Pillar to Post: Peter Welander's Blog 
Recent Posts
- Emerson: Watching the ceremony
- Your own home fuel cell plant
- Death of the typewriter (man)
- Living: How green is green enough?
- ISA Expo: Show must go on
- Re-branding a legacy
- Back to the "smart grid"
- Learning to live with change
- Back to $100 oil?
- Economics of not driving to work
Recent Comments
- Sandor Fule, Hungary on I am not a socialist
- Sandor Fule, Hungary on Economics of not driving to work
- Nico on Making gasoline out of coal
- Mark Hoske, Control Engineering on Learning to live with change
- Nancy McIntyre on ExxonMobil helping plug skills gap
Most Commented On
- I am not a socialist (3)
- Chinese pharma plants go un-inspected? (2)
- Making gasoline out of coal (2)
- Economics of not driving to work (1)
- Learning to live with change (1)
Archives
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
Blog
Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)
Cars that run on garbage, part 2
Last September, The Economist ran an article with the headline "Ethanol, schmethanol," and a deck, "Everyone seems to think that ethanol is a good way to make cars greener. Everyone is wrong."
The article's point was that there are more practical fuels than ethanol, and that if you're going to go to the trouble of trying to create a biofuel, you might as well aspire to greater things. (Apparently Henry Ford understood ethanol's drawbacks a century ago, which is why cars run on gasoline.) Butanol can also be made by fermentation and it has higher energy content than ethanol, which is a good start. (I was chatting with some folks at the ISA Expo last October, and the two processes are evidently similar enough that ethanol plants could be converted without too drastic refits. I would appreciate more information on that topic if anyone knows the details.) But, the article asks, why stop there?
Technologies are under development that are intended to create larger and energy-richer molecules. A company called Codexis is using what it has learned from pharmaceutical bioprocesses to create enzymes capable of producing octanol. Other companies are working toward processes that will create something that is effectively bio-gasoline or Diesel. Add in the discussion from yesterday, and the message is clear: The energy industry of tomorrow will look much different than today. The technologies that replace gasoline may not be invented quite yet, but they probably aren't far away.
Cars that run on garbage, part 2
January 16, 2008
Last September, The Economist ran an article with the headline "Ethanol, schmethanol," and a deck, "Everyone seems to think that ethanol is a good way to make cars greener. Everyone is wrong."The article's point was that there are more practical fuels than ethanol, and that if you're going to go to the trouble of trying to create a biofuel, you might as well aspire to greater things. (Apparently Henry Ford understood ethanol's drawbacks a century ago, which is why cars run on gasoline.) Butanol can also be made by fermentation and it has higher energy content than ethanol, which is a good start. (I was chatting with some folks at the ISA Expo last October, and the two processes are evidently similar enough that ethanol plants could be converted without too drastic refits. I would appreciate more information on that topic if anyone knows the details.) But, the article asks, why stop there?
Technologies are under development that are intended to create larger and energy-richer molecules. A company called Codexis is using what it has learned from pharmaceutical bioprocesses to create enzymes capable of producing octanol. Other companies are working toward processes that will create something that is effectively bio-gasoline or Diesel. Add in the discussion from yesterday, and the message is clear: The energy industry of tomorrow will look much different than today. The technologies that replace gasoline may not be invented quite yet, but they probably aren't far away.
Posted by Peter Welander on January 16, 2008 | Comments (0)
Advertisement
Advertisements
