Comments on: Curing the oil crisis:- Starch or Sugar based Ethanol versus Cellulosic Ethanol

By: Oil Crash

Oil Crash — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 04:25:31 +0000

I understand that Hubberts peak is true and that we are now past the point of peak oil. I believe many of the current events have to do with this fact and it won’t be long before the main stream media and population wake up and understand what is going on. For me and my family, we are preparing for the next era.

By: Maika

Maika — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:24:42 +0000

hello! thanks for the information in here. i would like to ask. i’m a high school student and am planning to use ‘Production of Cellulosic Ethanol from Musa paradisiaca linn. (Saba) Peelings’ as my research/thesis title.

Is it possible for me to make ethanol from Banana peelings ?

How will i extract sugar from the Banana peel?

How much sugar will i have to extract from the peelings to make a big amount of ethanol ?

thank you for your help. Please e-mail me at maiks_23@yahoo.com for you answers . i really need your help . thank you and God bless you!

By: marilyn clinton

marilyn clinton — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:09:55 +0000

ccl3+nacl4=li+o=s+hbr=h2o=288n.2.b.16n.lipo3+hli=hb+n=h2o+br+nclli1+sop=ixy+n=rna+b=dna+c=ixy+d+ca=enes+o=h2o.
cures blindness from industrial alcohol.

By: Mary Fay, M.D.

Mary Fay, M.D. — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:22:35 +0000

Thanks for this informative site.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer recently purchased one of the “run your car on water” instructions, spending about 49$. I glanced through it and found it basically almost unintelligible and even if it were, so difficult to do that 99% of the people reading it would be unable to follow the directions.
That anyone would buy this manual, which basically defies the laws of thermodynamics, is beyond my comprehension.
That there isn’t a website devoted to telling people not to waste their money on this scam, also defies comprehension.
What is the alternative to fossil fuel?
People are so desperate and pressed for cash that we have to answer this question soon.
Do you see anyway for ethanol to become a real contender in this fight? And, do you see anyway for regular humans to produce high enough purity ethanol in sufficient volume to run their vehicles? What source of sugar would you use, and what energy source for distillation?

By: terence

terence — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:09:31 +0000

an australian company is currently building a plant to produse ethanol from sawmill and sugar cane waste.
Willmott Forests owns half of Ethtec who have the worldwide licence for the process from Apace Technolgy

By: theDuck

theDuck — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:07:06 +0000

Hi John,

I haven’t actually come across anything similar before but I’d be interested to know more - certainly I know of various folks that use an ethanol diesel blend to power agricultural equipment, but I’ve never heard of or seen Biodiesel being produced directly from bagasse.

I’d be very interested to know more - and, indeed, if you’d like a place to write up your invention I’d be more than happy to host it here at utheguru.

cheers,

By: John Clark

John Clark — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:06:39 +0000

Matt,

I have been doing research in developing a process of conversion of sugar cane to biodiesel. Interesting enough, lab experiments have shown high conversion rates of bagasse, as cut stalks, molasses, and refined sugar to CH4 and C2H4 leaving H2O and unbound C. By usining GTL (Gas to liquid) process, the Methane and Ethylene high value diesel fuel is obtained.Cetane of 50+.

Do you know of any similar work being done?

By: theDuck

theDuck — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:36:53 +0000

@Ryan - My intention here is not to pooh-pooh ethanol as a solution, but just to say that it is not, at least not under current methods of growing the feedstock and producing the ethanol, going to be a bolt-on solution for the looming energy crisis.

I don’t know if you’ve ever read ‘twilight in the desert’ but the contentions in that book are enough to scare any fair minded person out of their complacency. Peak Oil has well and truly come and gone, and we must be prepared very quickly if we’re to avert an economic catastrophe.

It’s also enough to make my mouth water re: the opportunities approaching for the sugar industry.

I actually first joined the sugar industry 10+ years back because of my passion for alternative energy - I could see massive potential there. Unfortunately it’s a bit difficult for a researcher / engineer / scientist like myself to maintain a career path / obtain a good income within the research arm of the Australian sugar industry so I’m now putting that passion aside and moving to the mining industry.. ironically.

I read the Khosla website and are familliar with their work. Personally I feel that producing ethanol from maize is a ridiculous waste of resources and tantamount to environmental vandalism when C4 plants like sugarcane can do a much better job with far fewer inputs and greater yields.

I’m leaving the industry with the knowledge that it’s likely that we have a massive future.

At times I wonder whether that future will be realised within the industry.

It seems to me that the last 100 years has been spent breeding a top-heavy beauracracy (within the milling and growing sectors) with inertia, stonewalling and complacency as central tenets of their management philosophy - that’s frustrating when you just want to get things done, and it’s the reason that we’ve been losing good people in droves.

By: racrac

racrac — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:39:26 +0000

Hello! I’ve read from an article that cellulose must first be separated from the plant material through acid hydrolysis and then the extracted cellulose will be fermented by the Baker’s yeast. Can this extraction process produce high percentage yield of ethanol?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:13:24 +0000

Some of these figures are good. But I can tell you that Brazil currently uses 15.6M/Ha to grow about 430 million tonne of sugarcane. That is about 4% of Brazil agricultural land and for those of you who are wondering, none of which is Brazilian rain forest. By 2020 Brazil is expected to hit the billion tonne of sugarcane mark and produce around 65 billion litres of ethanol. Much of this expansion is at the expense of under productive grazing land and no rain forest. Currently in Queensland alone, uses 2% of its agricultural land for cropping, the rest is marginal farming. Well not all but a lot. The question is could we follow Brazil? I think it’s possible and I definitely think it is better than mining coal. http://www.kholslaventures.com is one VC company that’s making inroads into the thanol industry.