Published on August 18th, 2008
Under a new research directive at Ames National Laboratory, scientists are honing in on a way to perfect a process called gasification to create cheap ethanol from almost any carbon source without fermentation.
If they’re successful, crops, agricultural waste, lawn clippings, raked leaves, sewage sludge and garbage could all be turned into ethanol using the same efficient process, in the same facility, under one roof.
We’ve covered the process of gasification for ethanol production before, but this new research appears to be a huge step forward in making ethanol using gasification.
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Tags:
alternative energy,
Ames,
Ames Laboratory,
automobiles,
Biofuels,
ellulosic ethanol,
Ethanol,
fuel,
gasification,
innovation,
renewable fuels,
research,
Science,
Syngas,
Technology,
transportation,
Victor Lin
Published on May 3rd, 2008
Earlier this year, headlines were made on the announcement of biotech start-up Coskata promising to revolutionize the production of ethanol with a process that could use a variety of feedstocks, ranging from wood chips and switchgrass, to old tires, and even directly from municipal waste. Most importantly, it did not rely on corn or other food stocks in order to produce fuel. At the time, Coskata was predicting an aggressive timeline, with a pilot demonstration plant to begin operation in 2009, and a first full-scale plant to be underway by 2011.
Last week Coskata announced the location for their pilot demonstration plant, a facility that will begin producing 40,000 gallons of ethanol per year, starting in 2009. While that is only a tiny drop in the proverbial bucket, it’s another step along the path to having a full-scale plant in operation and producing 50 to 100 million gallons of ethanol per year.
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Tags:
anaerobic,
Biofuels,
Ethanol,
ethanol production,
fuel,
gasification,
GM,
non-food,
plasma,
Syngas,
Westinghouse
Published on February 3rd, 2008
Plasma gasification has the potential to be a breakthrough technology. It can serve not only as a method of producing fuels, but also as a method for effectively dealing with hazardous wastes. In fact, the technology was initially developed to be a method for waste disposal, and the energy production potential was just a side benefit.
Plasma gasification was one of the more exotic methods that was discussed as a precursor for the Coskata process for ethanol production. Coskata’s method takes a stream of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (known as syngas) and feeds it through a bioreactor vessel where specialized strains of bacteria feed on the syngas and metabolize it to produce ethanol (or other alcohols, depending on the strain of bacteria in the reactor). There are numerous methods for producing syngas, some more than a century old, but others, such as the plasma gasification method, sound like the stuff of science fiction. Read the rest of this entry »
