Comments on: Cattails, Not Corn, Into Ethanol

By: Agara

Agara — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:27:00 +0000

Офигенно! Спасибо!!!

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:15:31 +0000

This short video will reveal a surprising secret you’re friends will be impressed you know.

The First Flex-Fuel Vehicle: (5:34)
http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/node/1331

By: shpilk katz

shpilk katz — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:37:18 +0000

Here’s an article I wrote at dailykos on this very subject.

It’s such a shame alternative energy companies are going bankrupt while ExxonMobil complains they only made $8 Billion in PROFIT this quarter.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/15/184751/696/924/568614

By: MM

MM — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:53:01 +0000

Amazing, I don’t know where you’re getting your stats. Please provide a reference.

I suspect you’re making those up, since ethanol from corn is already in almost 10% of the fuel supply.

And this DOE study http://feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision.pdf shows that there are more than one billion tons of biomass in the U.S., and it doesn’t include sensitive land, parks or areas with little to no road access. So I don’t know where your “destroy conservation land” comment is coming from.

Cellulose is a real solution, and we need to stop regurgitating misinformation on this subject. It’s not going to help our situation at all.

That said, I think hybrids are the answer, flex fuel hybrids, that is. But that poses the equally difficult dilemma of making our grid green, because face it: we do not get electricity from green sources today. So at the moment, battery power will do nothing more than aggregate pollution around power plants rather than on the roads.

By: amazingdrx

amazingdrx — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:11:51 +0000

Even if cellulosic ethanol proves to be energy and cost effective, a huge hurdle in itself, there just isn’t enough area to harvest it from to continue anywhere near the gas guzzling we now engage in.

Even if hybrids became the standard, with better gas mileage, only around 10% of liquid fuel could come from cellulose, with every spare acre devoted to harvesting. And that would destroy conservation land.

The only way to get rid of oil guzzling is to go to plugin vehicles running on renewable energy and electric commuter rail. Plugin hybrids for the near term where miles driven between charges exceed battery storage capacity.

Biomass based gas guzzling of any kind? Fugedaboutit. Biodigestion of the waste stream with organic fertilizer and biogas energy production, that is the carbon negative way to use waste biomass.

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:43:09 +0000

MM, Stephen, and Lou: the information you provided on cattails and other fuels is valuable — thank you. Colleen, my favorite part of your comment is that we all need to reduce our fuel-use. I notice that our culture in general gets much more excited about using different fuels than about using less fuels.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:14:31 +0000

My thoughts on all this: LET’S GET GOING ON ALL THIS INNOVATION! Our government should be offering big fat loans to folks that want to experiment with and refine these new potential sources of fuel and the technology to harvest them — rather than bailing out the auto companies. And while the really-smart techies figure out biofuels, the rest of us can do our best to reduce our fuel-use and support public policies that encourage out-of-the-box solutions.

By: Lou Grinzo

Lou Grinzo — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:02:09 +0000

There are also some other really promising alternative biofuel crops, like silver maples, willows, and poplars. Those are fast growing trees that often thrive in soil not suitable for food crops. Plus, you only harvest them once every 5 years (or even longer), so you’re burning much less fuel per unit of biomass.

Even though we’ve been making ethanol for some time, we’ve still barely scratched its surface. Once we stop using the starch in corn and start using cellulose in other plants, we could see some real progress.

By: Stephen Klaber

Stephen Klaber — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:19:07 +0000

Right back to the food versus fuel problem. If you grow cattail in clean water and soil, it is one of the most productive food plants on the planet. The plant is also one of the main driving factors in desertification worldwide, and desperately needs control. Look at Africa’s Lake Chad! The cattail infestation there is what’s growing the Sahara! Here, cattail sloughs are a part of our dustbowl problem. In Australia they call it Cumbungi, and see it as a separate problem. Taming this plant as a resource is worthy of an enormous effort. Food, fuel and fiber are all to be had with exasperating renewability. Worldwide, this plant is on a march of conquest. And where it isn’t cattails, it’s water hyacinth or one of several other aquatic weeds. These are the shock army of the desert, and only our greed for food, fuel and fiber can control them. They all collect toxic chemicals, so some care must be used in their exploitation. Wherever we reduce them, we will improve our water supply. The silt they produce must be removed, too.

By: Crafty Green poet

Crafty Green poet — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:51:46 +0000

Sounds good though I’d have concerns similar to those MM pointed out.