained to eat kudzu?

rmw

 

[aspearin1]

Wouldn't that be great! But then what would we look at along the highways of North Carolina or Georgia? Trees?!

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[CESSNA1]

ABOVEREDLINE: True, Brazil did convert to ethanol, but the conversion was frought with problems, gasket/seal incompatibility, and others. By conventional means ethanol takes more energy to make than it generates. As a fuel its energy content is lower than gasoline, but it does have good anti-knock properties. I hope this works out, but it probably will not be unsuccesssful until the government figures out a way to tax it. The other concern is what about the by products of the bacteria eating the stuff. Are they toxic? Are they useable? What are they? Maybe we can build more nuclear powerplants to make the ethanol? I am hopeful, but lets see where this technology takes us.

Regards
Dave

 

[rmw]

I was reading recently in an article in a magazine published by Varig (the Brazilian) Airlines about the sugar industry, and the use of ethanol as an alcohol fuel by Brazil. (Eu falo um pequeno portuguese.)

One comment that the person being quoted made was that one other advantage of making ethanol from sugar was that it provided a lot of work for Brazilians.

With all due respect to our Brazilian Forum Members, I thought this to be a sad concept, lots of laborers hacking away at sugar cane stalks, appreciative that people were driving cars using alcohol so they could have work.

The article did note, as well, that if they needed to make diesel, they could use the Fisher-Tropsch process with sugar as the hydrocarbon feed stock as well. More work for more Brazilians as well, I guess.

rmw

 

[unclesyd]

rmw,

Cows and goats eat it and I understand the cows generate an over abundance of methane on such a diet.

If we could make this a “pass through process” it would be good one if we capture the methane and apply the manure back to the kudzu.

Florida already has one program of harvesting an invasive species of tree from the Everglades that I understand is in a little trouble. Even using prison labor, the cost of maintaining the harvesters is more than the recovered fuel values.

Kudzu is both high in protein (17%) and starch (30%) so the bugs will probably like it.

 

[aspearin1]

Is kudzu edible? Would it make a nice salad, or perhaps a good sushi wrap? Getting to CESSNA1's comments. As pure fuel, ethanol is about 2/3 the efficiency as gasoline. (I believe, though, this article focussed more on production of ethanol as a fuel additive, not pure fuel.) There is a tremendous environmental benefit to using ethanol formed of plantlife (bio-ethanol). In theory, the greenhouse gasses (Carbon dioxide) which are released into the air during the burning this ethanol is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide the plantlife originally removed from the air. It is perpetual recycling. (circle of life) Ethanol formed from petroleum refining releases into the air carbon dioxide which was trapped in beneath the earth's crust for millenia in the form of oil. Now if you subscribe to the Global Warming theories, and you believe that (collectively) our SUVs contribute more to global warming than a volcano blast, then efficiently produced bio-ethanol will be quite valuable (if you're willing to lose "gas" mileage as well).

Also to CESSNA1's comment regarding waste products of the bacteria... the great thing is, the ETHANOL is the waste. Carbon and Energy (in the form of starch or sugar)and Water are taken in. Ethanol (which is just a carbon chain) and Water are excreted. Excess carbon and energy goes into creating new cells. Cellular metabolic pathways are incredibly efficient nanotechnology. They are the perfect machine.

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[tbuelna]

Why limit your feedstock to Kudzu? This company's process is called "thermal depolymerization" and uses anything containing carbon.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-01-22-kantor_x.htm

 

[swall]

I was under the impression that the fermentation process also produce CO2--what would that do to the "carbon balance--circle of life"?

 

[aspearin1]

All plant structure (starch, cellulose, sugars) is composed of carbon taken from carbon dioxide from the air, energized by sunlight (photosynthesis). Fermentation converts some of that starch to ethanol, energized by oxidation of the carbon bonds, and some of that starch back into carbon dioxide. The ethanol is burned and releases carbon dioxide as well. The true balance would be CO2 + H2O + sunlight ---> sugar/starch + yeast/bacteria ---> CO2 + H2O + ethanol + unconsumed starch + yeast/bacteria. All carbon containing moieties originate from atmostpheric carbon dioxide.

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[aspearin1]

Speaking of kudzu...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7884540/

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee