"Switchgrass" was in the State of the Union speech, in this context. Perhaps the first time that word was applauded in the halls of congress. I better read up on cellulose fermentation, and see if anybody it looking at tumbleweed. Now _there_ is a plant that will grow on hardly any inputs.
:lol: :lol: I wonder if a prez has gone up there and just picked a random word or phrase, like "Fruit Bats", said it, and enjoyed 2 minutes of confused but enthusiastic applause. Swtichgrass is one possibility. Willow and somekinda elephant grass that is sterile (so it can't grow and take over, yeah, kinda Jurrasic Park) have been mentioned as possibilities. I'm not sure it the process involves fermentation. I know that it envolves special enzyms designed for the task. That's why it's been very expensive up until recently. Getting the enzyms right is the trick appearently. There's a Canadian company, Iogen I believe, that is at the forefront of this technology.
Iogen seems to be leading with industrial-scale enzymes for this. Fermentation of sugars to ethanol is more familiar in connection with "adult beverages". If we start with starch or cellulose, there are some chemical steps to get to sugar. Tumbleweed was mentioned in a list of potential plants in a Calif. study (2000 or 2001). They didn't do anything with it. I think an advantage is that you don't "grow" this plant, just collect it on downwind fences, etc. Dry matter production seems to max out at 3 tons per hectare year. Very optimistically, this becomes 150 gallons ethanol.
I wonder how well sugar beets would do compared to corn. Yeah, corn is subsidized but it's also fairly versitile. Once it's been processed for ethanol the distillers grains left over can be used to feed cattle. That's what most of our corn is used for anyways.
With as much "Eco-friendly" image as Toyota is trying to spew nowadays, you'd think they would come up with an E85 modification to the Prius, then arrange to distribute E85 in select markets (perhaps at their dealerships or partner with a top tier gas supplier). Sure it would cost $4/gal., but I'd fill up on that. Why does everything have to take an act of congress in order to happen in this country
How can the benefit be so marginal??? Growing corn fixes carbon atoms from the air (CO2) and turns it into glucose (C6H12). Burning Alcohol/glucose returns that carbon to the air. Net effect is zero to the atmosphere. Pumping oil out of the ground and burning it just releases carbon into the air that would have previously just stayed in the ground.
I think the idea is that when you also include the negative effects of converting corn into ethanol into the equation, than ethanol is only marginally beneficial. I would also be interested in learning about more efficient ethanol production possibilities - if it's there, I hope the market finds it.
Ethanol distillation has gotten more efficient over the years. In the past the energy balance was negative. Newer, more efficient processing methods have improved the situation. Cellulose ethanol is where the future lies. The carbon balance is appearently a lot better, the food supply chain isn't pressured, and material that would ordinarily be considered waste can become a profitable side benefit of agriculture. The trick is getting the enzyms properly tuned. It sounds like this is happening at places like Iogen and others. Cellulose ethanol could really put a dent in our oil dependency. Traditional corn ethanol won't.
They actually do better. The catch is that the beets must be processed immediately after harvesting, since breakdown of the sugar within begins the moment after they are plucked from the ground.
Sugar Cane must be another candidate. Brazil was running fleets of E100 cars (by FoMoCo) back in the 1970s, using this abundant domestic crop.... Wonder where those cars are today? Cane might grow in parts of the southern USA okay (?) ...it seems to like Cuba. But certainly the sugar beet farmers would appreciate a hot new market.... http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/release...6_ethanol.shtml I didn't see the link anywhere....
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cnsxhth @ May 16 2006, 01:52 PM) [snapback]256350[/snapback]</div> Brazil has acheived total independence from oil importation. All of their cars now run on E100. However, they do have a few advantages over us in that regard. They don't have huge requirements for heating of buildings, they are able to grow sugar cane (which is apparently a very efficient means of production- I've read a few reports that range from 6 to 8 times as much energy obtained as what was required for production), and they can run on E100 down there. I think for cars in North America, 85% is as high as you can go with the ethanol and still have engines that start easily in cold weather.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ May 16 2006, 02:07 PM) [snapback]256365[/snapback]</div> You might want to double check that. It's simply not true. Last stats I saw were that Brazil had replaced about 40% of it's gasoline use with Ethanol. However, as far as I know it still imports oil, and runs a lot of diesel. They have recently made some internal oil finds that seem to have decreased their imports though. Also, consider this. "The ethanol program also led to widespread replacement of small farms and varied agriculture by vast seas of sugarcane monoculture. This led to a decrease in biodiversity and further shrinkage of the residual native forests (not only from deforestation but also through fires caused by the burning of adjoining fields). The replacement of food crops by the more lucrative sugarcane has also led to a sharp increase in food prices over the last decade. Since sugarcane only requires hand labor at harvest time, this shift also created a large population of destitute migrant workers who can only find temporary employment as cane cutters (at about US$3 to 5 per day) for one or two months every year. This huge social problem has contributed to political unrest and violence in rural areas, which are now plagued by recurrent farm invasions, vandalism, armed confrontations, and assassinations."
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tempus @ May 16 2006, 12:57 PM) [snapback]256396[/snapback]</div> Here's a link about that: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/04/brazil_to_achie.html Brazil is probably an excellent case study in the pitfalls of biofuels without the support of fuel efficiency. Widespread, sustainable use of biofuels will have to go hand in hand with PHEVs or some similar technology that greatly reduces the liquid fuel requirement. Brazil is now selling more FFVs than conventional vehicles, but I don't know how they mix their fuels or in what combos they distribute it.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tempus @ May 16 2006, 02:57 PM) [snapback]256396[/snapback]</div> You may be right about that. I heard the quote about total energy sufficiency and E100 cars in a report on NPR a few weeks ago. Generally, any kind of monoculture is problematic. Brazil also is now a large soybean producer (I think it's now the largest, but I'm not sure), and the soybeans are grown by big agricompanies, further exacerbating the deforestation problem.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ May 16 2006, 01:55 PM) [snapback]256446[/snapback]</div> They're going to go the way of Austrailia if they don't watch it.