New Fuel Source Grows on the Prairie: With Oil Prices Up, Biomass Looks More Feasible

Washington Post ^ | 06/21/2006 | Justin Gillis

[cogitator]

If ambitious plans taking shape in Washington and in state capitals come to fruition, this pile of stalks and many more like it will become the oil wells of the 21st century. The idea is to run the nation's transportation system largely on alcohol produced from bulk plant material, weaning America from foreign oil and the risks that go with it, including wars, global warming and terrorism.

...

Yet fundamental questions about the biomass alternative have yet to be answered. The economics of making ethanol from biomass remain unproven on a commercial scale. Simply collecting all the necessary straw, cornstalks, wood chips and other waste would be a vast logistical problem, and growing energy crops would require big changes in U.S. agriculture.

...

Two former directors of central intelligence, R. James Woolsey and John M. Deutch, have become advocates of biomass as a fuel source. The basic insight, Woolsey said in an interview, is to realize that global warming, the geopolitics of oil, and warfare in the Persian Gulf are not separate problems -- they are aspects of a single problem, the West's dependence on oil.

[cogitator]

This is a really good (and relatively unbiased) story on the promise and pitfalls of producing ethanol from biomass stocks.

[P-40]

And it sounds like ethanol production has come a long way...

http://www.comcast.net/news/finance/index.jsp?cat=FINANCE&fn=/2006/06/20/417620.html

Like ethanol, butanol is an alcohol compound, but with four carbon atoms instead of two. DuPont officials said the different chemical structure of butanol gives it several advantages over ethanol, including tolerance to water contamination, facilitating transportation via pipeline.

The U.S. fuel market has been constrained by the fact that ethanol, which attracts water molecules and therefore tends to corrode pipelines, must be transported on trucks, trains and bargest in relatively small batches to storage terminals where it is then blended with gasoline.

Another advantage of biobutanol, officials said, is that it can be blended into gasoline at higher concentrations than ethanol without the need to retrofit vehicles, and it offers better fuel economy than gasoline-ethanol blends.

[IronJack]

Ethanol bump.

[Red Badger]

Diesel will be (and is) the answer............

[P-40]

Diesel will be (and is) the answer............

Biodiesel is a great product...but the gasoline engine is just so entrenched in our market and culture.

[Red Badger]

Entrenched or not, people just want to get from point A to point B. If more people knew of the reasons we should convert to diesel, they'd be clamoring for more diesels. It is all around the best answer to our "Oil dependency"........

[pabianice]

I'm buying stock in Safe Fuel

[P-40]

If more people knew of the reasons we should convert to diesel, they'd be clamoring for more diesels.

That they would...but they always think of soot and smell or rattling engines. Perhaps next year when the new diesels hit the market more people will start looking at them.

[akorahil]

I too am considering a diesel for my next vehicle.
do you happen to know a few sites and/or sources offhand that I can convince my co workers?

[Red Badger]

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

[Red Badger]

http://www.biodiesel.org/

[P3pilotJAX]

I am in Sicily on deployment with the Navy. The great majority of vehicles here are diesel. There are all kinds of little ford cars with turbo-diesels here.

[Red Badger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

http://www.dancingrabbit.org/biodiesel/

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/biodiesel.html

[Red Badger]

Just remember. We can GROW diesel fuel. We cannot grow gasoline..........

[P-40]

The great majority of vehicles here are diesel.

I've heard that much of the UK is trending towards diesel engines...and it is making diesel expensive here at home...which is doing wonders for creating a market in biodiesel. Six months ago it was hard to find someone that had even heard of biodiesel and if they had they thought it came exclusively from used fry oil.

[akorahil]

Thank you! I will now have some sources for coworkers!

[MyDogAllah]

Me? I'll put any darn thing in my truck if it means my money stays out of the muddle east, out of venezoola, and out of the pockets of people who hate our guts.

If I can make a bunch of great American mid-westerners wealthy in the process, I'm happy to do it!

Let the rags eat sand!

[yankeedame]

...but the gasoline engine is just so entrenched in our market and culture.

And the reason it has been for over 100 years is because...?

[P-40]

And the reason it has been for over 100 years is because...?

Because until relatively recent times the small engine market was not well-served by diesel.

[alloysteel]

Why is it necessary to go through the intermediary of producing alcohol, when it is possible to make kerogen DIRECTLY from biomass? Take just about ANY kind of organic material, put it in a sealed retort in anaerobic conditions, and heat it up to about 900° F., for about two hours, maintaining a pressure of two atmospheres. The product is the aforementioned kerogen, a precursor of most of the fractions which are extracted from crude oil, and some slightly brackish water.

This is just a very rapid acceleration of the process that goes on, continuously, in nature. Petroleum IS a renewable resource.