Cellulosic Ethanol Better Than Expected
New studies show that it takes less energy to grow cellulosic crops.
Kevin Bullis 01/08/2008
- 19 Comments
There's some more good news about cellulosic ethanol, a fuel derived from grasses and other nonfood sources. It's long been estimated that the amount of energy in such fuels will be much more than the energy required to make them--which is not the case with corn-grain-based ethanol. Now experimental results are in, and the ratio of energy produced to energy used is even better than expected. The renewable energy produced was 540 percent more than the nonrenewable energy used to make it. Previous studies estimated that the number would be more like 340 percent. The improvement comes, basically, from farmers using less energy than researchers thought they would to grow switchgrass, one of the proposed cellulosic sources.
The better ratio means that cellulosic ethanol could do more to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions than previously thought. That's particularly good news, since new legislation will require that some 21 billion gallons of fuel be made from such non-corn-grain sources. The trick now is to improve methods for converting switchgrass into ethanol--making the processes cheaper--and to get farmers to start growing switchgrass in large amounts.
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Daniel from SA
8 Comments
What about the water?
In my limited knowledge of bioethanol processes, one of the major problems (and energy consumers) is removing the water from the ethanol. The processes I know of use distillation, consuming a lot of the energy gained by making the ethanol. Is there another way of separating ethanol and water? (I am thinking polarity, reactivity, shape?) I know this is a naive comment, but I hope to get some fresh thoughts on the topic.
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RD
212 Comments
Re: What about the water?
Cellulosic feedstock should dramatically reduce the avg 123 gallons of water used to produce every gallon of ethanol from corn. But what of the coal used for many of the current and planned ethanol facilities. At about 300 tons of coal for each plant per day, does the heat input really make this an efficient and clean process just so that we reduce overall CO2, when science now is showing that CO2 ISN'T the problem?
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Scottar
25 Comments
Re: What about the water?
RD:
You are correct that more evidence is coming to light that climate change is not really driven by CO2 emissions. In fact one scientist showed that natural emission fudge uncertainties far overshadowed Anthropogenic CO2 emissions. And this scientist showed that the IPCC over- sensitized it's climate models to CO2's contribution and positive feedback elements in the climate system. I have read various other articles that support his findings:
http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm
Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong"
Michael Asher (Blog) - March 6, 2008 11:02 AM
New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible
Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was. That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center........... Go to website for more.
So what the government and research labs should be doing is developing more efficiency in energy usage as well as alternatives and quit worrying about the AGW CO2 factor. And they should allow more drilling for gas and oil as needed to keep the economy 'oiled' and energy prices reasonable until those alternatives can be properly developed and implemented. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will the new energy economy.
From what I have read best possibilities are solar produced energy alternatives both at the consumer as well as large commercial installations, electrical and hybrid type technology, diesel ICE's, bio fuels from engineered microbes and algee sources. Lets not rule out carbon fuel cell technology to take advantage of the vast resources of coal. Wind is more of a bandaid then real power source, it would be better utilized for production of hydrogen or other liquid energy form. And there are better designs then the tower type that are less intrusive. 4th generation nuclear plants that require less enriched uranium and use helium as a coolant instead of water could also be utilized with advanced transmutation of the nuke waste into fuel and short lived waste isotopes.
When you remove the hysteria and fear mongering of the Envirocrats the energy scene becomes limitless, especially with technological innovation. It will be an ongoing diversified progression with no one winner, unless fusion becomes a viable reality.
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