Break through in Biofuel

ElectricFetus

ElectricFetus

Sanity going, going, gone
Valued Senior Member
The race has been on for decades: to make a renewable supply of clean, environmentally friendly fuel from waste, now many are claiming victory.

The idea is the take common cellulose (the stuff all plants are made of, of course wood, paper so forth) and make it to ethanol (aka moonshine, 200 proof, happy juice) Ethanol burns better the gasoline (equivalent to a octane rating of 116!) and can run in any car with few or no alterations (look up E10 and E85 on google) it can also run mix with gasoline (many states have 10% ethanol mixing already).

Breakthrouhg in Cellulose to Ethanol production:
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/328Fall98/Reading21.html
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2001/01/15/story3.html

More technical:
http://www.glue.umd.edu/~nsw/ench485/lab4.htm
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_EH341

The problems of a Biomass economy:
http://www.daviesand.com/Perspectives/Forest_Products/Ethanol/
 
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Isn't the purity of ethanol limited to ~95% due to azeotrope formation? Or is that only from distillation?

Still is pretty cool either way.
 
Yes it is very expensive to make more then 190 proof because yes alcohol has an affinity for water and will at that purity suck water right out of the air. Still Direct Alcohol fuel cells run well at only 100 proof (vodka). Also E85 (15% gasoline) covers for that affinity problem as well as it high vapor pressure (the azeotrope problem).
 
Why do i think that this, along with many other amazing solutions, won't even be considered untill energy consumption is a major crisis for mankind:bugeye:
 
That sound even worse from what is now. Either way the forests are screwed. I can't believe i am saying this but nuclear power would be less of a hazard to invest in rather than this.:bugeye:
 
Well I disagree with links views a little:
First off energy crops like hemp and field grass plants grow in weeks not years, so no trees and wood are not the only source of ethanol. I personally think the trees can be spared, if we start building refineries NOW! We need many many small refineeries close to farms instead of fewer big refineries close to forest.

On the positive side, we'll finally get mandatory paper recycling because most of the pulpwood needed for making paper will now go for ethanol. We'll see public money spent on public transportation. There will be lots more bicycles and power-assisted bicycles on the road. Fuel cells will be specially designed to run on ethanol. There will be national campaigns for people to go vegetarian so that land devoted to pasturage and grain production for livestock can be converted to energy crops.

Prices for photovoltaic (PV) panels will come down and will be installed on many roofs. Large PV arrays will be installed in sunny, desert areas. Windmill farms will pop up wherever there's enough steady wind. If huge efforts are made in energy efficiency at the same time, there might be enough solar and wind electricity to satisfy most residential and commercial demand. Industrial demand will be another matter.
Click to expand...

Now come on this seems like a great future to me! Now yes we will have to turn our forest into fuel because we are lazy bums and waited to the last second, but that was our fault not ethanols.
 
Good points indeed...but as you can see my complaint is with the Government that will follow through with this....

Let's take your advice and measure it with what the Government will actually do...see what i mean...good advice seldom takes good ears....:( ...anyway trees are screwed...even if not in US then in third world countries where the quickest solution is most often considred the best one.
 
I agree as well the problem is purely political, also it will be a cold day in hell when people stop fearing the atom and start using it like never before to fix their energy problems. Look at it this way which is more pc: Hydorgen economy powered by nuclear power or Biomass economy power by waste, power crops, forest(initially)?

also brazil runs off ethanol!
 
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The beaurocratic ignorance will the downfall of us all. Damn hollywood for making people fearfull of the word Nuclear.:mad:
 
Another problem with the ethanol economy is drought, blight and pestilence. We will once again be effected by the health of the farming community. Unless we over produce and have reserves we could really suffer, read this:
http://www.ethanol-gec.org/fall2000/fall0024.html

Yep, you know why MRI is not called NMRI like we call it here in the chemistry community? Because if it was called nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, no one would take it!, instead they would get a CAT scan, how ironic!
 
I don’t know if you saw the UK news last night, they were showing a research group in Plymouth Uni. who converted fish and chip oil (waste vegetable oil) to be used in cars. I read of a similar thing in Scotland, but it was done by two individuals who were arrested and fined for trying to get around paying the huge government taxes on petrol.
 
biodiesel

solution: biodiesel!

biodiesel can be used NOW. no modifications are necessary for diesel burning engines. can be made cheaply from waste veg. materials (e.g. corn husks, pea pods, even waste fryalator grease from fast food joints which is actually cheaper and better source).

This is avaiable now and is being used. for example, deer valley school district in arizona for school buses, a concrete company in arizona for its cement trucks, the list goes on.

why fight wars in the middle east for oil we probably don't even need?

Isn't the Bush/ Texas / Big Oil connection obvious enough.

Check out Southern States Power Company.
 
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