Ethanol From Waste Straw 449
phcrack writes "The CBC is reporting that 'Iogen Corporation of Ottawa has developed enzymes to break down waste straw and wood chips into ethanol on a commercial scale.' Apparently traditional ethanol from food crops like corn used at least as much energy to create as they released when burned. It's nice to see that big oil companies are helping fund a project like this too. It's very rare today to hear of a major company throwing money at a research project since the '80s."
Research (can be) smart business. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to see that big oil companies are helping fund a project like this too.
Of course they'd fund it.
Around here "gasohol" is a 10% ethanol, 90% gasoline mixture. Any company can find a way to make that 10% ingredient cheaper than their competitors will find themselves in a very enviable position. It's smart business.
Woohoo! (Score:2, Funny)
Around here "gasohol" is a 10% ethanol, 90% gasoline mixture.
Well buddy, around here, "alchohol" is a 100% ethanol, 0% other useless crap mixture.
Cheers!
Re:Research (can be) smart business. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ethanol is only a smart business because it is subsidized (like oil, but that is another story). The only smart energy business is that in which net positive energy can be attained. That is, the product will produce more energy than it takes to manufacture it. Out of all forms of synthetic energy, wind, hydroelectric and some solar types will produce net positive energy.
We need to use what is left of our non-renewable fossil fuel supplies to build these replacement supplies. Unfortunately, these all generate electricity and there is no current method of storing electricity with the density of current oil-based products. We'll need some of that energy to develop hydrogen and electrical storage.
Water is a remarkable battery if we could manufacture a fuel cell affordably (i.e. - out of non-noble metals like platinum). Just add electricity and you've got H2 and O. Lovely.
Re:Research (can be) smart business. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Research (can be) smart business. (Score:4, Funny)
But, if you're releasing oxygen, why would you hold your breath?
Here, let me help; -1 Offtopic
False (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.usda.
Re:Research (can be) smart business. (Score:3, Informative)
In other news.... (Score:4, Funny)
"With this discovery, the United States may finally have a reliable alternative to fossil fuels," the scientist claimed. "The only problem we now face is creating a process to collect the gas and the possibility of mud butt."
Re:Research (can be) smart business. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Research (can be) smart business. (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, how much waste straw do you think is lying around? Perhaps enough to power an SUV driving soccer mum halfway home from car yard.
Seriously, these are the kind of stories which make the populace at large think that the solutions to the world's energy problems is just around the corner, so in the mean time lets squander our remaining oil reserves and pollute the atmosphere.
RTFA (can be) smart business. (Score:5, Insightful)
No idea, but that is irrelevant. It appears that nearly any farm waste can be used, as well as other cellulose-based waste (e.g. wood chips, sawdust, yard waste) that people/companies often pay to have removed. It may not be the solution to the world's energy problems, but it is a lot more of a step in the right direction than you give credit for.
Fill up my Ram! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, these are the kind of stories which make the populace at large think that the solutions to the world's energy problems is just around the corner, so in the mean time lets squander our remaining oil reserves and pollute the atmosphere.
Yeah, generally I view this sort of thing with skepticism. But if you take a look at Iogen's website, you'll see that they can take 1 ton of cellulose-rich farm waste and turn it into about 300L of ethanol.
Not only could you have a hell of a party with that, but there are other possibilities.
They can use wood chips. So, probably paper too. I'm sure there's a fairly large waste stream from paper recycling, of paper and pulp which can't be used to make new paper. How about tree bark? How about compostable waste from the garbage? Maybe even cotton fibers?
This is a *massive* quantity of raw material which is all waste anyway. And all of it is plant-derived, so consuming it as fuel causes no net increase in CO2.
All they need to do is not tax the fuel, and you've instantly provided cost competitiveness and a powerful incentive to convert your vehicle (if it isn't already ready for it).
I read that there's an ethanol/methanol gas station here in Ottawa, but they're for the federal government vehicles. It's just down the street from me, in fact. I'm a federal government employee, I wonder if I can fill up my personal vehicles there?
My 1976 Dodge Ram has an aftermarket fuel pump on it. The fuel pump is a high-volume unit, designed for drag racing, and I put it on because it was cheaper than an original replacement part (more competition in the aftermarket). But it's rated for 100% methanol. The carburetor, which I rebuilt soon after I bought the truck in 1999, has a brass float - also safe for methanol. I replaced the rubber body-to-engine fuel line at the same time as the fuel pump; it's also safe for methanol.
