...As note in the October issue of
EthanolToday, "the Ethanol
Fact Book addresses issues regarding the ethanol tax incentive,
energy security and oil import reductions, economic impacts and
benefits to the U.S. Treasury, greenhouse gas reduction and
environmental benefits, and advancements in cellulose conversion
technologies." The article went on to quote Doug Durante, Executive
Director of the
Clean Fuels Development Coalition(CFDC),
"Ethanol is a complex and multi-faceted issue that needs to be
viewed in its entirety. Its value is truly the sum of its parts, and
this fact book clearly defines the energy security, economic,
environmental, and national benefits derived from our
ethanol industry."
Question: Is the focus of corn use in ethanol production heavily
impacting food prices? Here are two websites that express their view
on the situation. You decide...
POSTING (Ethanol
Consultant Mike): As you've
undoubtedly seen on the TV and Internet and read in the papers,
December 19, 2007 President Bush signed into law H.R. 6, the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007. With this new law comes the
Renewable Fuels Standard which calls for at least 36 billion gallons
of ethanol to be used nationwide in the U.S. by the year 2022.
To help in this increased usage will be the importance of the use of
alternate levels of ethanol mixed with gasoline. Presently there are
two grades E10 (10% ethanol) and E85 (85% ethanol) that are
increasing in their use across the nation. And with some states
already bringing in ethanol blender pumps it is possible for
motorists to choose different blends of gasoline & ethanol. These
new ethanol blender pumps provide blend mixes of E10, E20, E30 and
E85.
As part of the H.R. 6 law, Section 244 authorizes a new $20 million
program for the installation of blender pumps starting in the fiscal
year 2008 through 2014. South Dakota & Minnesota already have
blender pumps in several gas stations.
A recent research effort conducted by ACE (American Coalition for
Ethanol, which we are a member), in conjunction with the U.S.
Department of Energy, shows that mid-range ethanol blends are very
promising in terms of their fuel economy & vehicle emissions -
including use in non-flex fuel vehicles.
The Optimal Ethanol Blend-Level Investigation appears to support an
optimal blend of ethanol & gasoline of E20 or E30. With these blends
the cars used in the tests averaged better gas mileage than the
standard gasoline models. More tests are needed and have been
planned to help validate these initial exciting findings.
The fleet fuel standards have also been set to raise to 35 miles per
gallon by 2020
Title: Biodiesel v Ethanol Which is the
Best Alternative Fuel
Author: Mike
Copinger
Article: Everywhere I read, I read that
ethanol is the next fuel to save us from a fossil fuel dependant,
over heated, polluted future.
This emphasis seems to be the case
particularly in the USA. That's understandable when you consider
that the USA is the one great industrial nation that until recently
never really embraced diesel engines like Europe. So you can
understand their infatuation with ethanol - but that does not make
it the right or the only choice.
In September Renault demonstrated its new hydrogen fuel cell powered
207 cabriolet, 28 bhp electric motor, 81 mph and an operating range
of 218 miles, producing nothing but water as its sole emission. This
month it was BMW with their new hydrogen power 7 series. They
already have 3 fuel stations up and running in Germany with more
planed. In October another manufacturer announced their hybrid
system which converts braking energy not into electricity, but into
compressed gas which is then used to help acceleration.
So clearly there are other options - however all of this is rather
misses the point. None of these technologies help the power
generation industry, nor do they meet the needs of the merchant
navy, road haulers or railway companies, all of whom, at least
outside the USA, run on diesel.
Ethanol is a fuel which is complicated to make and thus easy to
regulate, it continues to be cost effective only because of the
massive government subsidies that it receives, it singularly fails
to encourage the use of more fuel efficient diesel engines which
simply delays the inevitable.
Which brings us neatly to the next point. The majority of ethanol in
the USA is produced from corn - a food crop, a crop which requires
good soil if it is to be grown in quantity. Do we face a future
where we choose between fuel and food?
