Bio-fuels .... good or bad? 16

[jmw]

Does anyone have any idea of the impact of bio-fuels? pros and cons?
We are no longer talking about recycling used chip fat here, but purposeful production.
Even as Bio-fuels begin to atract attention we hear about grain and meat prices rising, as we should expect when there is competition to turn our wheat into either bread or fuel.
We also have concerns about our environment. Indonesia is said to be prepared to plant more palms for the palm oil and that means more destruction of the forrests (more burning and smoke?) and loss of habitat to the already endangered (how seriously?) Orang Outang.
This report suggests Brazilian sugar cane as a source.

http://www.livemint.com/2007/09/24013816/BPCL-looks-to-tie-up-with-Petr.html

We all know that we are already losing rain forest at an alarming rate so how bad will this be? 600 acres doesn't sound like a whole lot of land but:
[ul][li] how much bio-fuel will it produce?[/li]
[li]Should bio-fuel be organic? (seriously, the impact of chemicals etc isn't just on foods but on the local ecosystems... )[/li]
[li]How much land would be required to produce enough bio-fuel to replace petrol/diesel?[/li]
[li]If we replace petrol/diesel with bio-fuel, how cost effective is secondary refining [/li]
[li]what are the impacts on the oil industry? Does crude get more expensive or less?[/li]
[li]what are the economic impacts of such changes on refining and thus on society?[/li]
[li]What are the questions we should be asking?[/li][/ul]


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[btrueblood]

Here is a site that claims that micro-scale production of bio-ethanol could be more economical than the big industrial facilities.

Design News article:

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6579734.html?nid=2333&rid=4335635#_self

Manufacturer's web site:

http://www.efuel100.com/

where they make the claim (from their FAQ):

"The MicroFueler is more power-efficient than US commercial ethanol plants due to its advanced membrane filtration technology and a non-combustion fermentation and distillation process."

 

[owg]

Where can I get some of that "government surplus sugar for ethanol production at 2 cents per pound"? Then I could bootleg some of it into my coffee.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[moltenmetal]

The key benefit of his unit appears to be its physical similarity to a gas pump...

The heat of evaporation has to come from somewhere, whether you do this by conventional distillation or you use membranes. What he's claiming is that it's not a "fired" unit and hence less dangerous. I presume the heat is coming from electric immersion heaters in his case. That's only "efficient" if you forget about the cost of the electricity, which of course he's banking on.

There are commercial ethanol producers who ae using membrane systems to dry ethanol, so there's nothing magic there. The crude cut (geting rid of most of the water) is still most efficiently done by conventional distillation. And the key problem remains: the bugs are killed by the ethanol they're making before its concentration goes beyond a certain (comparatively low) level.

There are, in fact, lots of reasons that doing this on a small scale will be LESS efficient than doing it on the larger scale. One of the big downsides in his case is the wasted sugar fermentation broth, whereas in a corn ethanol operation the brewer's mash can be fed to cattle.

 

[jmw]

This link provides some history of biodiesels:

http://www.sdamovers.com/956.html

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com