In short, I can fill up my Ram with ethanol or methanol. If the cost is competitive, I'll happily throw a vacuum gauge on it and adjust the timing and mixture for the new fuel.
The old big-block, with bores the size of paint cans, really won't care what the fuel is as long as it pushes the pistons back down at the right times.
Re:Research (can be) smart business. (Score:2)
The whole friggen point of the article is that it uses LESS energy.
So, yes, assuming it's true, it is the smart.
Solar Cells, Solar Cars... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, it's really smart to replace petrol with ethanol; a fuel that takes more energy to produce it than it yields...
Isn't that the same as solar cells, given that they require massive amounts of energy to make, output feeble amounts of energy on a per-cell basis (and at most 0.707 of that is harnessable as alternating current), and have a finite lifespan (primarily to cracking caused by heating/cooling cycles)?
Actually, ethanol/methanol is a great step toward solar-powered cars; capture the solar energy with plants, store it as chemical energy, release it as heat energy within an internal combustion engine. Of course, one could argue that this is already what happens when you start up your Hummer.
Enthanol/methanol are a far better automotive fuel than electricity, so if this replaces the (misguided) efforts to produce electric cars, that would be excellent. It's still effectively zero emissions, since every CO2 molecule which comes out of the car's tailpipe was already scrubbed from the atmosphere when the plant was growing. There will still be NOx and unburnt HC, as there are with conventional cars, but neither one of those species is chemically stable in our atmosphere and both are rendered back to N2, CO2 and H2O very quickly.
I have two big worries with electric cars. The biggest being the batteries - by necessity, the greater the energy density of the battery, the nastier the chemicals inside it have to be. Weird things happen to cars - accidents, ditched in lakes, etc. - so it doesn't seem like a good idea to be carrying around hazmats which make gasoline look benign. The other great worry is that electric cars all must be recharged somewhere - how many new nuclear and coal power plants will have to be built to keep all these electric cars recharged?
Transition would be easy, too - as soon as the fuel is economically feasible, gas stations can start dedicating a pump or two to it. Many modern vehicles are already built to run on methanol - Chrysler experimenting with "Flexifuel" Plymouth Acclaims and Dodge Spirits as far back as 1992. And with a little bit of work - swapping old rubber-diaphragm fuel pumps then doing standard tune-up stuff like adjusting the mixture and the timing - just about any antique vehicle will run happily on the stuff. The hardest converts will probably be 1980s EFI cars.... and diesels.
Well, okay, diesels will already run happily on vegetable oil.
Not batteries (Score:3, Interesting)
Electric cars will not be lugging much battery, they will have a fuel cell (and maybe a relatively small battery for regenerative braking).
Now, this easy, cleaner source of ethanol would be an excelent way to get the necissary hydrogen...
Even thought ethanol is cleaner than petrol, it is still dirtier when burned in an engine that may not have as many polution controls, or be as well tuned as a central hydro
Re:Solar Cells, Solar Cars... (Score:3, Informative)
Aren't these arguments based on the solar cells being produced 30 years ago? The technology has improved steadily since then.
Enthanol/methanol are a far better automotive fuel than electricity, so if this replaces the (misguided) efforts to produce electric cars, that would be excellent.
Electric cars could actually do well in niche markets, but better still,
Re:Solar Cells, Solar Cars... (Score:5, Informative)
What solar cells are those? The ones I'm familiar with pay back their invested energy in 2-4 years, and last 15-25 years at a minimum. They don't crack unless they are abused, such as by overheating with concentrated light.
Their output is also convertible to AC at 90+% efficiency, using modern inverters. Where'd you get this sqrt(.5) nonsense?
The problem is efficiency. There are many more losses with the conversion to plant matter and back, so you need a lot more capture area. As long as you're effectively getting it for free (as a byproduct of something you're growing anyway) you're fine, but if you have to pay for the acreage with the fuel production alone your costs just went through the roof. Speaking of roofs, the average house's roof can capture more than enough sunlight to power the average household's daily driving even if you're only using solar cells. If you assume 340 WH/mile [epri.com] and 20 miles/vehicle/day, you need 6.8 KWH/vehicle/day. If you get good sunlight for 6 hours/day, you need a bit over 1 KW(peak) of solar panels to supply this. At 10% efficiency this is only about 10-14 square meters of roof. Your typical ranch house has upwards of 100 square meters of roof.
