Posted on 04/09/2008 8:11:54 PM PDT by Josh Painter
ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) — Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees...What's that I hear? Why, it's the music track from the Lemon Pipers' 1968 hit, "My Green Tambourine." I've altered the lyrics slightly...While it may be five to 10 years before green gasoline arrives at the pump or finds its way into a fighter jet, these breakthroughs have bypassed significant hurdles to bringing green gasoline biofuels to market...
"Green gasoline is an attractive alternative to bioethanol since it can be used in existing engines and does not incur the 30 percent gas mileage penalty of ethanol-based flex fuel," said John Regalbuto, who directs the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and supported this research.
"In theory it requires much less energy to make than ethanol, giving it a smaller carbon footprint and making it cheaper to produce," Regalbuto said. "Making it from cellulose sources such as switchgrass or poplar trees grown as energy crops, or forest or agricultural residues such as wood chips or corn stover, solves the lifecycle greenhouse gas problem that has recently surfaced with corn ethanol and soy biodiesel."
Beyond academic laboratories, both small businesses and Fortune 500 petroleum refiners are pursuing green gasoline. Companies are designing ways to hybridize their existing refineries to enable petroleum products including fuels, textiles, and plastics to be made from either crude oil or biomass and the military community has shown strong interest in making jet fuel and diesel from the same sources...
I don't need no oil from Saudi sheikhs Or from those crazy Persian freaks It's the coolest thing you've ever seen Watch me while I burn... my green gasolineSong parodies are lots of fun, but energy is a serious issue. What do we do while we wait five to ten years for green gasoline to make the long journey from biomass to the pumps in front of the local convenience store?Take this message to the Mid East, dude And tell Chavez what to do with all his crude Hear them cryin' while your hear my engine sing And watch me while I burn... my green gasoline
Corn was made to eat and not to burn When will the politicians ever learn Don't need no ethanol in my machine Watch me while I burn... my green gasoline
The smart thing would be to ramp up our domestic exploration, production and refining capacity so we would have plenty of American oil to help us make the transition to biomass gas and other alternative fuel technologies. We should start tapping the undrilled oil fields in Alaska's ANWAR and off the Gulf Coast. There's billions of barrels in the Jack Field some 270 miles south of New Orleans and billions more in the Cuban Basin 50 miles off of Florida's coast. The Chinese are going after that Eastern Gulf oil, but the Democrats, under the thumb of the environmental lobby, would have us idly stand by and watch the Chinese and Cubans exploit those fields while we do nothing.
With oil going for $100 or more a barrel, suddenly extracting crude from shale and tar sands has become economically feasible, and we are sitting on such oil deposits in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Billions of barrels are believed to be just waiting to be extracted from the Baaken Oil Formation which covers parts of North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Just how many billions will be the subject of an eagerly-awaited report from the U.S. Geological Survey. Horizonal drilling technology is allowing several oil companies to begin tapping crude oil and gas underneath North Dakota's Lake Sakakawea.
With billions of barrels of crude oil and trillions of cubic feet of clean-burning natural gas under our feet, it is pure stupidity not to rebuild a strong domestic oil and gas industry in the United States. Making ourselves more self-reliant on energy is more than simply an economic issue - it is a security matter as well. If we have the foresight to exploit our own plentiful energy resources, the U.S. can avoid any potential disruptions in our energy supply due to political factors abroad. This ain't rocket science. It's just common sense.
-JP
Only 10 years of 5 dollar gas prices to get there? W00H00!
In the meantime, can we drill for oil in ANWR and on the outer continental shelf?
Not if we ramp up our domestic oil industry. Increasing our own exploration, production and refining might not lower the pump price because of increasing demand. But it would allow us to keep the price from skyrocketing. $3 gas at pump is sustainable.
You all know that will never happen. It makes to much sense.
I just don’t think that intensive gardening is going to meet our energy needs while human beings remain hopelessly dependent upon food.
Here’s a faster idea:
Fischer-Tropsch.
We’re the Saudi Arabia of coal. Why aren’t we using it? Answer: We’re too stupid to pick up the technology used by the dim-bulb Nazi’s 60 years ago.
We can either start converting our coal to diesel, or we can start shipping our coal to China. The ChiCom’s are quickly tipping over from being exporters of coal to importers of coal.
The fastest thing we can drill for is natural gas, and in the Rocky Mountain west.
There is supposed to be water shortage areas in the coming years. How will we be able to grow millions of tons of grass and trees just to convert it to energy? Why divert such scarce resources (water) into energy instead of food when we already have hundreds of years of recoverable oil in our country right now?
The good thing about prarie grass is that it doesn’t require intensive gardening. It grows like a weed without much tending.
The bottom line is that we have a wide range of energy options, and we should use each one where it makes sense. Oklahoma, for example, has a fairly extensive natural gas fueling infrastructure for cars and trucks. Hydrogen is coming, and gasoline from coal, one of our most abundant resources, will be doable in the not too distant future.
While we’re waiting for all of those options to come online, however, we need oil. And we have plenty of it.
OPECKERS have declared economic war on the US and are effecting the economies all over the world. We need to use our resources here to influence world oil supplies hence price or we face untold economic hardship in the future. Those **#$@rs are taking advantage of a financial situation here in the states. I can gaurantee one thing, My sons will never be allowed to go to war to defend any one of those *$cks.
Just a rant, but well earned!
The answer is ALL OF THE ABOVE and get the government the hell out of it. The free market will deliver the product if you leave it alone.
I bet it pales in comparison to green beer.
the electric car is coming
the TH!NK electric car goes(supposedly) on sale later
this year
the Chevy Volt, with luck goes on sale in 2010.
too many others to mention
You really like those switchgrass and poplar sandwiches don't you.
Do you guys even read these articles. This is not made out of food but basically an ugly tree and a fast growing weed.
And so...We went from an agrarian nation to an industrial, and now moving back to an agrarian nation once again.
There really is nothing new under the sun. /s
which will take potential farmland and water to reliably grow on the scale required to fuel the planet.
SWitchgrass grows on land that is not suitable for food crops, but of course, you reactionarily think that just because it is a bio-crop, that anybody who mentions it, is kissing al gore's ring, which is not true.
I really get tired of these reactionary responses, based on pure political notions.
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