to Biofuels list from Lewis L Smith The sender is a semiretired energy economist operating out of Puerto Rico since 1961, with extensive biomass-energy experience.
For a long time, some of us with cane experience have been looking for an economic way to separate the cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin in bagasse fiber, because if you can do that, then there are a whole lot long-proven commercial processes which can turn these components into a whole slew of commercially valuable products. In fact, I think I first heard about this idea in a report by Lipinsky for Battelle Labs, probably dated in the late 1960's At last count about 1996, I had run across 12 or 15, some of which actually worked, although they wouldn't make you any money ! Then head of our consulting corsortium accidentally walked into a buglary and was killed, the Sugar Administration took away our latest project site and our major client tried stiff arm the survivors on billing matters. So I gave up on biomass in Puerto Rico. It reminds me a little of the old Appalachian poem about a chain of frustrations, " I came to a river and I couldn't get across, so I paid five dollars for an old grey horse ..." Then in 2005, we heard some encouraging words from NREL about new work in enzyme decomposition, which NREL said was " the way to go " since there were prospects of a breakthough within a few years. However, now it appears from Dr. Benemann's statement that some of these same enzymes are going to be used to make ethanol from switch grass, only that isn't going to make any money either, at least not for the foreseeable future. ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
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