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Forget Corn ...................the new word is cellulose !

listedgreen
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Cellulose Ethanol? Yes, forget corn.
5/21/2007
Alternative energies - wind farms, hydropower, or solar cells are becoming increasingly available. However, over 1/3 of total energy consumption, currently requiring energy dense liquid fuels, i.e. gasoline, diesel fuel, or kerosene, is dedicated to transportation in one form or another. These fuels, all obtained by refining petroleum, continues the planet's dependency on oil and oil producing countries. Continued use of these fossil fuels also contributes to global warming. A practical alternative to oil is ethanol.

Ethanol, produced primarily from starches and/or sugars, is obtained from fruits and grains. Cellulosic ethanol, on the other hand, is obtained from cellulose - the main component of wood, straw and many plants. That means the entire plant can be harvested, resulting in better yields per acre, almost double that of the best grain crops. Additionally, the production of cellulose, not digestable by humans, does not compete with food production and the price per ton of raw cellulose is far less expensive than that of grains or fruits.

Cellulose is plentiful - present in every plant. Most of these bi-products are currently discarded. Transforming them into ethanol, which can be done using hemi (cellulase) enzymes or other cost effective and efficient processes could provide up to 30% of current US fuel consumption.
There are currently around 114 ethanol plants existing, compared to around 95 in early 2006. 80 more are slated for construction and hundreds more are in the developing/planning stages, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
This will obviously impact the cost of corn products, since corn is an editable plant and makes an environmental impact to grow it. It takes fuel to grow corn, so the best alternative is really cellulose, not corn.
Contributed from www.ListedGreen.com

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Submitted by listedgreen on Wed, 05/23/2007 - 13:09.

jstack6
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Re: Forget Corn ...................the new word is cellulose !

Hayden et all,
Yes, ethanol burns 50% cleaner than gas. But it also has less energy per gallon so you get about 80% of the mpg in most vehicles when running E100. It's still better than imported oil.
If you have engines made to run on the higher octane of ethanol they get more of the energy out of it. A higher compression engine with a turbo charger or super charger gets the most out of a gallon of E85 or E100. Saab has a few designs based on this fact.
Even better than corn is sugar cane like Brazil uses. They used to import 80% of their oil and now actually export ethanol. In the US we can use sugar beats. Corn is one of the worst with a return of 1.2 for the energy you have to put into it.
Some worry making ethanol will reduce the food suply. If that were true why do we export corn becuase we have so much ? Why do we pay farmers not to grow corn ? Why do we make so much junk food and soda with high fructose sugar from corn ? Why do we make and consume so much alcahol ? Let's put that waste to work!
check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

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Fri, 05/25/2007 - 05:40

listedgreen
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Re: Forget Corn ...................the new word is cellulose !

I would rather see cellulose than corn because we have a lot of waste product out there and corn affects our food supply directly. Let's use our waste first because it's all about our carbon footprint and corn requires a lot of diesel fuel to harvest. I also read that sugar beets has a better yield than corn by far, as another alternative. Obviously, a combination of a lot of cool technologies currently available, makes this time we currently live, truly exciting. Goodbye oil. At least in part.

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Thu, 05/24/2007 - 14:09

Joe G.
Re: Forget Corn ...................the new word is cellulose !

Reseachers indicate we are still some years away from making cellulose as efficiently extracted as corn. (Not all ethanol is created equal.) Certainly corn is not a long term solution. It would take something like the entire square footage of the top 8 corn growing states to replace all our gasoline consumption. And it takes something like 1 gal. of gas (fertilizer, herbicides, cultivation, transport. etc.) to produce 1 1/4 gal. of ethanol - and it's less efficient than gas! Kind of a wash, but good for corn farmers isn't it? Hopefully the ethanol plants will be able to convert to cellulose when the time is right. I read one plant is adjacent to an animal feed lot and uses the waste to power the plant!


Wed, 05/23/2007 - 14:03

Hayden
Re: Forget Corn ...................the new word is cellulose !

Is it true that Ethanol burns cleaner than regular petroleum based gasoline? If that's true - I'd rather have the corn farmers make good money for a change rather than having all our money leave the coutry making these oil nations weathly beyond belief- perhaps not such a wash if domestically speaking we'd be better off and if it's actually better for the environment - I know, a lot of "ifs" - I'd still like to know if anyone does know.

Thanks,
Hayden


Thu, 05/24/2007 - 13:52