I never see corn cobs any more. I'm not sure but I think the modern combine spits them out on the ground.
Jeff On Feb 20, 2015 2:56 PM, "Kermit Schlansker" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > One major question that I have about gasification is why corn > cobs are not mentioned more as a major fuel source. There must be a lot of > them and as combined heat and power they could keep farm houses, schools, > and apartments warm. I know that some of them are returned to the soil and > some are probably used to distill ethanol. Wouldn’t it be better to distill > the ethanol with solar energy or with combined heat and manufacturing > (comanufacturing)? Is cellulosic ethanol likely to become important? > Another question is, can we gasify the cobs and then return the ashes to > the soil or must we put carbon back to the soil to fertilize it? Would > powdered coal stay indefinitely in the soil and do the same thing? On this > list I have seen opinions on both side of this but I hope someone knows the > truth. > > Since fertilizer is all important to gasification and it will > be scarce, we should consider the use of sewage for fertilizer. One of the > reasons that sewage is said to be unfit is that medicines and other > impurities would poison us. Wouldn’t gasification destroy many of these > organic compounds and thus purify the ashes so they could be used as > fertilizer for food crops? Inorganic compounds probably would not be > destroyed and in recycling fertilizer, salt might be the ultimate pollutant. > > > Tom Reed’s gasification driven tractor seemed to me to be one > of the best gasification projects. I did think that the sheet metal would > rust pretty quickly and that it needed cast iron. I wonder if it ever > worked enough to plow with. I believe that some farm made ethanol used as a > starting and power increasing fuel might make it more practical. Making > farming self supporting in terms of energy seems like a good idea. > > There are many corn fields surrounding Ann Arbor yet the best > energy project the city has came up with is a large array of solar panels. > Why not use those corn cobs? Where is the propaganda machine for biomass > energy? I believe that available biomass energy is greater than either > solar or wind but the environmentalists ignore and deplore it. One way to > advertise the virtue of biomass energy would be to create a large farm with > an apartment on it. Gasification, can combine heat and power for the > building and also create enough fuel for plowing from farm biomass. This > would create a huge advertising of the need for gasification. > > > > K Schlansker > > > _______________________________________________ > Gasification mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org > > for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: > http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ > >
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