US Invents Better Fuel than Gas from waste plant matter

lukep

lukep

He Hath Arisen
Sep 18, 2010
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Three days ago a press release went out from the US government that will change the world forever... Yet I haven't heard a thing about it on the news at all... A total media hush-up!

Steven Chu, the U.S. Energy Secretary, on March 7th announced that his team in Oak Ridge had made a major energy breakthrough that could finally replace gasoline entirely, and incrementally until then without any new framework whatsoever!

Full release: Department of Energy - UPDATED: Energy Department Announces New Advance in Biofuel Technology

They have made isobutanol (more like gasoline than ethanol) in a "COST EFFECTIVE" way from plant matter. (Many types of woody waste, even lawn trimmings and especially agricultural waste, such as cornstalks...

We have Googols of corn stalks going to waste in this country... This could be far more green than solar... AND cheap for consumers, too.

I'm really impressed with this... They give no timeline but say that it's cost effective to make this stuff, and most impressively:

"Unlike ethanol, isobutanol can be blended at any ratio with gasoline and should eliminate the need for dedicated infrastructure in tanks or vehicles," said Liao, chancellor's professor and vice chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and a partner in BESC. "Plus, it may be possible to use isobutanol directly in current engines without modification."
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Questions:

1. Why in the fuck wasn't this bigger news? It's not like we don't already have thousands of gas stations across the midwest selling ethanol...

2. How long do you guys think it could take to get this stuff replacing big Oil?

3. How are BP and Exxon going to handle this news? ;)

Discuss....
 


My question is how much biomass does it take to create 1 gallon? Is it cheaper to produce than gasoline? Can it be produced in enough quantity to supply the entire world?
 
cheshire said:
My question is how much biomass does it take to create 1 gallon? Is it cheaper to produce than gasoline? Can it be produced in enough quantity to supply the entire world?
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Right now it looks like they can simply convert the factories making ethanol to this instead, which is a no-brainer for the factory owner b/c this stuff is a better fuel with a larger audience, (Ethanol-driven cars have a modified engine) and the process is now more simple:
300_separatestepfermentation_vs.jpg


I can't tell the amounts but they do stress the cost-effectiveness of the process.

About supplying the world; don't they grow stuff too? Surely they'll want to do this for themselves once we prove the tech.
 
Andrew Scherer said:
BP buys the patent and hides in from the world in 3 ... 2... 1...

What happend to the electric car?
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Which one, the Tesla, or the 2011 Prius? :p

BP can't hide this, It was made at Oak Ridge and will obviously be used by Obama to show that his investments in Green Tech are paying off.
 
Exciting news - I really would like to see those steps to begin the move away from oil for personal transportation happen sooner rather than later. OPEC is really sticking it too us. Gas is $3.25 a gallon around here. I heard in the UK it is the equivelant of $9.67 a gallon.
 
Never gonna happen, don't you guys watch the shows on alternative fuels?

Bio diesel made from bacteria that was going to be huge, yet I have never seen a drop of it since I learned about it 10yrs ago. There was a mad rush by California companies and VC startups making the stuff.

I even saw a company that was making bio diesel from garbage. They had a process that took junk from scrape yards like old tires, tin cans and stuff and processed it into a useable fuel by diesel engines. Never saw a drop of it.

I also heard about the plant matter to bio diesel just like you said years ago. They were making it out of corn stalks just like you said. They had a working test plant and barrels of the stuff they showed off.
 
BeerNuts said:
I also heard about the plant matter to bio diesel just like you said years ago. They were making it out of corn stalks just like you said. They had a working test plant and barrels of the stuff they showed off.
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I agree there have been a lot of heartbreaks down the road in the past, but can't you see the difference this time?

Basically, this is Obama himself who is behind this. He put down $80 billion in clean energy investment, this being one of them.

If he wants to be re-elected, he's going to need to show he's made a change or two for the better, right?

Getting Oil replaced with something cheap and local would do just that quite nicely. -He'd be a fool not to push this as hard as the POTUS could.
 
mikecarquote said:
Exciting news - I really would like to see those steps to begin the move away from oil for personal transportation happen sooner rather than later. OPEC is really sticking it too us. Gas is $3.25 a gallon around here. I heard in the UK it is the equivelant of $9.67 a gallon.
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Have to pay for the NHS somehow!
 
lukep said:
I agree there have been a lot of heartbreaks down the road in the past, but can't you see the difference this time?

Basically, this is Obama himself who is behind this. He put down $80 billion in clean energy investment, this being one of them.

If he wants to be re-elected, he's going to need to show he's made a change or two for the better, right?

Getting Oil replaced with something cheap and local would do just that quite nicely. -He'd be a fool not to push this as hard as the POTUS could.
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Its because its by the government that I don't believe it even more. If it was a private company they ask least would be working and promoting it like mad so they can make a profit. Get that shit to market, get rich, marry models and buy planes.

Since its Obama and the government, they can just use it as a tool to get reelected. Show the sheep how much work they are doing and why they need to be reelected, get reelected and then destroy the entire project, say it didn't work out after all. Have Obama comment on Charlie Sheen, done deal.
 
lukep said:
I agree there have been a lot of heartbreaks down the road in the past, but can't you see the difference this time?