As all owners of a betmax video machine can testify, it is not
always the best product that wins through. In the 80's Sony's betmax
technology finally lost out to VHS, not because VHS was better but
because it was better supported. With luminaries such as Bill Gates
investing upwards of $84 million in ethanol production and
distribution it is almost bound to be a success, if not an exclusive
one.
In the US led fossil fuel replacement debate ethanol is clearly
gaining ground steadily. However the world at large needs a diesel
replacement, and the USA will sooner or later have to grasp the
concept of fuel economy.
The only contender in this space is biodiesel, a clean fuel that can
be made from crops like Jatropha, grown on the most marginal ground
not suitable for food crops, and easily manufactured in plants small
enough to fit into most peoples back yards.
What is certain is that whichever way this debate goes there is sure
to be a rise in demand for a good, dependable supply of hardy, high
yield crops whether for food or fuel production.
Undoubtedly good news for Monsanto with their GM seeds.
...use this handy Google Search to
find even more information about the ultimate biodiesel
solutions, industries, resources, and knowledgeable writers
like Mike Copinger
Thanks for visiting, we hope you'll
return soon!
Title: Why We Need Alternative Fuels
Author: Rahul
Dhillon
Article:
Alternative Fuels
We urgently need to develop alternative fuel sources that reduce our
dependence on foreign oil. The only other imperative that competes
with this urgency is the emergency of global warming. A few
alternative fuels are serious contenders for alleviating the fossil
fuel crisis including ethanol, natural gas, propane, hydrogen, and
biodiesel. We are in dire need of other alternative fuel
developments and discoveries.
Cellulosic Ethanol
Ethanol has been used as fuel in the United States
since at least 1908. Touted as a potential aid to the fossil fuel
dilemma, cellulosic ethanol is the only alternative energy source
that could be produced in enough volume to make a dent in gas usage.
Cellulosic ethanol, the biofuel
that differs from corn-based ethanol in that it can be made from
pretty much any organic matter, is simple to make and has as its
source an inexhaustible resource - municipal waste.
Cellulose (C6H10O5)n is a long-chain polymer forming the
primary structural component of green plants. Cellulose
ethanol exhibits a net energy content three times higher than corn
ethanol and emits a low net level of greenhouse
gases.
Cellulosic ethanol showed greenhouse gas emission reductions
of about 80% compared to fossil fuels. Research is being
funded in an effort to make us free from non-domestic fuel by more
efficient synthesis of domestically produced biofuel. Resources of
biomass that can be converted to cellulosic
ethanol in many instances are negative cost feedstock. They
are more expensive to dispose of than to process into fuel.
A
bacterial culture digests organic matter and produces ethanol as a
byproduct, at a fourth the retail cost of a gallon of gas.
Entrepreneurs are using their venture capital to build processing
plants that will become operational in the next 18 to 24 months.
Cellulosic ethanol is on the radar screen of big business and can be
a substantial help relieving our gasoline crisis.
The Cellulose Fermentation Process
In biomass, Glucose C6 sugar is bound to cellulose,
and Xylose (C5) is locked in hemicellulose. Since
normal yeast can't ferment Xylose, genetically engineered E. coli
bacteria is used in an alternate reaction path to turn almost all
the Xylose into ethanol. The cellulose in
Fermentable Biomass is broken into Xylose sugar (gray bar).
Then the Xylose is separated from the remaining cellulose (blue
bar). The Xylose is fermented with E. coli (top yellow), and the
cellulose it broken down into normal glucose (red) which is
fermented the normal way (bottom yellow).
Finally all the ethanol is distilled (the water and lignin
byproducts removed). The lignin is burned in the the
still's boilers. Lignin forms the woody cell walls of plants and the
"cement" between them.
Natural Gas
Natural gas offers several advantages short term in that the
product, its pipelines, storage, and dispensing stations are
already in the infrastructure for mass transit worldwide. There are
over 1,300 natural gas vehicle (NGV) fueling stations in the U.S. -
over half are available for public use. Low emissions.