You're half right.
The optimal solution for current (cheap) batteries is the plug-in hybrid [iags.org]; the batteries store power for short trips and surge acceleration, and the sustainer engine burns fuel for longer trips. The efficiency of such a vehicle can easily be twice that of a non-hybrid. I recall seeing a figure of 17% which works with other calculations I've done, but Chevron has published a figure claiming that the average is closer to 12%. That's probably where your Ram is hovering around.
If either lithium-ion cells or the recent NEC resin-based battery hit an inflection point in their production cost curve and start heading down, it won't be long before we see all-electric cars with 300+ mile ranges and sub-5-second 0-60 performance. This can already be done with laptop Li-ion cells, but the cost is about ten times too high for bulk production. I don't see anything which forces this to remain so.
Lithium is not exactly a toxic substance; for some people, it's medicine. The electrolyte of NEC's proton polymer bat
Re:Solar Cells, Solar Cars... (Score:3, Interesting)
Common "therapeutic" dosage of Lithium is 14-28 mg/kg/day.
LD50 (kills 50%) is officially around 710 mg/kg/day.
However, permanent neurological damage has been documented at levels as low as 170 mg/kg/day.
Not exactly a safe substance. A friend once took a weeks supply of his Lithium in a suicide attempt. Left him severely retarded.
Toxicity of lithium spills (Score:3, Interesting)
Quickie estimate: Suppose you crash a car into a pond containing half a million gallons of water. The car has 600 pounds of lithium-ion batteries, and 100 pounds of lithium dissolves into the pond. This is 45 kg of lithium in ~2 million kg of water, or about 2.2 ppm. If you weigh 45 kg and you want to get the therapeutic dose of 14 mg/kg, you'd need to get 630 mg of lithium which would require drinking ~280,000 liters of water.
The stuff is sa
Re:Solar Cells, Solar Cars... (Score:3, Informative)
It is cool that someone is researching ways of turning biomass into methanol and doing it in an economical and energy efficient way. This i
Re:I call troll in the article (Score:3, Informative)
From the article:
Both Petro-Canada and Royal Dutch Shell are supporting the project with $24.7 million and $46 million respectively.
Re:I call troll in the article (Score:3, Informative)
Here's why [planetark.com]...
Got to love those California environmental regulations!
Re:I call troll in the article (Score:2, Funny)
Rare != Not There (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be rare to hear about them, but long-term research certainly isn't dead. There are companies (3M, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, GlaxoSmithKline, and Lockheed Martin all spring immediately to mind) that have been conducting long-term research projects older than most of the Slashdot crowd.
That we don't hear a lot about them has less to do with their scarcity than it has to do with the relative non-newsworthiness of the progress these projects make. People don't want to hear about the bricks being put in place; they want to hear about the store opening.
Re:Rare != Not There (Score:3, Flamebait)
Monsanto is the antithesis of the family farm. They genetically engineer seeds and plants. They sell chemicals that pollute [washingtonpost.com] the land. They browbeat farmers [percyschmeiser.com] into using buying their products or paying in court.
Lockheed? They recieve oodles [govexec.com] of taxpayer dollars to build bigger bombs. Approximately half the country thinks this is a bad idea, and furthermore, raising the public's awareness of
Re:Rare != Not There (Score:5, Informative)
Helicopters, mail sorters for the US postal service, advanced targetting systems, a few other things...but bombs? Not really. At some plants, sure, but its definately not even a large portion of the company portfolio.
Re:Rare != Not There (Score:3, Informative)
As the parent says, the majority of what we build doesnt kill people (I did say majority...yes we build some weapons, but its in fact not the company's focus). Anybody that honestly believes so is delusional (like those nutjob protestors that come out once/month to walk around the building with signs that say "Lockheed is killing your baby!")
Re:Rare != Not There (Score:3, Insightful)
- chemicals are bad,
- genetic engineering is evil,
- and "family farms" are ideal.
