Posted on 04/23/2010 12:16:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Scientists may have just made the breakthrough of a lifetime, turning discarded fruit peels and other throwaways into cheap, clean fuel to power the world’s vehicles.
University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has developed a groundbreaking way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. His approach is greener and less expensive than the current methods available to run vehicles on cleaner fuel — and his goal is to relegate gasoline to a secondary fuel.
Daniell’s breakthrough can be applied to several non-food products throughout the United States, including sugarcane, switchgrass and straw.
Could be a turning point
“This could be a turning point where vehicles could use this fuel as the norm for protecting our air and environment for future generations,” he said.
Daniell’s technique uses plant-derived enzyme cocktails to break down orange peels and other waste materials into sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol.
The most popular source used now is corn starch, which is fermented and converted into ethanol. But ethanol derived from corn produces more greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline does. Ethanol created using Daniell’s approach produces much lower greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline or electricity.
Tobacco plants provide cheaper enzymes
There’s also an abundance of waste products that could be used without reducing the world’s food supply or driving up food prices. In Florida alone, discarded orange peels could create about 200 million gallons of ethanol each year, Daniell said.
More research is needed before Daniell’s findings, published this month in the highly regarded Plant Biotechnology Journal, can move from his laboratory to the market. But the other scientists conducting research in biofuels describes the early results as promising.
Daniell’s team cloned genes from wood-rotting fungi or bacteria and produced enzymes in tobacco plants. Producing these enzymes in tobacco instead of manufacturing synthetic versions could reduce the cost of production by a thousand times, which means the cost of making ethanol should be significantly reduced, Daniell said.
Someone is not paying attention.
did they miss the report yesterday that toilet paper is not as soft because people are buying fewer and fewer papers?
Now we gotta give up our precious TP softener for fuel too??
geesh
“SOMEONE”is DEFINITELY NOT PAYING Attention!We DON’T need to find more ways of producing a VERY inneficient motor-fuel”stretcher”,we need to DRILL,BABY,DRILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
definitely
Finally, the New York Times has found its useful purpose.
Why don’t we try industrial hemp? Henry Ford wanted to use it.
My first thought. There’s a coming shortage of newspapers... due to a distinct lack of demand!
Ethanol as fuel is just fine.
But the vehicles themselves would have to be re-engineered to take fullest advantage of its potential. For one thing, rather than internal combustion engines, and EXTERNAL combustion engine may be a better utilization of our fuel supplies. A well designed steam unit with heat reclamation capabilities, which was designed in the mddle 1920’s by a fellow named Abner Doble, would seem to be much better suited to using acohol as a fuel than most internal combustion engines.
If the object is to propel a vehicle down the road at the greatest number of miles traveled per BTU of energy consumed, then steam as a medium to driving the wheels from the heat generated by a burning flame would seem to be a much more elegant and sensible utilization of resources.
Given the series of quantum leaps in thechnology in metallurgy and electronic controls available today, a steem-driven vehicle could well be the answer to todays more vexing problems with fuel supplies, because of its ablity to use a wide number of fuels, and its inherently much cleaner exhaust.
To say nothing of the comparative potential for efficiency.
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-last-great-steam-car
Interesting to note that despite all the hype from farm groups about ethanol, I don’t know of any farm equipment that operates on high ethanol blends. You would think that if ethanol is such a great product, farm groups would be clamoring for tractors, farm trucks and combines running on 85%+ ethanol.
How many have been sold commercial since then? The tractor you linked was a government subsidized experiment.
2006, not 1996
I did work for a farmer that ran one of his tractors on ethanol back in the late 1970’s.
I don't think the tractor was the main reason, but it was the reason his still was legit. He talked how his permit didn't say anything about keeping his still clean enough to drink out of.
The man also made about a dozen types of wines. One of them was made from dandelion stems.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.