Re: [Biofuel] de-polymerizing cellulose not practical at this point

[Dale Volzka]

Brian-   I'm new to the list and might reply to the group if I knew how. It sounds like your Pop is a good guy to know, especially since mine never got past eighth grade, but in some ways he was pretty smart too. One of the things he recommended was to get off the farm and stay there. My brothers did, and they made money and are still drinking it up. I had to be a grunt, failed, and had to go back to the farm for survival. I did get a forestry degree a few years back and now laugh to myself when I say I am a consultant.   The present reality (although it might hopefully change) is that due to the high (IMHO) energy inputs, low value wood has no current uses that can make much money. But, and  here's the big BUT, a review of history suggests to me a slightly different possible scenario. In that light, looking at the history of europe and asia, much environmental degradation has taken place, and I suggest for the same reason-energy. In my current situation, buying straw for bedding is impossible, but I have a glut of pine needles to rake up (like the leaves of forests in the dark ages). I can't afford steel,lumber or concrete, but I can build with sandstone and cordwood using chopped branches mixed with clay as a binder (cob). I can sell my hickory and still heat my shack with the left over trash. Forest depletion then, can result again, and I might add, for the same reason-no-money, and thus no energy.   If you read up on making charcoal, one glaring fact seems to stand out, and that is the loss of energy in producing it. I maintain that it is NOT lost, it is altered in a way that is not currently able to be captured. I suggest you read up on what is termed "the indirect method", in short it is heating the wood mass high enough to drive out the water, volitiles, and tars, with charcoal as the residual fuel. This process has two components. The first (heating the wood) takes heat (I use the branches), off-gassing (and burning the smoke) is highly exothermic and extremely clean-burning. Last winter, I built two 50gal drum-sized units from one of the plans on the net and put them inside the garage thinking it might help with the heat and found out that it really didn't. Not because heat wasn't produced, rather because I had to open all the doors and turn on the fans and blow the heat outside because I had too much. This, in a relatively cold Wisconsin winter.   In forestry terms, this lets me use the entire tree less the roots, and as such, I use only low value trees which are by far more abundant and even then I am not required to cut near as many.   Yesterday, I did a long read about the kalle charcoal gasifier and have read a lot of others before. This is an old technology that is well known to work. You give me the impression that it might be better to "just burn the wood" and I tend to agree. However, there seems, at least to me, to be  a missing link somewhere. Like one to use the excess heat from the off-gassing of charcoal production for the distillation of ethanol, electricty production, and home heating/cooling/cooking.   The nuts (maybe me) and bolts of the matter are beyond me, but maybe not your Pop. So, this e-mail is really a request for any knowledge he might posess on the subject and some sort of reply from you (+or-) on what you can dig up.   Thanks   Dale                                       ---- Original Message ----- From: Brian Rodgers To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2005 6:51 PM Subject: [Biofuel] de-polymerizing cellulose not practical at this point Thank you Tom, Robert, and everyone for the fantastic feedback. <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> I received an email from my Dad, the retired chemist.  He suggests we move away from the idea of de-polymerizing cellulose as it seems out of our reach financially and technologically. I am happy to let the process of mycelium-rot to the fungi folks and let them see what they can do with it. Dad said he could find no serious research into cellulose breakdown by any of his friends at the university. Without the help of these academics, he believes we can not continue on our own. I told him we would continue to knock it around at the Biofuels email list.   <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]--> I will continue to pursue the ethanol angle,  but I will stick to conventional methods of fermentation. For instance, I will explore the naturally occurring sugar plants. A friend came by the other day with wine made from prickly pears. Very potent drink with all the flavor a wine enthusiast can wish for. I will search for more locally available, naturally occurring, sugary feedstock to get my experiments going with fermentation. <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> My next research project will be steam power. <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> With more great info found through the vast wealth of knowledge at the Journey to Forever web site, I think it makes a lot of sense to burn the readily available waste wood as opposed to breaking it down in order to ferment it. I realize that the smoke is going to be a problem, so I am hoping  with experience I gained building several wood burning heat stoves I can build an efficient fire box. <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->   It’s weird, but the morning process around here is similar to the steam engine. As I work on my daily newsletter, ideas are slow to build up, gain momentum, albeit sloppy and sluggish, then the whistle blows, and I finally figure out what I want to write about. Then I have to read what I already have,  edit out the erroneous filler that got me focused in the first place, and then I really get going, full steam ahead. <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->  I was talking with my older brother last night. I attempted to inspire him with my new plans for a steam powered ranch community. One massive, centrally located, wood fired boiler which easily converts waste wood to energy. Steam is routed to several households in close proximity. A nearby steam powered electric generator should be able to furnish enough power to run the entire ranch with power left over during non-peak electric use hours to sell back to the local Electric Co-Op. I still need to research the circuits needed to reverse power back through the meter. But this is well within my understanding, much more so than chemistry. Sincerely, Brian Rodgers _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/

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