Basically, this is Obama himself who is behind this. He put down $80 billion in clean energy investment, this being one of them.

If he wants to be re-elected, he's going to need to show he's made a change or two for the better, right?

Getting Oil replaced with something cheap and local would do just that quite nicely. -He'd be a fool not to push this as hard as the POTUS could.
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The problem being unless it actually hits the market by the end of 2012, nobody will really give a shit. Let's face it, it's highly unlikely that we ever will see this available for purchase, let alone 18 months.
 
BeerNuts said:
Its because its by the government that I don't believe it even more. If it was a private company they ask least would be working and promoting it like mad so they can make a profit. Get that shit to market, get rich, marry models and buy planes.
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Both that and the fear of losing the presidency are strong incentives, this time it's a stronger player than ever before.

BeerNuts said:
Since its Obama and the government, they can just use it as a tool to get reelected. Show the sheep how much work they are doing and why they need to be reelected, get reelected and then destroy the entire project, say it didn't work out after all. Have Obama comment on Charlie Sheen, done deal.
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Well, I guess that could be one outcome, at least if the shit doesn't work. However as you yourself pointed out, something exactly like this was done a few years ago (I remember it too, although I believe it was more Ethanol, not isobutanol) so it's likely the tech does exist.

So, do you really believe that a man who just dropped 80 Bs on this project, who surely knows of the previous project we're thinking about, and is desperate to get re-elected next year, would wind up not delivering it, after this press release from his department?

Obama is too socialist for this country, I don't argue that one bit. But he's no dummy. He'll do the smartest thing he possibly could to stay in office and stay in good graces with the folks who voted him in.
 
lukep said:
Both that and the fear of losing the presidency are strong incentives, this time it's a stronger player than ever before.


Well, I guess that could be one outcome, at least if the shit doesn't work. However as you yourself pointed out, something exactly like this was done a few years ago (I remember it too, although I believe it was more Ethanol, not isobutanol) so it's likely the tech does exist.

So, do you really believe that a man who just dropped 80 Bs on this project, who surely knows of the previous project we're thinking about, and is desperate to get re-elected next year, would wind up not delivering it, after this press release from his department?

Obama is too socialist for this country, I don't argue that one bit. But he's no dummy. He'll do the smartest thing he possibly could to stay in office and stay in good graces with the folks who voted him in.
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Our government had been burning billions of dollars every year for along time and not delivering. It doesn't do us much good if we can't scale and make it a reliable fuel. While, it's a good find and a great read, our best bet to get away from oil is natural gas. There's fucking tons of it and the best part is, everything can be made in the US. Think of the jobs and economic stimulation it could provide.
 
lukep said:
Um, and corn stalks aren't/can't?
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Corn stalks require lots of energy to plant, water, and harvest the corn stalks. The energy you get from the corn itself isn't enough to make up for all the money you have to spend to produce and ship corn.

Oil has an incredibly higher energy per mass ratio than corn... corn will never be a cost effective way to replace oil.

Natural gas would be a decent short term fix (if your primary goal is to reduce our dependency on foreign oil) but I think nuclear energy is going to be the long term solution. Mainly because nuclear is, for the most part, renewable, and you get more energy from a nuclear reaction than it takes for you to cause a nuclear reaction.
 
cardine said:
Corn stalks require lots of energy to plant, water, and harvest the corn stalks. The energy you get from the corn itself isn't enough to make up for all the money you have to spend to produce and ship corn.
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Hey, you're right, you know, because there's nobody already planting corn in this whole country for any other reason, like to eat or anything like that...

Hell, they could just take the crops already planted for ethanol and it'd be enough to prove the tech...

cardine said:
Oil has an incredibly higher energy per mass ratio than corn... corn will never be a cost effective way to replace oil.
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We don't have all the numbers on Isobutanol yet, so I guess we have to wait and see on that one too. -But Ethanol is already in mass production... So if this is an improvement on that, and more "cost effective" as said in the article, wouldn't it be a possibility that this would at least compete with the cost ratio to oil, given OPEC price-fixing?

cardine said:
Natural gas would be a decent short term fix (if your primary goal is to reduce our dependency on foreign oil) but I think nuclear energy is going to be the long term solution. Mainly because nuclear is, for the most part, renewable, and you get more energy from a nuclear reaction than it takes for you to cause a nuclear reaction.
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Yep, Natural Gas is still in a limited supply much like oil... Only good thing about it is we control a larger percentage of the world's supply.

The new recycling nukes are the way to go for those that choose to stay on the grid. Personally I think we'll all be better off-grid, once solar and fuel cells come of age. (Both techs are here now, but still just too expensive for homeowners. This will change in time.)

Either way, it's still going to be many years until we're all driving completely electric cars. In developing countries they might never.

-But if this tech takes off it will have many big pluses, such as stopping the oil and coal industries from destroying the earth at their present rate... And even small villages in Nambia would eventually be able to grow their own fuel.
 
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