Alternate Fuel

[Swatopluk]

Which brings us back to the old idea of putting a gas collector into the cow anus

[Aggie]

If, however, you use bacterial fermentation process, the net carbon-to-atmosphere is zero:  the plant takes in CO2 to build cellulose using solar energy.   A loss of atmospheric carbon.  Then, the material is fermented into ethanol-- releasing some carbon into the atmosphere in the process, but less than the plant took in.  Finally the ethanol is burned, releasing the rest.  Net: zero addition to the atmosphere of CO2.   Total environmental impact, low.   Sawgrass requires little maintenance or water, or so I'm told. Once established.  Although to get 3-4 crops a year, you'd likely need regular rainfall, or have to use irrigation, which could stress existing fresh water supplies.

It all hinges on finding a single-step cellulose-to-ethanol process.  Currently, it takes more than one step to get there-- too costly, too much energy required. 

There are some promising bacterias, though.  Cow's stomachs.  Think of the fermentation that goes on in there. 

There's one issue I can't see how to get around with ethanol production, and that's distillation.  It's always going to need to be distilled out, unless we can easily produce an enzyme that will work in a pure ethanol environment - bacterial certainly won't.

Of course, alcohol-fueled burners have been used on a smaller scale for years and there's no reason one could not simply consume some of the product to heat the distillation - and there's likely going to be leftover biosolids that could be ran through an anaerobic digester to produce biogas.

[anthrobabe]

the whole topic reminds me of

"who run barter town?"
"master blaster, run barter town"
"louder"
"MASTER BLASTER RUNS BARTER TOWN"
"lift embargo"

KUDZU!!!!! run the world, yep lots of Kudzu

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Busy bees, all of you (how is that I just see this topic? Some delay on the unread posts feature?)
---
I've read quite a bit on the subject (Scientific American, The Economist) and is clear that until an economical cellulose process is industrially viable corn should be out of the picture.

But the most interesting article I read recently was on Time Magazine : the clean energy scam. It makes the link between mandates on the use of biofuel, rising cost of food and the destruction of the amazon forest.

When the amount of fuel required to (even partially) replace oil is as big as it is, the use of crops will necessarily displace food crops, specially those whose price is low or have a very small profit margin.

I'm all for biofuels, provided that they give more energy than it takes to make them, and provided that filling my tank is not killing people of hunger somewhere else in the world.

[Darlica]

I'm all for biofuels, provided that they give more energy than it takes to make them, and provided that filling my tank is not killing people of hunger somewhere else in the world.

This is my view too.
And I do feel worried about the reports about people in 3 world countries starving because of the fields are used to grow biofuel for consumers in 1 world countries.
Mind you we don't have an election coming up here any time soon, or any thing else that politically would trigger an anti biofuel campaign.

Personally I think bio-diesel seems much more interesting than ethanol, because we can grow rape, flax and other oily plants here too, on fields that is no longer needed for wheat or oath. Also think of all the, used frying oil from restaurant kitchens and the fat from the fat traps in the sinks!
How about installing a fat trap in every household sink and encourage people to recycle their excess/disposed cooking fat/oil?
I'll do that in a heartbeat. Less clogged pipes, more presumptive biofuel.     

[Swatopluk]

I herewith claim the invention of the liposuction car!
I call it the Limbaughmile 

[Aggie]

Haven't we proposed that before? (as far back as TOP, I think)

How about running a biodiesel refinery out of a crematorium basement?  Hey, it's getting burned anyway...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Or make commemorative soap figures...

[pieces o nine]

Or make commemorative soap figures...

I grew up with the clear understanding that 'guest soaps' (and towels) were absolutely off limits. This aversion indoctrination was so strong that my friends and I giggle that we don't touch them even when we *are* guests!

'Guest soaps' made out of dear old whoever....  there's a vast, untapped marketing niche in that, I fear.

[Opsa]

We talked some more with the guy that's creating the alternative fuels company and he's doing all kinds of resourceful things.  He'll be starting out by making bio-diesel from used vegetable oil from restaurants to power equipment used to manufacture ethanols. It's pretty exciting.

[pieces o nine]

A pity wind traps can't be modified to tap into the vast amount of hot air expended every day on talk radio and Faux News...

"How's the Taurus running since the retrofit, Pieces?"
"Fantastic! I can run all my errands on just one hour of Hannity, and visit out-of-town friends on one tank of the O'Reilly Factor."

[Swatopluk]

The rightwinger car aka the Mo-bile

That reminds me: If you are adult and speak German you may google "Frau Wirtin hat auch ein Mobil"

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Busy bees, all of you (how is that I just see this topic? Some delay on the unread posts feature?)

It seems seriously screwed up.

Some days it works-- other days, I must manually scan the various threads for (new).

*bleah*

[Aggie]

We talked some more with the guy that's creating the alternative fuels company and he's doing all kinds of resourceful things.  He'll be starting out by making bio-diesel from used vegetable oil from restaurants to power equipment used to manufacture ethanols. It's pretty exciting.

This is exciting - and is exactly what is neglected in most alternative energy schemes.  You gots to input alternative energy to really count your output - so many of the alternatives are manufactured / processed / fueled by petroleum (wind turbines are a good example - built in fossil-fuel powered factories, put up with diesel equipment).

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

We talked some more with the guy that's creating the alternative fuels company and he's doing all kinds of resourceful things.  He'll be starting out by making bio-diesel from used vegetable oil from restaurants to power equipment used to manufacture ethanols. It's pretty exciting.

This is exciting - and is exactly what is neglected in most alternative energy schemes.  You gots to input alternative energy to really count your output - so many of the alternatives are manufactured / processed / fueled by petroleum (wind turbines are a good example - built in fossil-fuel powered factories, put up with diesel equipment).

One of the most interesting factories I ever read about, was sugar-cane processing.

Sugar cane is much like bamboo, except with sweet liquid inside.  These canes are harvested, and crushed to release the liquid, and the remaining cane is just so much waste.

Except, that reducing the liquid into granulated sugar requires quite a bit of heat.  What else?  Burn the cane-- it's almost pure cellulose anyway, and burns quite nicely, if left to dry just a bit.

So, most production plants utilize the leftover canes to heat their processes-- many also fire turbines to generate electrical power, too.  Some sell the excess to the surrounding communities....

Neat, that.