Obviously the drive for efficiency and better profits has sacrificed some conscientiousness, but a corporation is about as human as the chair you sit on. It's a entity native to capitalism that strives for efficiency. If you want to change its behaviour, you have to change the system that created it. But let's get off the hapless demonization, please: it's not a person.Re:Rare != Not There (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, that's part of the problem. Legally, corporations *are* treated just like a person in many respects, meaning that they are given the same rights and priveleges that a human being has. In Unequal Protection [thomhartmann.com], Thom Hartmann argues that this legal standing in fact has no real legal basis, and that it has had a negative effect overall:
Re:Rare != Not There (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rare != Not There (Score:2, Insightful)
How expensive? (Score:2)
Anyone have any idea or more info about this technology? At least it's good to see some sort of innovation coming out of Canada...
Re:How expensive? (Score:4, Funny)
At least it's good to see some sort of innovation coming out of Canada...
The research involves alcohol, you shouldn't be too suprised.
Re:How expensive? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How expensive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How expensive? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How expensive? (Score:5, Informative)
More importantly, we drink beer in Imperial pints (1/8 Imp gal, or 20 Imp oz) which is 568 mL verses a US pint (1/8 US gal, or 16 US oz) which is 473 mL.
Re:How expensive? (Score:2)
Re:How expensive? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How expensive? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure that it is. Ploughing under the remains of the previous year's crops provides a green manure that, if gone (converted to alcohol), may require more artificial fertilizers. I wonder what the net effect on oil consumption would be?
Another point is that internal combustion engines require modification beyond a certain ratio of alcohol, so there is a limit to gasohol's use until the car fleet is replaced.
On the other hand, external combustion engines
Re:How expensive? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's a myth that the ethanol process uses corn that goes for food. Most corn doesn't get processed into food [usda.gov]. It is used as animal feed and the by-product of corn ethanol production is a distiller's mash that is actually better for animal feed since it is high in protein and rich in water-soluble vitamins and minerals. Because the fermentation process removes only starch, all the remaining digestible nutrients are left in the distiller's grain.
Additionally, the net energy output of corn ethanol is 34% (PDF) [usda.gov]. It does not take as much or more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol. Plus, this is using traditional distillation methods. If we really wanted cheap energy we could use solar stills [motherearthnews.com] and run a 160-170 proof ethanol in our slightly modified E-85 cars and trucks.I do think ethanol from waste straw is a good idea but getting it from corn is also a good idea that could be even better.
so could you use thestalks of corn and other ag (Score:2, Insightful)
and will this produce enough to increase the percent of ethanol in gas from 10% to 50% or more?
if they can do that, and make it cheaper than a gallon of gas, then we should see a drop in energy prices.
Re:so could you use thestalks of corn and other ag (Score:2)
Re:so could you use thestalks of corn and other ag (Score:5, Informative)
add to that the ethanol fuel cell, and screw hydrogen. if we can produce enough ethanol from ag waste and yard clippings, we can just use ethanol as it is easier to make, easier to transport, and is closed with regards to the carbon cycle (i.e. no negative impact on the environment from the CO2 used since the plants used have to use the same amount to grow.)
Re:so could you use thestalks of corn and other ag (Score:2)
Re:so could you use thestalks of corn and other ag (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.cleanairchoice.org/outdoor/e85.asp [cleanairchoice.org]
http://www.e85fuel.com/ [e85fuel.com]
Research? (Score:5, Interesting)
We're missing the potential! (Score:5, Funny)
Silly people with your namby-pamby ideas of a brighter future through green, efficient energy.
Oh, wait...
Re:We're missing the potential! (Score:5, Funny)
At least, my wife tells me it's potent.
Corn is a very poor crop to use. (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason this corn statistic keeps coming up is because America has a large corn surplus and the government were wondering what to do with it.
Re:Corn is a very poor crop to use. (Score:5, Informative)
Corn on the other hand, can be grown all over the place.
Re:Corn is a very poor crop to use. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Corn is a very poor crop to use. (Score:4, Insightful)
This statistic that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than is gained by burning it is bandied about all over the place but it is *only* valid if you are talking about corn, I'm not even sure that it is still valid for corn.
Sugarcane isn't the only crop which is feasable, there are several high biomass crops which thrive under differing conditions; Napier Grass, Leucaena, Eucalyptus, Sweet Sorghum is one of the more promising.
Of course there is some irony in the fact that some of the best areas for growing sugarcane are also some of the poorest.
Re:Corn is a very poor crop to use. (Score:4, Insightful)
Irony? Try, "luckily"... this just means that the land can be had cheap, or the people can be employed cheap, and either way it's more money to their community AND a lower cost of production. Which of course means that the ethanol will be cheaper in the end, meaning lower prices to the consumer.
