Green Gasoline? Scientists Produce $1/Gallon Gasoline From Non-Food Plant Material
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst have made a potentially ground-breaking discovery in the production of biofuels from sustainable, non-food sources.
By heating cellulosic plant material to between 750 and 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit in the presence of a catalyst, then quickly cooling it, the team of graduate students led by associate professor George W. Huber was able to produce a mixture of hydrocarbons identical to gasoline in less than two minutes. The conversion is a relatively simple, one-step process that could create biogasoline for as little as $1 per gallon.
- » See also: Scientists Researching How Plants Can Make Petroleum
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“We’ve proven this method on a small scale in the lab,” Huber said. “But we need to make further improvements and prove it on a large scale before it’s going to be economically viable.”
This process could provide a less-energy intensive alternative to standard ethanol production—the fuel which, like it or not, the US is currently banking on to carry it into the foreseeable future (don’t believe this? see my last post).
Of course, that depends on whether or not the process makes it out of the lab. Huber says that could take up to 10 years, but the research has already generated $400,000 in funds from the National Science Foundation, and $30,000 from the UMass Office of Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property. If the breakthrough lives up to its hype, it could be on the receiving end of a lot more.
John Regalbuto, director of the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at the National Science Foundation, said:
“In theory, (the UMass biofuel) requires much less energy to make than ethanol, giving it a smaller carbon footprint and making it cheaper to produce,” Regalbuto said.
“In fact, from the extra heat that will be released, you can generate electricity in addition to the biofuel. There will not be just a small carbon footprint for the process. By recovering heat and generating electricity, there won’t be any footprint.”
I won’t be holding my breath for this one, but it could offer another fuel to the growing list of sustainable, petroleum-free alternatives we may depend on in the next few decades.
It may also legitimate the name of this blog.
Posts Related to Green Gasoline:
- Coskata’s $1/gallon Cellulosic Ethanol, Made From Trash
- Scania’s Ethanol Diesel-Engine, Runs On Biodiesel Too
- Biodiesel Mythbuster 2.0: Twenty-Two Biodiesel Myths Dispelled
- Shell, Virent to Develop Second-Generation BioGasoline
- Farmers Invest In Diesel-Producing Trees
- 2015: 30% of US Corn Harvest Will Be Gasoline
- GMO Corn-Stover Eats Itself, Makes Ethanol Processing A Breeze
Source: The Republican (Apr. 09, 08): $1 per gallon biofuel touted
Photo Credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison
hi all
i have question:
where can i find more information about this one step
process please?what is the catalyst they use?
it’s very difficult to find information about it.
than you very much
“Who’s going to do the labor to make the fuel? Where will the infrastructure come from — i.e. how will the resources be extracted to build it?”
I am assuming that these questions refer to the “no carbon footprint” comment. I won’t belabor that point, but the following question doesn’t make much sense.
“Will the poor be able to afford vehicles to burn it?”
What are the poor driving now? If this fuel really is “just like gasoline”, which I doubt, but even if it’s close enough, then they’ll keep driving the third and fourth-hand cars they do today. And that may well make this fuel the fuel of the poor, until enough flexfuel and alternative fuels have been produced, used and sold off to trickle down to the lower incomes. That is the sad reality of modern society.
“Will the poor be able to afford vehicles to burn it?”
If, as the article claims (dubiously), that this new fuel is “exactly like gasoline”, then the poor will continue to drive the third and fourth hand cars the do today, if they drive at all.
The sad reality is that until enough flexfuel and alternative fuel cars have been manufactured, sold, used and then resold, to create a pool of these used cars, the poor will have little access to them.
Sorry for the repost. I’m still on my first cup of wake-up juice.
The question is who will bother to grow food anymore?
Already in Indonesia and South America cultivating of grain, rice and other food has been ditched in favour of the more profiable fuels.
In a further 20 years the population will ahve increased to 15 Billion. Who is going to feed them? Where is drinking water going to be sourced from.
The rivers are now getting heavily polluted by algae.
It’s time to be very concerned about preservation and sourcing of water.
The footprint lies in the methods of producing not in its use.The footprint also lies in the sacrifice of rain forests, corn, wheat, barley… food for energy methods that aren’t needed. No hope left for us when we have science more concerned with fuel than sustinance. The Baldchemist
Please ignore the statements of some on here that state where the price of gas is jacked. As an oil trader I will tell you that the gas retailers are losing their shirts. Even though the wholesale price of gas may hover around $1.00, the taxes and cost of regulation alone make retailing a bad business. They only stay in the business hoping you will buy a bag of chips or a soda. Why do you think Exxon sold out of it earlier this year. The refiners are also getting crushed, we need to impose minimum gas prices so we can all eat. Or cut out the worst business partner any one could ever have…the government.
Ray
At the present time the wholesale price of diesel has been around 40 to 60 cents a gallon more than gasoline. While every gallon of oil has to be refined into some gasoline and some diesel, the refiners have some control over the proportions of each that are produced.
Over the last few decades refiners have optimized to produce as much gasoline as possible. How long before refiners have modified their equipment to produce more diesel and less gasoline?
When will this technology be grabbed and suppressed as so many have been?
Fuel taxes alone are more than a dollar per gallon, aren’t they…