With a cost approximately one third less than gasoline, natural gas
vehicles most economically run fleet vehicles. NGVs are most
practical for fleets because fleets generally operate a number of
vehicles that are centrally maintained and fueled, and travel more
miles daily than the average personal use vehicle.
Another popular alternative fuel choice for vehicles is propane
(LPG) with an infrastructure of pipelines, processing facilities,
and storage already in service. Propane is produced as a by-product
crude oil refining. With about 200,000 propane vehicles in the
United States and about 9 million worldwide, stepping up consumption
of this fuel over gasoline could limit emissions and global warming.
Biodiesel
Autos powered by recycled vegetable oil from restaurants and
fast-food joints is an idea that is under some serious scrutiny by
environmental groups. Although this alternative fuel may be cheap
and clean, there simply isn't enough of it to make a big dent in our
gas consumption.
The conversion to cooking oil is easy and inexpensive. It costs
about $800 to convert a car using a diesel engine to run on
vegetable oil. What is needed is an extra fuel tank which contains a
heating element inside. The oil needs to be kept hot to burn. Also
needed are fuel lines up to the engine, filters, valves, and toggle
switches so the driver can choose between running on vegetable oil
or on conventional diesel fuel.
On the downside are the facts that no infrastructure is currently in
place to make the cooking oil fuel available commercially. One
currently needs to make arrangements with local restaurants to
obtain the oil, often given freely. One must also filter the cooking
oil for solids left over from the frying process. With limited
cooking oil resources available, there is little likelihood that
commerce will be motivated to develop the necessary widespread
infrastructure to make the fuel more readily available. Vegetable
oil fuel for autos may gain at the grass roots level, and may
eventually become more widespread, especially if fuel prices
increase.
About the author: Thank you for choosing
Carseek.com
as your one stop resource for Free Car Price Quotes and the most up
to date auto information.
Title: Ethanol Distillation And Ethanol
Uses
Author: Simon
Oldmann
Article:Ethanol is
becoming a very clear option for the alternative fuel market, as
more and more countries start using and studying the ways to make
ethanol use more popular, this is one kind of revolution that will
change the fuel industry forever.
To have a better understanding of what ethanol distillation
is, let's get into the basics of ethanol.
Ethanol fast Facts
*Systematic Name: Ethanol *Other Names: Ethyl alcohol, grain
alcohol, hydroxyethane, EtOH
*Molecular Formula: E2H6O *Physically, ethanol may
be described as a colorless, flammable, slightly toxic chemical
compound that has a distinctive perfume-like smell. *It is produced
from sugar cane and used as automotive fuel in Brazil. Ethanol made
out of corn, on the other hand, is being used widely as a gasoline
additive and direct fuel in the United States. Straw, meanwhile, is
being used to manufacture ethanol as well. *Ethanol is currently the
leading biofuel provider in Europe.
Ethanol Distillation
Most of us already have an idea on how distillation happens.
Let's have the production of distilled water as an example. When
water is subjected to heat, it is expected that steam would conduct
away from a tube. A tube looped and oriented downward and allowed to
cool would yield condensed vapor and eventually, water.
For ethanol, simple distillation will not be enough. Fractional
distillation would be the best choice. The latter is used for
separating mixtures of liquids with varying boiling points - like
water and alcohol.
To start the distillation of ethanol, consider the following steps:
1.Prepare a small beaker and/or a simple glass half-filled with the
rather miscible mixture of water and alcohol.
2.Cover the beaker or the simple glass jug with a funnel or
something similar, so that a balloon can be placed to suck air out
of the beaker.
3.After some time, the alcohol vapor and the steam in the mixture
just above the liquid in the beaker or glass will reach a state of
equilibrium. This should be relative of temperature and even
pressure of the environment.
4.With regard to equilibrium, change can no longer be observed in
the vapor to liquid ratio in the water to alcohol ratio within
either the vapor or liquid mixture.
5.However, because of alcohol's higher volatility, the ratio of
water to alcohol in the vapor state is greater than that of the
ratio in liquid state.
6.The occurrence of liquid-against-vapor-states permits the
distillation from an escalating concentration of alcohol from the
water and alcohol mixture.
