Nick,
Almost all of us agree with you about the food-loss repercussions and
inadvisability of using corn-based ethanol as a substitute fuel. OK lets
try to go beyond that.
And it does look like, from available data, that both termites, and
ethanol, are superfluous to the best alternative ...
Because the data is not unchallenged on this point, I invite you and
other interested activists to search online for an accurate *current*
accounting of the situation. I think you are off-base on the bottom line
assessment.
... you say that there isn't enough biomass in the USA. Where did you
come by that information?
The site below gives NREL estimates of the biomass resource available
for U.S. biofuels production. They sound high to me, and that is why I
am asking for input on this from others. I have seen lower estimates,
but they are older, inaccurate and often come with their own political
agenda (the Pimentel nonsense).
The resources in question include specifically the sum of: crop residue,
forage crops (straw) grown on marginal farmland, forest residue (no
clear cutting) and mill sawdust, and an estimated one-half of the
municipal solid waste (from metropolitan areas, where it is easily
collectible). This is the basis of the NREL estimate.
This comes to 2.45 billion metric tons per year, totally renewable.
One ton of this type of feedstock can be converted to 186 gallons of
methanol. Actually this is conservative, as higher figures have been
published. By converting cellulose directly to methanol, rather than
fermenting to ethanol (or using termites), there is a huge bottom line
advantage in most of the processes, since the manufacturer then avoids
the large loss and parasitic problem of distillation. In the partial
combustion process, the methanol comes out undiluted.
As a renewable resource, then - biomass represents a potentially
inexhaustible feedstock supply for methanol production = 455 billion
gallons per year in the USA. The total US consumption of gasoline is
about 140 billion gallons and with diesel if comes to 190 billion
gallons of transportation fuel. It will take about 1.4 gallons of
methanol to substitute for every gallon of gasoline/diesel due to the
oxygenation, which gives lower net energy but it burns much cleaner.
This means that about 230 billion gallons of methanol would be enough.
http://www.tpub.com/content/altfuels10/methanol/methanol0001.htm
Since the USA produces about 40% of its needs for transportation fuel
from domestic crude oil, this country should be able to easily make the
remainder 60% from biomass to blend with that and become not only
self-sufficient but a net exporter.
With political willpower we could do this in a decade. It is not the
ideal solution but it can buy valuable time for LENR or ZPE conversion
to be perfected. It also has the huge advantage of getting the USA
independent of the Arabs who hate us, and OPEC.
Perhaps we can even export enough to China to pay for all the toxic food
and health products they are shipping to us ?
... and with a little left over to send to our friends in Europe in
exchange for fine German automobiles and ?
Nick Palmer wrote:
I'm sure Vorts will guess that I'm heavily against the corn ethanol
"boondoggle". Cellulosic ethanol is something else again as a partial
replacement for some energy use (remembering that there isn't enough
biomass produced annually in the USA to supply the USA's greeds). This
is exciting news from Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19745/
