This could be very exciting news. A few questions: Are we willing and able to harness genetically modified E Coli to do this? What is the environmental risk of creating and distributing this organism? Is it something that could be used at a small-farm scale, or only at a large plant?
1 billion tons of "farm wastes", sustainably produced - really? Are they "wastes", or do we have to decide between composting the material back into the soil, or turning it into fuel? If fuel, are we taking yet another billion tons of organic material out of the system? Nice to see the sustainability analysis. The header to this article says "replace half of all imported petroleum". So if we (USA)import about 60% of 21 million barrels/day, let's say they are talking about replacing 6 million barrels a day, or 2.2 billion barrels a year, or 92 billion gallons a year. The ethanol energy equivalent of this would be more like 150 billion gallons - is it reasonable to get 150 gallons of ethanol from a ton of crop waste using this (or any!) process? Another way to look at it - ethanol weighs 6.6 pounds/gallon, so 150 billion gallons weighs 990 billion pounds or 500 million tons - so 50% by weight of the input material must be converted into ethanol - darn good! A few lines into the article it says "replace 1/2 of all automotive fuel", I suspect that might be a different number than "1/2 of all imports". Jack >> >> "Ingram, who is director of the Florida Center for >> Renewable Chemicals and Fuels at UF, cited a >> recent report from the U.S. Department of >> Agriculture and DOE that indicates more than >> one billion tons of biomass can be produced on >> a sustainable basis each year. Converting this >> to fuel ethanol could replace half of >> all imported petroleum in the United States." >> >> >> 05.03.2005 UF/IFAS Researcher's >> Biomass-To-Ethanol Technology Could >> Help Replace Half Of Auto Fuel In U.S. >> By: Chuck Woods >> http://news.ifas.ufl.edu/story.php?id=963 >> >> GAINESVILLE, Fla.---Half the automotive fuel in the >> United States could be replaced with ethanol from >> renewable agricultural crops and forest wastes and >> energy crops, says a University of Florida >> researcher who has developed a biotechnology "bug" >> that converts biomass and other farm wastes into fuel. >> _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