Hopefully, this will raise the locals out of poverty. If some of the richest areas were best for growing sugar cane, no one would ever be able to afford to grow the stuff in the first place.
Wikipedia defs (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes there are (Score:2)
It's a very old news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's a very old news... (Score:5, Funny)
bs (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because research is usually either classified or not 'sexy'. The fact that you don't hear about it all the time is because if there is nothing to announce the researchers are happier researching than writing press releases ('sorry nothing yet').
Ethanol in the Dakotas (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Farmers around the midwest are being paid not to raise crops. The crops they do raise are at times bought by the US and dumped at sea. Others are mixed with the maximum amount of dirt to make sure the maximum profit can be made on sales by weight & volume without violating health rules. From here, we can't see why there is any need to preserve food crops for "eatin'"
2. Ethanol from corn uses as much energy to make as it provides when you burn it right now. Like any new effort the process is going to be inefficient at the start. As we continue to streamline the process, produce continuous flow rather than batch production, and become more selective in the corn we use, this problem should fade away.
3. Ethanol generates a lot of money for my state. Use it and I get lower taxes.
Re:Ethanol in the Dakotas (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ethanol in the Dakotas (Score:2)
Re:Ethanol in the Dakotas (Score:3, Informative)
Archer Daniels Midland, the main company involved in the ethanol racket, has got to be one of the biggest pigs at the trough. Don't take my word for it: read the Cato Institute's [cato.org] assessment.
You may be marginally better off as a farmer, but the rest of us pay through higher prices and taxes.
NO VALUE IS CREATED HERE.
1 calorie of petroleum
Re:Ethanol in the Dakotas (Score:4, Informative)
Accroding to this usda research [usda.gov], producing ethanol is energy positive. What proof do you have that it is not?
ethanol from wood. (Score:2, Informative)
I smell a ban coming.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Expect to hear planted stories about the unhealthiness/antienvironmental harms of the "new" ethanol, followed by urgent Congre$$ional action to shut off the flow of cheap foreign ethanol (and amend such a ban to include Americans who might get the idea of making ethanol from products other than corn). This isn't tinfoil-hat stuff, just the depressing reality of democratic politics: when the public isn't interested in an issue, naked interest-group politics takes precedence.
Re:I smell a ban coming.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Try doing some research.
1: that habitat has mostly been plowed under already, at least in the US. What hasn't is locked up in parks and land that still isn't ecconomicly viabale, and farm pasture. Only the last could be plowed under.
2:top soil has ALWAYS washed away. Farmers are well aware of the problem (Do not be confused with the dust bowl of the 1930s where they were not), and deal with it.
3: True, but start in your own backyard (if this doesn't apply to you, you still know others it does). Many
Still no closer... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Still no closer... (Score:3, Informative)
most of the engine will corrde it's self away because alcaholic fuels are much higher in corrosiveness than a petrolium based fuel. all rulbber and plastic seals will he to be reeningeered as well as all gaskets etc...
it's not simple to make a engine that will run on alcaholic fuels and still last 200,000 miles.
Actual press release (Score:5, Informative)
Brings up an interesting question: Do all Canadian petroleum companies get use of this tech since Canadian taxes helped pay for it? Or does just the consortium get to profit from it for a while since they did the actual research?
Either way seems fair from certain perspectives, but if Shell and Petro-Canada are the only ones to profit then what percentage of Canadian cars will actually run the stuff? How many petro companies are there in Canada? How many Canadians will really benefit from their taxes?
1 step closer (Score:2, Insightful)
Free methane gas for any who wants it (Score:2, Funny)
Why do oil companies fund this research? (Score:5, Interesting)
The oil companies are funding this research so they can receive the patents on it. Then they basically bury the inventions. Take solar energy. Oil companies own somewhere around 90% of the patents on solar energy. Why do you think they do this? Simple, better to fund the research themselves so they own the patents. This prevents anyone else from actually inventing something new and possibly marketing it. Do you think the oil companies will ever push solar energy? Not on your life. The same goes with ethanol.
Re:Why do oil companies fund this research? (Score:5, Informative)
Oil companies do lots of research into natural gas and ethanol and the like because they know that one day, many many years from now, the oil production will not be able to meet demand. The company that can provide the fuel via another method will be the one making the profit. It just makes sense.
