Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 19:00:28 -0800
Reply-To: Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Subject: Re: Ethanol is the fuel of the future?
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The thrust of that article was that some company had engineered an enzyme
that would efficiently break down cellulose and extract the sugars (if I'm
remembering this correctly) out of almost whatever plant matter in which it
happened to be- the idea being that you didn't have to use the corn, you
could use the stalk and the husks. Taken to its logical conclusion this
means that the millions or whatever tons of waste plant matter discarded
each year could be turned toward ethanol production without tapping the food
supply itself. Basically the idea is you build the processing plant near
farms or food processing facilities so you don't have to truck the waste
plant mass very far, and then the fuel is distributed outward from the
plant. You would have several smaller distillery/refineries all over instead
of massive centralized refineries like we have now with oil. This would also
help with problems with supply like those that happened with the hurricanes.
IIRC, the enzyme was also more effective in getting sugars out of high
sugar-yield crops; if you could expect to get X amount out of your corn,
sugar cane or sugar beets, then you would get X+ out of them with the
enzyme.
They also reported that they have done small area trials with this and the
model has worked as expected in those trials.
Part of the article was about current and near-future engines that are
supposed to be ethanol compatible, which led to my original question about
the WBX. My other question was, where is the water supposed to come from?
Cya,
Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wesley Pegden" <wes@CS.UCHICAGO.EDU>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: Ethanol is the fuel of the future?
> Sorry to revive this old thread, but here's more food for thought. They
> say that a pound of food requires a pound a oil to produce. Unless that
> ratio is much better for ethanol, we're no better off. From the linked
> article, this sounds promising: getting ethanol from switch grass almost
> sounds like getting it for free. But every time I see one of those "go
> green" GM commercials with SUV's and cornfields, I'm overcome with
> skepticism. Call my crazy, but I have a feeling that every ineffective
> way of reducing oil dependence will be pushed as hard as possible before
> we actually move onto to the effective ones.
>
> -Wes
>
> Evan Mac Donald wrote:
>> <snip>
>>
>> I seem to recall a thread on this a few months ago- what needs to be
>> done to a WBX to burn ethanol properly? Higher compression...?
>> This brought to mind the Zetec conversion, among others- what are the
>> current conversion options that will handle ethanol readily?
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> In general, an alcohol-fueled engine runs slightly cooler and gets
>> poorer milage than a gasoline-fueled one. This is mostly because of two
>> related factors. Alcohol burns cooler than gasoline, and does not have
>> the same energy density. You need to burn more than a gallon of alcohol
>> to get the same amount of enegy that you get from a gallon of gasoline.
>> But, as was mentioned in the article, the emissions from burning that
>> more-than-a-gallon are far less. And that is before you consider some of
>> the other factors involved in gasoline production. Tranport efforts,
>> production problems, the list is long. There are lots of costs, and not
>> all are monetary.
>> Personally, I liked the part for Brazil about NOT sending all that
>> money out of country, and being able to keep in at home. That looked good
>> for their economy. Any country that sends lots of money away is asking
>> for trouble.
>>
>>
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