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Saturday, July 01, 2006 Redesigning Life to Make EthanolGenetically engineered organisms can more efficiently produce ethanol from cheap and abundant sources of biomass, such as agricultural waste. It could make ethanol cost competitive. By Jamie Shreeve
On January 31, Ari Patrinos was sitting in his living room in Rockville, MD, listening to the State of the Union speech and slowly nodding off. Suddenly, he was jolted awake. "We'll also fund additional research for cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol," President Bush was saying on the television, "not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switchgrass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years." Unlike most of the legislators who gamely applauded the president's words, Patrinos understood exactly what they meant. In fact, he had dashed them off himself days earlier at the harried request of his boss, unaware that they were destined for the State of the Union speech. Patrinos, then associate director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research, had been touting cellulosic ethanol as an alternative energy source for years, only to be met with indifference or ridicule. Now, it seemed, even the most petro-friendly of politicians was convinced. Producing ethanol fuel from biomass is attractive for a number of reasons. At a time of soaring gas prices and worries over the long-term availability of foreign oil, the domestic supply of raw materials for making biofuels appears nearly unlimited. Meanwhile, the amount of carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere annually by burning fossil fuels is projected to rise worldwide from about 24 billion metric tons in 2002 to 33 billion metric tons in 2015. Burning a gallon of ethanol, on the other hand, adds little to the total carbon in the atmosphere, since the carbon dioxide given off in the process is roughly equal to the amount absorbed by the plants used to produce the next gallon. Using ethanol for auto fuel is hardly a new idea (see "Brazil's Bounty"). Since the energy crisis of the early 1970s, tax incentives have pushed ethanol production up; in 2005, it reached four billion gallons a year. But that still translates to only 3 percent of the fuel in American gas tanks. One reason for the limited use of ethanol is that in the United States, it's made almost exclusively from cornstarch; the process is inefficient and competes with other agricultural uses of corn. While it is relatively easy to convert the starch in corn kernels into the sugars needed to produce ethanol, the fuel yield is low compared with the amount of energy that goes into raising and harvesting the crops. Processing ethanol from cellulose -- wheat and rice straw, switchgrass, paper pulp, agricultural waste products like corn cobs and leaves -- has the potential to squeeze at least twice as much fuel from the same area of land, because so much more biomass is available per acre. Moreover, such an approach would use feedstocks that are otherwise essentially worthless. Converting cellulose to ethanol involves two fundamental steps: breaking the long chains of cellulose molecules into glucose and other sugars, and fermenting those sugars into ethanol. In nature, these processes are performed by different organisms: fungi and bacteria that use enzymes (cellulases) to "free" the sugar in cellulose, and other microbes, primarily yeasts, that ferment sugars into alcohol. |
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Ethanol from Garbage and Old Tires
02/19/2008
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
Guest (Lee McClune) on 07/19/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
interested, see > sorganol.com < ,
been trying to get some Government support, but have been unable to get any help,, it not only has High Potential, it is Very Low Cost to Grow, and is drought resistant, and can be grown anywhere in the US, with no exotic chemicals/enzymes needed,,
Sugar cane can only be grown in tropical areas,, LFM, knoxville,Ia
Guest (plugged in) on 07/21/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Mike) on 07/21/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Also - what temp will the ethanol boil/distill off at and at what % efficiency? Otherwise - good stuff!
Guest (Marty Riske) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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ssrao@nrcsorghum.res.in on 08/18/2006 at 6:55 AM
1
reoplan on 08/21/2006 at 5:56 PM
2
Let's chat. I'll explain all when we do.
info@reoplan.com or waxman44@verizon.net
Send me your contact information.
Thanks,
Alan
sweetsorghum on 09/19/2006 at 7:36 PM
1
My e-mail is flinqian@hotmail.com
waygmcgo on 11/06/2006 at 5:29 PM
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Guest (sirlanse) on 07/21/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Mike) on 07/21/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Alex) on 07/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Keith) on 08/02/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
While i generally disagree with ongoing government funded research programs ware there is little to no incentive for results and often the incentive to use up all the monies given in yearly budgets in fear that next year those budgets will be reduced, all with out regard to how well the monies are used in research.
The use of prize monies by the government, would provide incentives to companies to compete in areas ware the people want the country to go.
reoplan on 08/21/2006 at 6:02 PM
2
You are absolutely right. And, there are some business models out there that form the blueprint you suggest we need. Interestingly, the model has nothing whatsoever to do with the petroleum industry. I want to talk to Lee first. Then we'll determine which way to go. I've been down that road and I'm proud to say my thumbprint is on one of them. In this case, Yankee Doodle HAS A FARM!
Guest (Jim D) on 07/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Mike) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Sean) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (John) on 07/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Either way, if it is something that can survive "in the wild", I can see it being very dangerous to crops.
Guest (C. Scott Miller) on 07/26/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (R. Kellmer) on 08/07/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
1. Grow the grain and harvest it. That's food for people.
2. Havest the stalks and use enzymes to convert to ethanol. There's energy.
3. Feed the byproducts of the ethanol process to cattle or other animals. That gives us more food.
4. Use the manure from the cattle to produce methane and use it to run a generator. Sell the electricity to the power grid.
jhawkmurph on 09/01/2006 at 10:18 AM
1
Wood chips are suggested and are fine, but eventally, those with septic tanks, who need to convert NH3-nitrogen, to NOx-nitrogen, will be forced by EPA, et al, to compete in that deciduous market.
But, I do like the octane route, but favor the bio-diesel route from algae (Green Fuels). TPM
Cpt_Nemo on 01/22/2007 at 2:08 AM
14
A woman received a MacArthur genius award for her pioneering research on the communication pathways between bacteria.
I believe that it is possible to find and develop a cooperative slime mould that has as its primary purpose conversion of nutrient rich fluids - the unprocessed sap from sugar cane, or other plants that have a high proportion of sugars - into ethanol. With tuning (selective breding) and creative use of microfluidics the systems could be designed to increase the ratio of ethanol to other byproducts that are unwanted. It should be arranged with the provision of an intake reservoir and also a reservoir that collects its continual output.
In otherwords, I believe that it should mimic the urinary(ethanol output) and digestion(consuming juice to be processed)/excretion(elimination of digested material) that is found in multicellular lifeforms.