Anyway, if you get a patent on something, it is made public knowledge, and it is available for public use by anyone after a few years. And, in the meantime, the knowledge is used to further the state of the art.
So what you are saying is: Oil companies fund alternative fuel resource research and that knowledge is made public, furthering the state of the art and making us more independant from oil. They own the rights to the inventions for a while, but they make the invention public knowledge and the invention is released to the public after a period of time.
Well, that sounds pretty reasonable! Maybe these companies aren't the evil entities the propaganda you listen to would leave you to believe? Maybe they are normal people, trying to make some money, and concerned about the future.
On the flip side, when was the last time someone who went "off the grid" contributed to the state of the art in energy production?
Paranoia (Score:4, Insightful)
Rats... I think I'm paranoid.
When Big Oil spends money researching renewable energy, I start imagining that their intent is to scuttle development. I could be wrong, though. Maybe they do want to develop new energy sources. I mean, they can still get a good firm strangle hold on supplies by patenting the new techniques.
Knowledge is power, after all.
well if you can't... (Score:4, Funny)
Biotech Ethanol (Score:5, Interesting)
Novozymes Biotech [novozymesbiotech.com] in Davis, California is selectively breeding better enzymes for converting the cellulose in corn by-products to fermentable sugars. They passed their economic goal some time ago, but they are still making improvements.
Burining ethanol is extremely ineffiecient (Score:4, Informative)
This is really neither hear nor there. Nobody is thinking about using ethanol as a combustable fuel. It is just too expensive for that. One big reason for this is because ethanol needs to be very pure for combustion, the main thing being that it can't have any other liquids like water in it. So at present, it is only used as an additive to gasoline, because the blend results in cleaner exhaust.
However making ethanol for fuel cells is something like 4x more efficient, because it doesn't have to be as pure. I can't find the slashdot-linked orignal article that I read, but google has some more info [google.com]. I haven't read all the details about it yet and how it compares to methanol, biodiesal etc, but it seems worth checking out.
of course they will (Score:2, Insightful)
Oil companies will throw cash at anything that will be profitable for them. People love to say how big oil want to lock people into oil/fuel products - but that's not true.
They want to do anything that will make them the most money. If something else comes along, they will adapt. I did some work at BP energy trading and trust me, they would trade *anything* that would make them cash (when I left they were looking at weat
hay! hay! hay! (Score:2)
Ethanol (Score:4, Insightful)
2. Take a Flexible Fuel Vehicle and combine it with a hybrid electric automobile and you suddenly have a vehicle that achieves 40 MPG+ and can run on 0-85% ethanol (100-15% gasoline). Am I the only one that can see this? E85 fuel can be placed in the EXACT same fueling infrastructure that we have here in the US. This is the next step in my opinion. We can drastically cut our dependency on OPEC, slow the need for oil, and give the government less reason to dump food in the oceans.
Re:Ethanol (Score:4, Informative)
Big oil companies produce most of the ethanol used for fuel at least in the US . . . from crude oil sources as a byproduct. This will not cut our dependency on OPEC. If ethanol becomes a staple fuel, big oil can comvert refineries to maximize ethanol production and produce it in larger volumes and cheaper than bio-sources.
Producing more energy than it takes to produce it is not the lynch-pin in the economics model. Right now, ethanol can be and is produced in chemical plants from crude oil sources for much cheaper than it can be produced from bio-sources. Purification of this byproduct is also cheaper because ethanol is slightly polar and most of the other things in the chemical soup at these plants are non-polar.
Until the economics change, Bio-fuels will be economically challenged in the marketplace.
Re:Ethanol (Score:5, Informative)
Not true. Apparently you can't run the mix through long pipelines. Much of our fueling ifrastructure relies on these pipelines from the refineries to fueling depots where it is further distributed by truck.
When sent through the pipelines, E85 tends to separate back out... It's only available near locations where the alcohol is produced and can be mixed directly.
Re:Ethanol (Score:3, Informative)
Rare? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of COURSE it's rare [shell.com] for an oil company [bpsolar.com] to fund any research [arabicnews.com] into alternative energy sources. [ab.ntnu.no]
The economics of the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
Alternative energy sources are now becoming profitable. We are going to see a lot more of this kind of thing.
My current favorite project converts turkey guts to oil. (www.changingworldtech.com) The latest I have heard is that they are now running a profit. They calculate that if America's agricultural WASTE could be converted to energy, there would be no need for oil imports.
