Cellulosic Ethanol... interesting..

Ethanol From Straw

FORTUNE is reporting a "Biorefinery Breakthrough":

"No one has ever brewed biofuel from straw on a commercial scale. With Shell's backing, Iogen is likely to be the first.

"A guy driving a forklift spears a bale of straw the size of a stack of mattresses. Then he stuffs it into a whirring shredder that reduces the 1,000-pound rectangle of dry oat stems to a fluffy, fibrous state. These steps…are the first in making ethanol motor fuel at Iogen's experimental plant in Ottawa. Built next to a former Air Canada hangar at the edge of the municipal airport, the factory is really a big science project aimed at learning how to make alcohol on a commercial scale from nonfood biomass like straw. If Iogen succeeds -- and it is getting close -- it will have the technology the world needs to kick its gasoline habit.

"Each big bale will emerge after about a week as 35-40 gallons of ethanol. After shredding, the stuff goes through a 'steam explosion' process that breaks up its structure, like popcorn in a popper. The following step, enzymatic hydrolysis, involves combining the biomass with water, heat, and enzymes in sealed, Dumpster-sized, stainless steel cylinders. The resulting mushroom soup-looking slurry sits for a few days while the enzymes convert the cellulose portion of the straw fiber -- which is about 75% of it -- into sugars. (The leftover woody matter, lignin, is dried and pressed into burnable cakes; future ethanol factories may use them to fuel their processes.) Once you've got sugar, you can make ethanol -- or booze, as it is known to most of us…

"Many eyes are watching the progress at this privately held $15-million-a-year Canadian biotech. Four years ago, Shell Global Solutions, the oil giant's technology arm, made a $45 million investment in Iogen to hasten development of a cost-effective way to make cellulosic ethanol. Iogen's plant has been cranking out test quantities for almost two years now. 'We have made it work with straw from barley, wheat, oats, and rice; with cornstalks; with bagasse left over from sugar-cane processing; and with chips of hardwoods such as poplar and aspen,' says president Brian Foody, whose father founded the company. 'There's also research going on with energy crops like switch grass.'

"Iogen's gold is those enzymes that convert cellulose into sugar. Produced by genetically modified microorganisms, they are a major focus of R&D. The best enzyme so far comes from a hopped-up version of Trichoderma reesei, the humble fungus that causes jungle rot, which devours canvas tents and other natural-fiber items in the tropics. (Rival enzyme developers like Genencor and BCI use Trichoderma and other organisms.)

"For now, the plant consumes only about 30 tons of wheat, oat, and barley straw a week -- just 10% of its capacity. Even running full tilt at 1 million gallons a year, the demonstration plant is small compared with a high-volume corn-ethanol plant, not to mention an oil refinery. Iogen calculates that an economically viable cellulosic-ethanol plant would consume 1,500 tons of biomass a day and produce about 45 million gallons of ethanol per year. The first such factory could end up being built in Germany: At the recent Detroit auto show, Volkswagen, Shell, and Iogen announced they are studying the possibility. Says Rob Routs, the senior officer at Royal Dutch Shell who oversees the company's ethanol bets: 'We're going to get this thing to work on a larger scale.' Zillions of yeast organisms in Ottawa will drink to that."

wonder what's the ERoEI

Popcorn has water inside the kernal. When you heat the popcorn, the water begins turning into gaseous water, ie steam. Once enough of the water in a kernal of corn has "gassified", the kernal explodes into popped corn. It's the building up of pressure inside the kernal of corn or stalk of wheat that causes the explosion, not a trememdous amount of energy.

I've heard of making alcohol from wild grass, but never understood how they intended to do it. It's actually very promising.

http://www.eroei.com/the_chain/eroei.html

I find it very difficult to believe that you will get more energy out of ethanol or bio diesel than you put into it. I hope somebody has figured out a way to do it.

if you take a bale of straw and light a match to it you definately get more energy out than the energy contained in the match. But if you factored in the total energy inputs from the sun, labor and oil to farm, process, etc the EROEI is probably way less than 1.0. The problem with corn based ethanol is that it is a very inefficient way to get a form of energy (liquid fuel) that can power machines. 1.21 EROEI is not that good. In effect you are burning a gallon of ethanol to produce 1.21 gallons. If switchgrass (and other inputs such as forest waste, etc) really can result in an EROEI of 4.43 that is really pretty good, not to mention it could lead to a revolution in waste recycling. Apparently this switchgrass can grow just about anywhere, doesnt take the water, fertilizers, pesticide requirements of corn. and the dried fiber byproduct can be used to help fire the steam boilers. Cellulosic Ethanol could become a very important part of the overall energy mix. Makes more sense than growing corn to make ethanol.

