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2008-03-14 Science & Technology

Super Bacteria to be used to make Biofuel in Maryland

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Posted by mhw 2008-03-14 09:44|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 Not necessarily. This is the biofuel future. Corn as basis is merely transitory, because the process has been known to distillers for hundreds of years. Decomposing hydrocarbons of all types, then reconstituting them into products which are desired will become common within ten years. Real progress towards fuel independence will follow. Ethanol itself is transitory. Butanol is the most desirable auto fuel. Pure hydrogen could also work if storage density issues can be solved. Now that a pathway for synthesized propane has become known, it too could be a viable candidate for auto fuel as well as heating fuel. The MIT group who pioneered the synthetic propane did not wait for someone to buy their technology. They incorporated and are seeking funding for scale up. The technical pathway is well known. Only economy of scale is to be determined. These are tremendous steps forward. The end of the Saudi piggy bank is in sight. It's like a distant mountain range, still far away, but within sight.

Posted by Woozle Elmeter 2700 2008-03-14 11:46|| 2008-03-14 11:46|| Front Page Top

#2 If they can turn pretty much any organic waste into fuel, landfill owners are going to be (or should be) stampeding to make this viable.

Imagine if you're the owner of "Mount Rumpke" here in Cincinnati -- decades of household waste at hand, relatively easy access to it, and a way to turn it into auto fuel.

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2008-03-14 12:09|| 2008-03-14 12:09|| Front Page Top

#3 landfills will be the high ore content mines of this century.

Posted by 3dc 2008-03-14 12:47|| 2008-03-14 12:47|| Front Page Top

#4 The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone!

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2008-03-14 12:51|| 2008-03-14 12:51|| Front Page Top

#5 "Only economy of scale is to be determined"

only? ;)

Posted by Hupegum Bonaparte2415 2008-03-14 13:06|| 2008-03-14 13:06|| Front Page Top

#6 assume 200 millon tons/year of solid municipal waste in US
assume 80% is biomass
assume 25% of biomass can be converted to fuel
assume 300 gallons fuel per ton of converted biomass,

that would be about:

200,000,000 x 0.8 x 0.2 x 300 =
about 10 billion gallons

current motor vehich fuel consumption/year is about 140 billion gallons

so, even if we could process all municipal waste, a lot of other stuff would have to be processed to make a big difference

Posted by mhw 2008-03-14 13:49|| 2008-03-14 13:49|| Front Page Top

#7 [span class=ParanoidLuddite]

OMG! It's Super-Germ!

[/span]

Posted by Mike 2008-03-14 13:55|| 2008-03-14 13:55|| Front Page Top

#8 Using biomass inherently can't be as efficient as using algae, which just needs water, sunlight, and waste CO2 and NOx gases.

The whole process would begin with a water treatment plant, most likely getting effluent water from a large city. After separating out the solids and processing like a regular treatment plant, but before chlorination and fluoridization, it would send the water to an adjacent algae farm.

The algae farm would have rows of shallow but wide tanks in the ground, like the rows of a farmer's field. These would have ordinary pipe on the bottom to bubble waste CO2 and NOx gasses through the water, and be covered with "self-cleaning" glass to allow sunlight, but not foreign algae in, yet not let the unused gases out.

Machines under the glass would slowly move up and down through the rows, harvesting algae to sluices on the side of the rows, where it would be flushed or conveyed away for processing.

After the effluent water had flowed through the algae farm, it would go back to the treatment plant for a final filtration, chlorine and fluoride before being returned to the city water system.

The day's crop of algae from a dozen acres of algae farm would be hauled off at night for processing into biodiesel and a little ethanol.

Unlike using biomass crops, which are harvested about three times a year, or garbage, which also is produced at irregular intervals and quality, an algae farm south of the Mason Dixon would be in production every day for perhaps 10 months out of the year, growing predictable quantities of algae.

Once production conditions were known and perfected, the methods and production of biodiesel could be scaled to local and regional need.

Ironically, area factories that provided the waste CO2 and NOx would want to discontinue expensive scrubbing processes, to deliver as much of the waste gas as possible. So they would not just save money, but make money, from their waste.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-03-14 14:20|| 2008-03-14 14:20|| Front Page Top

#9
The Controlled Eutrophication Process: Using Microalgae
for CO2 Utilization and Agricultural Fertilizer Recycling.

biofuel blog
BioReactors

Posted by 3dc 2008-03-14 15:03|| 2008-03-14 15:03|| Front Page Top

#10 The waste water, heat and Co2 from Power stations would be great for these Algal farms.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2008-03-14 16:57|| 2008-03-14 16:57|| Front Page Top

#11 3dc, a very large number of algae biofuel ventures over the past five or so years have turned out to be investment scams. Just a warning.

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-03-14 19:46|| 2008-03-14 19:46|| Front Page Top

#12 Can we get a demo plant to "render" lard ass Kennedy into fuel, after all Mass is HIS State.

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-03-14 19:47|| 2008-03-14 19:47|| Front Page Top

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