These are exciting times. Building 'refineries' all over the country to convert waste to oil will create many jobs. This will be a good thing for the economy. It will also be good for the environment. If we use biomass rather than dug-up oil, we will not be contributing new CO2 to the atmosphere.
Ethanol Purification is Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
One must separate the water from the Ethanol to make it useful, this is typically done by distillation which uses nearly as much energy as the ethanol produced. What is worse is that Ethanol/Water is aziotropic. This means that when distilling ethanol from water, eventually the separation hits a stopping point at about 95% ethanol because the boiling points of water and ethanol in a mixture of 95%/10% ethanol/water are about the same. This is why the highest proof alcoholic drinks are typically 180-190 proof (as opposed to 200 proof which would be 100% Ethanol). Mass separating agents (nasty additives) have to be added to the ethanol/water mixture to elicit a near 100% separation. This makes purification even more expensive.
Ethanol in gasoline is almost all chemical and refinery byproducts. Almost none is from bio sources because the chemical byproduct is so much cheaper than bio-fuel ethanol. In fact some alcohol produced at chemical plants is purified and sold for human consumption (it is added to some cheap gins). It's kinda weird to see a bonded and taxed tank of ethanol on a chemical plant site.
Bio-produced ethanol often sounds good to politicians, but unless there is a new low energy water/ethanol separation process, it will never be economicall feasible on a large scale.
Somewhat unrelated, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
-matthew
It's rare. (Score:4, Funny)
It's rare to HEAR about it. It's not rare for it to happen.
Most media outlets aren't willing to say anything positive about capitalism, it undermines their agenda.
No, it's not sensational enough. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the reason the media don't report it isn't their 'hatred of capitalism', it's because it isn't sensational enough. Bad things are sensational, whether it's US troops being shot up, princesses dying in Parisian road tunnels, or Democrat presidents playing around with interns. Companies investing money into research isn't news, it's business. Results get reported in the business news, they only reach the main news either when it goes wrong, or the
This is a positive step but it won't change much (Score:5, Informative)
This is fantastic if it reduces the cost of ethanol production, and allows it to be produced from straw that is currently just burned. But it won't make the gas industry obsolete.
Help the effort, drink more booze! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Methanol more usefull still (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Methanol more usefull still (Score:4, Interesting)
Enzymes are catalysts (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Enzymes are catalysts (Score:3, Interesting)
I set the
You forget one thing: (Score:3, Funny)
Gas prices (Score:3, Insightful)
1 Taxes are a big part of gas prices.
2 $2 isn't tha much, people pay more then this for a bottle of water.
Re:Non Threatening Research. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, I really do, and I think you are naive for suggesting otherwise.
Contrary to what may be suggested by the moniker "Big Oil," there are several oil companies. They compete with one another.
The oil business is a difficult one to compete in. Ever wonder why Exxon bought out Mobil (to form what was for several years the largest company in the world?), BP bought out Amoco, etc? Economies of scale. It's nearly impossible to run a petroleum company and make any money unless you are HUGE. Profit margins are very tight. It's a mature business. You can't come up with a special widget, form a 1 man company, and be successful selling it to a niche market overlooked by big companies. Gasoline is gasoline is gasoline.
Oil majors are broken up into an upstream business, a refining business, and a petrochemicals business. One of the reasons this is done is to smooth out gains and losses associated with fluctuating oil prices which oil companies themselves don't control nearly as much as OPEC. When oil prices are high (supply is artificially low b/c of OPEC control), the upstream and refining businesses make money. However, petrochemicals suffers because the feedstocks to petrochemical processes are refined petroleum. When prices are low, the upstream and refining businesses suffer, but petrochemicals does well.
It just so happens that you and I are direct consumers of a big chunk of refined petroleum, namely gasoline. We are not direct consumers of petrochemical feedstocks (you don't go to Wal-Mart and buy a cylinder of ethylene or benzene). So unless you have been involved in the business, you know only half the story.
It's a dumb thing to complain about, in any event. The price of gasoline over the past 20 years or so has actually risen less than inflation.
Re:Non Threatening Research. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got two questions for you.
If gasoline were completely replaced by ethanol, what companies would be positioned best in the market to distribute it, deliver it, and sell it? What companies would own a massive fleet of tanker trucks, miles and miles of pipelines, storage tanks and distribution centers, and hundreds of thousands of facilities with underground storage tank