The energy to get your 1.21 gallons of gas is the equivalent of 1 gallon of gas, but it could just as easily come from a PV array, nuke plant or windmill - none of which fit readily into a car. An EROEI of <1 still makes (some) sense if you're using an immobile power source to make mobile fuel.

Of course, if switchgrass has the higher EROEI, it's still better (ditto hemp).

solar energy of the sun is factored into any of the EROEI figures since its a free and unlimited source.

to me, the developments in solar are very exciting. the present technology isnt economic and must be subsidized but I am convinced that will change. And when it does just about everybody will want a PV system (and as a utility electric distribution engineer that will make my job a living hell).

:D

But that's off topic, so I'll shut up...

for the foreseeable future (cloudy days, nighttime, etc). In my job as a utility engineer I've approved nearly 500 residential PV arrays in just the last few years. All of them are govt subsidized and are interconnected with the utility distribution grid. These are "no-sale" contracts meaning the solar power can spin the meter backwards at times but never to the point that the utility pays the customer for power delivered. In practice, most these PV arrays are 2 to 3 kW in size and simply reduce the bill to the customer, they dont eliminate it entirely. But I can see the day when economic 5kW units will be the norm (will take a tech breakthru like Nanotech). and if battery storage technology has a few breakthrus I could see the day when small neighborhoods will form thier own "utility" and interconnect with each other (for reliability of supply) and then they could leave the traditional utility grid all together.

a 35% GAIN in energy recovered in form of ethanol compared to energy consumed in making the ehanaol (as compared to a 19% LOSS for gasoline).



Michigan State University study concluded: 56% return for corn ethanol

USDA Study (2004) concluded 65% return for corn ethanol

Cellulosic ethanol produces much more ethanol than corn but work still needs to be done to bring down the cost of producing the enzymes needed to break down the cellulose. MOst experts feel cellulosic ethanol will be commercially viable in 5 to 6 years.

Now, what do we do during the 6 years it willl take to make cellulosic ethanol pracatical and then the several more years it will take to scale up production to make an impact on fossil fuel usage??

Nigeria, Iran, South America - all these sources have considerable uncertainties (check news almost daily). We are going to experience a disruption in the supply of oil of 5% to 10% within the next 3 to 5 years. This will cause a recession in this country. What do you plan to do about this? Tell people to hang on until cellulosic ethanol gets going. Unfortunately, this will not prevent a recession. This will not prevent large numbers of people from being laid off.

Cellulosic ethanol is something we must develop as fast as we can. But in the meantime we cannot ignore (in fact we are not ignoring it. Corn ethanol currently supplies about 2-3% of the fuel supply) a CURRENTLY PRACTICAL (no additional R&D expenditures required) alternative energy source that will help provide some insurance from the coming 5-10% fossil fuel disruption. This is the quickest to scale up and cheapest alernative energy source we currently have. We should double the production of corn ethanol as quickly as we can (a good goal would be 4 yrs). This will provide insurance from recession due to a oil supply disruption of 5- 10%.

THEN, the expanded ethanol production infrastructure will facilitate bringing cellulosic ethanol more quickly to an economic level of production. In the mean time, corn ethanol will reduce our dependence of fossil fuel quicker and cheaper than any other currently viable technology or alternative fuel source. And we will need that to help us cope with the oil supply disruption which is surely coming sometime in the next few years.

I tried to post a table that showed corn vs. switchgrass but it wouldnt post. 4.43 (if for real) isnt bad. Corn is barely worth it.

here is the part about corn vs. switchgrass ethanol (unfortunately without the table)

Corn vs. Switch Grass

The energy balance from corn is slightly positive. However, ethanol can also be derived from other sources, such as corn stover, switch grass, and straw. Let's consider comparative energy and ecologic factors in producing ethanol from corn versus switch grass:



In addition to obvious energy efficiencies of switch grass versus corn, switch grass can grow over large areas of the United States. Also note that switch grass requires herbicide only during the establishment year of an estimated 10-year cycle, whereas corn and other annual crops require annual application. The costs of these additional chemicals must be included both in economic production costs to the farmer and the ecological costs of increased rates of infiltration of chemicals into groundwater and runoff into streams.

can't remember where I read it. I think Canada was doing some testing.

grows fast and is a great source of cellulose. I wonder if all the yard waste that goes to the dump could also be used in this cellulosic process. In my town we have seperate green garbage cans for yard waste. Out at the dump they shred it up into compost and give it away to whoever will take it. Huge mountains of the stuff.

cars vs feeding people!

straw, switchgrass, etc. doesnt have nearly as much energy input as corn. hope that 4.43 figure is for real.