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Graeme
Fission
Joined: Mar 04, 2005
Posts: 2576
Location: New Zealand
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 Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:06 pm Post subject: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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Major Advance In Biofuel Technology: Trash Today, Ethanol Tomorrow
| Quote: | University of Maryland research that started with bacteria from the Chesapeake Bay has led to a process that may be able to convert large volumes of all kinds of plant products, from leftover brewer's mash to paper trash, into ethanol and other biofuel alternatives to gasoline.
The Zymetis process can make ethanol and other biofuels from many different types of plants and plant waste called cellulosic sources. Cellulosic biofuels can be made from non- grain plant sources such as waste paper, brewing byproducts, leftover agriculture products, including straw, corncobs and husks, and energy crops such as switchgrass.
When fully operational, the Zymetis process could potentially lead to the production of 75 billion gallons a year of carbon-neutral ethanol.
The secret to the Zymetis process is a Chesapeake Bay marsh grass bacterium, S. degradans. Hutcheson found that the bacterium has an enzyme that could quickly break down plant materials into sugar, which can then be converted to biofuel.
Hutcheson and Weiner won the university's Office of Technology Commercialization Inventor of the Year Award in 2007 in the Life Science category for their enzyme system invention. |
sciencedaily
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Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us. |
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Gazzatrone
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Nov 07, 2005
Posts: 553
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:27 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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.....being that people have realised its complete bullshit?
Who am I kidding?
Stick BIO on a word and suddenly it's Manna from Heaven.
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THE FUTURE IS HISTORY! |
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dorlomin
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Aug 05, 2007
Posts: 1004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:43 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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The 'hurrah were saved chaps' thread for this hour.
Sorry but Ive heard it all before and will await more rigerous tests and results. If it is so effective at converting cellulouse to sugar it would be a pretty damned dominant life form. There is so much cellulouse out there that other creatures have so much trouble converting into sugars. Cows need 4 stomachs and a host of bacteria to accomplish that feat.
Sorry for the cynicism so many of these kind of stories dissapear without a trace and others just as enthusiastic appear in there place. |
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PopeGideon
Heavy Crude
Joined: Jan 25, 2008
Posts: 158
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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Their problem is that they haven't appended the word "nano" to their savior.
It would be much more compelling if it was "nanobio". |
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TreeFarmer
Heavy Crude
Joined: Jun 26, 2007
Posts: 301
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:02 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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Notice he words "may" and "could" in that quote? That says it all for the time being.
TF |
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billp
Heavy Crude
Joined: Dec 11, 2005
Posts: 430
Location: albuquerque
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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eroei evades liberal arts educated media and lawyers, we suspect.
cheers |
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zoidberg
Heavy Crude
Joined: Feb 23, 2005
Posts: 492
Location: Winnipeg
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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It doesnt have to be a complete gasoline replacement to be profitable in both money and energy terms. Being able to create a large mass of low quality energy into nice high quality liquid energy is a valuable technology.
I mean its better than using corn to do it right?
Strikes me as another bow in the quiver of solutions to peak oil, including necessary conservation and power down options. |
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eastbay
Moderator
Joined: Dec 18, 2004
Posts: 4137
Location: One Mile From the Columbia River
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:21 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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| zoidberg wrote: |
I mean its better than using corn to do it right?
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This will not replace crop-burning. By the time this takes off it will be in addition to burning food.
Just wait until 20% ethanol is mandated and corn ethanol production is 5X what it is now... then we'll need something else to burn. In a few years anything will suffice.
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Everything is Impermanent. Shakyamuni Buddha |
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dorlomin
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Aug 05, 2007
Posts: 1004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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| eastbay wrote: | | then we'll need something else to burn. In a few years anything will suffice. |
Books? |
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SILENTTODD
Intermediate Crude
Joined: May 06, 2006
Posts: 833
Location: Tustin, CA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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Thanks for posting this Graeme. I do admire your fortitude in the face of what I feel are savage responses to most of your posts.
Yes I'm skeptical (see my Sagan quote below). I have been seeing these kinds of announcements since a first learned of the concept of Peak Oil about five years ago, and still once a month I am filling my old truck up with fuel distilled from petroleum.
This post actually caught my interest and intend on pegging it, and following up on it. If it's true, it will make these people richer than Bill Gates, and I have no qualms with that.
I'm a doomer by nature, always looking for the worst case scenario first. But nothing would please me more than to be wrong about this.
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Skeptical scrutiny in both Science and Religion is the means by which deep thoughts are winnowed from deep nonsense-Carl Sagan
Last edited by SILENTTODD on Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:43 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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zoidberg
Heavy Crude
Joined: Feb 23, 2005
Posts: 492
Location: Winnipeg
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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| eastbay wrote: | | zoidberg wrote: |
I mean its better than using corn to do it right?
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This will not replace crop-burning. By the time this takes off it will be in addition to burning food.
Just wait until 20% ethanol is mandated and corn ethanol production is 5X what it is now... then we'll need something else to burn. In a few years anything will suffice. |
Fair enough. Still though I don't think demand destruction is given its proper due around here.
Credit collapse
Just one of many articles fretting about the coming credit collapse and offering to sell you terrific investment advice to save your money. While I have nothing to do with the selling of investment advice I think the basic premise is sound. A prolonged global depression could be in the offing, or at least a bad recession, putting economic growth on a plateau with oil production.
Coincidence? Who can say. It is starting to seem we may have more time getting a host of solutions going than it seemed in 2005. |
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Poordogabone
Tar Sands
Joined: May 13, 2005
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:42 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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Btw there is not such thing as plant waste, this stuff is gold and gives
nutriments back to the soil therefore providing for the next generation of plants.
let's start thinking for a second of the implication of removing a crucial element of an ecosystem. |
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eastbay
Moderator
Joined: Dec 18, 2004
Posts: 4137
Location: One Mile From the Columbia River
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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| zoidberg wrote: | | eastbay wrote: | | zoidberg wrote: |
I mean its better than using corn to do it right?
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This will not replace crop-burning. By the time this takes off it will be in addition to burning food.
Just wait until 20% ethanol is mandated and corn ethanol production is 5X what it is now... then we'll need something else to burn. In a few years anything will suffice. |
Fair enough. Still though I don't think demand destruction is given its proper due around here.
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Demand destruction scares the living daylights out of me. However, no demand destruction is immeasurably more frightening.
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Everything is Impermanent. Shakyamuni Buddha |
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joewp
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Apr 05, 2005
Posts: 1620
Location: Springsteen Country (NJ)
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:03 am Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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| zoidberg wrote: |
Strikes me as another bow in the quiver of solutions to peak oil, including necessary conservation and power down options. |
You forgot the "die-off" mandatory option.
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Joe P. United Political Debate
"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb |
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zoidberg
Heavy Crude
Joined: Feb 23, 2005
Posts: 492
Location: Winnipeg
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:13 am Post subject: Re: Major Advance In Biofuel Technology |
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| joewp wrote: | | zoidberg wrote: |
Strikes me as another bow in the quiver of solutions to peak oil, including necessary conservation and power down options. |
You forgot the "die-off" mandatory option. |
Its included, by default, in power down. I'm not a real squeamish person, but I dont want to think too hard about the bloody chaos reducing world population from 9-2 billion would entail over this century. I can accomplish this by not speaking it, except for now I guess.
Or for that matter the squalid misery almost everyone would be living in if the population really stabilized around 9 billion indefinitely. |
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