Posted on 11/02/2007 5:51:43 AM PDT by Red Badger
Crude glycerin is a low-value byproduct of the growing biodiesel industry. But one company, Glycos Biotechnologies Inc., sees potential for the product as a feedstock for ethanol production.
Last year, a way to connect the ethanol and biodiesel industries was revealed when it was determined that biodiesel could be a value-added product for ethanol plants through corn oil extraction technology. This year, researchers at Rice University in Houston have discovered yet another link. This new concept is centered on a technology that converts glycerin, a byproduct of biodiesel production, into ethanol.
Ramon Gonzalez and Syed Shams Yazdani have identified the metabolic processes and conditions that allow a known strain of Escherichia coli to convert glycerin into ethanol through an anaerobic fermentation process. Gonzalez is currently the William Akers assistant professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University, and Yazdani is a postdoctoral research associate.
In a comparison of feedstock and operating costs, Gonzalez found that ethanol from glycerol is 39 cents cheaper to produce than ethanol from corn. Feedstock costs per gallon were 53 cents for corn, versus 30 cents for glycerol. Per gallon operating costs were 52 cents for corn and just 36 cents for glycerol (see table above). "The main reason for the difference in costs is that there is no preprocessing," Gonzalez says. In feedstock operations, the corn must be ground and cooked, and the sugar extracted. "It is a process that is both capital and process intensive," Gonzalez says. "You need to work all the way from the corn grain until you get sugar, and then you start fermentation." Meanwhile, glycerin doesn't require those steps because it comes preprocessed. This means no enzymes to buy and less equipment.
I agree subsidies. misguided, shortsighted subsidies.
and how long before they come after our food? Would you starve or fight for what you need?
And why, exactly, would that be the case?? Here's the facts: 1) Corn production for ethanol will be INCREASED significantly over demand for food use alone, 2) only the carbohydrate fraction of corn gets "used" in ethanol production, 3) the protein and fat content returns to the "food chain" AS FOOD.
The net result will be that overall food quantity will increase (with the exceptions of products that are "whole corn", like tortillas, corn cereals, etc).
“This new concept is centered on a technology that converts glycerin, a byproduct of biodiesel production, into ethanol.”
This only sounds affordable. They will certainly figure out a way to make a pennies on the dollar compound cost a freakin’ arm and a leg.
Pingaling!
How long? Starving people have very little ‘git up and go’. Look at Zimbabwe. Not much threat by them is there?
40 years ago, when I was young and foolish, my brother and a bunch of other 18 -22 year olds spent several years in Haiti. They set up demonstration farms.
Back home in MN, and from all across the country, we scraped together a bunch of heifers and sows and shipped them, by air, to Haiti so that they could have some of the best seed stock available.
This program went on for more than a decade, and resulted in nice herds of animals, and grain crops, along with hundreds of Haitians who were trained in the raising and care of these precious commodities.
Once the project was self sustaining, support was gradually withdrawn, and the Haitians had an ongoing business, owned entirely by them.
Within six months, all of the animals had been slaughtered, including the precious seedstock we had all sarificed for, no one cared for the crops, and they were back to where they were ten years earlier.
I say ‘let ‘em starve’, not out of anger. Simply out of the realization that I shouldn’t care more about their survival than they do.
My tagline is true from many facets.
Press the oil, centrifuge it to extract the glycerin, process the oil for fuel, ferment the glycerin to ethanol and send the bulk waste out for feed.
Not bad.
You’ll still be burning it.
You're right. But I would be doing it rather than my car. And I would [hopefully] live longer for having done so. I'm not so sure about my car.
Humans are notoriously inefficient at digesting whole corn products, but nomads on a corn diet make good vectors for plant propagation.
I like to eat it indirectly --in the form of beef, chicken and pork.
There you go again. Eating while drinking and driving.
Have you ever eaten #2 yellow corn?
I don't know. What is it?
The corn from which ethanol is made.
And not to mention the fact that no one wants to pay $10 for a box of corn flakes and $100 per pound of meat from livestock raised on corn.
Hey Gringo, how ees mi señora supposed to nmake las tortillas with the freakin’ soy beans? We doan need no steenkin soybeans. In fack we doan need no more beans, got plenty now.
I've seen corn IN #2........
Gracias for the recipes, Gringo. I jam sure thees weel gib my entire familla enough strength to sweem to jour neighborhood tonite!
There are plenty of your familias in my neighborhood now. One even stopped by my house Sunday when I was working in the yard and asked if my travel trailer was “for rent”...............
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