Re: [GBlist] Biomass-derived ethanol

["Robert Jordan" <rwjordan@charter.net>]

What is the ability of our soil and water supplies to support this?  Growing plants depletes soil of its nutrients and water is in short supply.  Has this ever been considered by the people promoting biomass?  The ultimate problem is that there are too many people, I think.

----- Original Message -----

From: Ron Byrd

To: Greenbuilding

Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 11:20 AM

Subject: [GBlist] Biomass-derived ethanol

Case Now Stronger for Energy Plan
Sep 17, 2001 - Scripps Howard News Service

Congressional unity may begin to fray at the subject's mention, but the
coming U.S. war against terrorism clearly strengthens President Bush's
argument for oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge.

I agree that oil addiction is a major issue here that should be
comprehensively and openly dealt with.  So should the fact that US energy
policies are leading us towards an electricity monoculture and a false
freedom of choice as long as that choice is centrally-generated electricity.
This is classical thinking along the same lines that caused these problems
to begin with.

About 10 years ago I was lecturing a bunch of Army facility engineers that
Jimmy Carter was almost right when he said "conservation" was the moral
equivalent of war."  I suggested that conservation should be the moral
alternative to war.  Today however,  the powers-that-be in the US (and
probably elsewhere) are apparently exploiting this crisis and busily
marking-up energy policy language to further protect their interests. These
include "efficiency" provisions that effectively promulgate
counter-productive policies that are designed to ignore losses that occur
upstream of utility meters (including "zero-emissions" vehicles).

 It's time for some fresh ideas.  Please critique this one:

About 75 million barrels of oil are consumed daily throughout the world of
which nearly 20 million barrels per day are consumed by the US according to
the EIA. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t24.txt
 . One alternative that appears to
offer truly significant potential is biomass-derived ethanol.
Lignocellulosic materials such as agricultural, hardwood and softwood
residues are potential sources of sugars for ethanol production. So do other
forms of biomass (e.g., grass clippings)and household waste-paper. The
cellulose and hemi-cellulose components of these materials are essentially
long, molecular chains of sugars that can be fermented into ethanol.
However, these sugars are protected by lignin, which is a polymeric 'glue'
that holds all of this material tightly bonded.

Because of the vast potential for biomass-derived alternatives to oil,
considerable research (but probably insufficient given the magnitude of the
problem) is underway both nationally and internationally to develop
processes to break down lignin. These efforts should take on additional
importance if civilization is ever to come up with a viable substitute for
oil. Ethanol from corn has too many issues to significantly displace oil.
However, rather than harm farmers by not allowing corn to make ethanol,
these technologies should further benefit farmers since their corn (or rice
or whatever), as well as their residue, will have world markets; one as
food, the other as fuel. Forecasts predict that biomass derived ethanol can
be produced for $.57 (US) per gallon
(http://www.pyr.ec.gc.ca/ep/wet/section16.html).

Ethanol production facilities, with their high steam demand, would make good
host sites for electricity co-generation facilities. Distributed generation
plants, such as cogeneration, are environmentally and economically viable as
well as being far less prone to terrorist attacks relative to conventional
power plants.

The following link provides a well-written 'white paper' on the subject of
biomass-derived ethanol:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/icons/pdficonsmall.gif

--
Ron Byrd
Vice President
Sunstar Precision Energy Corporation
http://www.specbyrd.com
" Turn Sunlight into SPEC Energy "