And finally, by having sequences of repeated evaporation as well as
condensation, a higher alcohol concentration is achieved from the
re-condensation of recent vapor state.
This is since the alcohol inside the vapor mixture is at a greater
concentration than it was from the liquid mixture from which it was
changed into a vapor state.
About the author: Anyone who is interested in the future of
fuel, fuel prices and cleaner and alternative fuel resource should
know something about Ethanol Distillation,
visit the
Ethanol pages.
...use this handy Google Search to
find even more information about the ultimate biodiesel,
ethanol production feed crops like switchgrass, tropical
maize, corn, and corn stalks & rice straw for use in
cellulosic ethanol production.
Thanks for visiting, we hope you'll
return soon!
Title: Composting
To Reduce Landfill Sites, And The Path To Biofuel Sustainability
Author: Stephen
Last
Article:
Throughout Europe all
nations are committed to the processing of Municipal Solid Waste
(MSW) to divert as much of our organic waste as possible away from
landfill. This is a high priority for the United Kingdom if we are
to reach Government recycling targets which are designed to ensure
we comply with required landfill diversion rates as set by the EU
Landfill Directive.
What is the easiest way to divert organic waste away from landfill,
and close a lot of landfills for good?
The answer to this is composting. Composting is the natural way to
bring left-over organic material back into the nutrient cycle. It
also replaces chemical fertilizers and improves the quality of the
soil, reducing crop pests, and retaining more moisture in the soil
which then means that less watering is needed.
So composting is a good way to divert waste from landfill, but is
there real demand for the huge quantities that could be made from
the very large proportion of our municipal solid waste which is
organic?
No, there are good reasons for concluding that there will never be a
large enough demand for it from farmers and gardeners, because there
is a huge amount of organic waste in our rubbish from potato
peelings to newspapers, cardboard, and even our old non-synthetic
clothes.
Composting can also be the first stage toward more sophisticated
waste processing technologies such as Anaerobic Digestion, and take
us toward a much more sustainable carbon economy which many see as
the intermediate step civilization needs to go through before
entering the age of the hydrogen economy.
The vision of a carbon economy leads us toward a need to increase
methane production. This is because there will be a demand to
produce a lot of methane which can then be processed further into
biofuel such as biomethanol and biodiesel - away
from dependency on oil as our fuel source - and toward a marvelous
new freedom from fossil fuels.
However, just as in most scientific and commercial advances, they
work best through evolution rather than revolution, and so it will
be with composting. Many nations including the UK, are now
composting very successfully, but we appreciate that composting
alone will not bring us to the point where we become sustainable.
We realize that we need sustainable renewable fuels very urgently to
stop using fossil fuels and reduce the rate of climate change. By
building on our success with household green waste and by beginning
to compost commercial waste, and food wastes too, we are developing
a culture which begins to accept organic waste processing, and not
land filling as the norm. Many successful new businesses have been
created to process compost in the UK, and those businesses will
naturally seek to develop and diversify.
Composting requires energy, it is a net carbon emitter and it is
still not very sustainable for Municipal Solid Wastes. It is not the
best use of waste organic matter which can contain a lot of
contaminating materials.
So, how can we adapt composting to be a net carbon emissions
reducer, or "Carbon Negative" and allow these new business to expand
their hard won skills in biowaste processing?
The answer is Anaerobic Digestion for all the organic waste
feedstocks suitable for it.
The process of anaerobic digestion (composting without air (oxygen))
uses organic waste materials to produce methane gas.
The methane gas produced is a sustainable fuel for direct burning
for power generation.
Doing this is carbon positive, it uses only renewable resources, it
replaces fossil fuel use. It will reduce climate change.
Put this all together and you have real sustainability. A way of
living without climate change, and without jeopardizing the lives of
later generations from global warming.
...use this handy Google Search to
find even more information about the biowaste, biomethanol,
methane production, composting of organic waste to be part of
the solution of providing sustainable renewable resources to
be used in biofuel production and more.
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