US Invents Better Fuel than Gas from waste plant matter

Haha, just found this in the NYT: Gevo to Switch Ethanol Plant to Butanol - NYTimes.com

There's ALREADY a company gearing up to use this exact tech to produce up to 18 Million gallons a year from ethanol farmland in Minnesota.

-There is also a lot of information about Isobutanol at wikiP... The cat is fully out of the bag now, so the most likely reason now that this news wasn't all over the TV a few days ago was because it's being unnaturally suppressed at the news outlets somehow... Either that, or the media thinks ppl are too dumb to understand the story and it's implications.

NYT said:
Butanol can go into rubber and plastics, and in that role it not only replaces oil but also becomes a “carbon sink,” a place where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, can be stored after it is pulled out of the atmosphere. The rubber or plastic is indistinguishable from the rubber made with oil. But the carbon dioxide in oil came from deep underground; the carbon in the butanol was pulled out of the atmosphere by a corn plant.

And it can be done at a profit, Gevo says.
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Maybe before starting to think that everyone is in a huge conspiracy, you should ask yourself how efficient after all this new technology is. Ethanol is (still) a joke since it takes tons of fuel to gather the corn (that could've become bread instead and corn prices keep going up up up up). Also, is it scaleable?
 
not going to happen. Just think of how much this would cost to convert? You mention the plants which would be billions. Then you have the Corn Stations that would need to be converted over from gas. This is going to be the problem. With probably a million gas stations in the US alone who is going to pay for that overhaul? Many of these are owned by small business owners just trying to make a buck. Many of them could not afford making the change even w/ tax breaks
 
I keep wondering why it's been so many years for Brazil to be energy independent from sugarcane based ethanol but we keep biting our nails over the middle east (not to mention the vast resources we have available to drill for here).
 
LotsOfZeros said:
I keep wondering why it's been so many years for Brazil to be energy independent from sugarcane based ethanol but we keep biting our nails over the middle east (not to mention the vast resources we have available to drill for here).
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^I believe the nail biting shit is all media hype. Foreign oil just keeps our supply CHEAP, it doesn't mean we couldn't drive without it.

No one is publishing the numbers of what our gallon would cost if we ramped up production here and cut off the middle east and OPEC... I'd love to get my hands on that number...
 
schockergd said:
It's been around for quite some time.
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Which, Isobutanol, or the Petrodollar?

Assuming Isobutanol, you're right, and that's a good thing. It means there isn't any basic research to do on if and how to implement it... It means we're able to make great use of it now, not in some far-off fairy future.

It makes the exact same plastics and rubber that petro does and is better for the environment... All of this we knew before Chu's announcement... What makes the announcement (potentially) awesome is that it appears there is now finally a way to make isobutanol cost-effectively, where it can compete with both the price point and quantities needed against oil.

If suddenly Gevo (And a few others scrambling now at the announcement) start turning the profit they say they will, the US could potentially drop all oil imports (and heck, our own drilling too!) within a few years flat.
 
lukep said:
Which, Isobutanol, or the Petrodollar?

Assuming Isobutanol, you're right, and that's a good thing. It means there isn't any basic research to do on if and how to implement it... It means we're able to make great use of it now, not in some far-off fairy future.

It makes the exact same plastics and rubber that petro does and is better for the environment... All of this we knew before Chu's announcement... What makes the announcement (potentially) awesome is that it appears there is now finally a way to make isobutanol cost-effectively, where it can compete with both the price point and quantities needed against oil.

If suddenly Gevo (And a few others scrambling now at the announcement) start turning the profit they say they will, the US could potentially drop all oil imports (and heck, our own drilling too!) within a few years flat.
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The biggest hurdle to overcome in the US is the extreme toxicity of Butanol. The EPA is already having a fit over it.
 
I suck at everything internet marketing related, but love coming to this board for all the interesting news bits that I never see anywhere else.
 
Hempoline was used during the great depression to fuel the majority of agricultural diesel engines, and was one of the fuel sources behind the development of the diesel engine.

Fuck you, Anslinger & Doughton!!!!
 
schockergd said:
The biggest hurdle to overcome in the US is the extreme toxicity of Butanol. The EPA is already having a fit over it.
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Good to know, thanks. -Surely they could increase safety standards or something along those lines if that's what it takes...


BluAffiliate said:
Rearden Metal.
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Ahh, I get it now...

But the gov in AS was behind/backing the false claims that are made about the danger of Rearden Metal... Isobutanol appears to be something the Gov is finally interested in themselves this time.
 
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