Jeebus. This is beginning to sound like hydrogen. And here I thought that CE was just around the corner. Not in my life time, I guess. And here's an interesting tidbit.

"Biomass is composed of nature’s most ready energy source, sugars, but they are locked in a complex polymer composite exquisitely created to resist biological and chemical degradation."

Perhaps there is a very good reason for this from an evolutionary standpoint.

Furthermore, given the apparent fact that part of their plan is to develop a bioengineered solution to this problem, they should address the possible impact on natural systems if these enzymes get out of control.

Ala James Kunstler, perhaps we should be making other arrangements in the mean time. By the time we start rapidly sliding down the other side of peak oil, these magic bullets will still be just over the next horizon.

How good is this companiny's process? They claim to be able to turn celluose/paper into sugar for ethanol fermentation.
http://www.sekab.se/eng/

Don't forget that the Bush administration is beholden to the US oil & gas industry. Politics therefore requires the DOE to look as if it was doing something without actually accomplishing much of anything - at least not anytime soon. Hence, no mention of any real funding and a focus of five years of further research before any infrastructure gets built.

The US ethanol lobby is not pushing butanol, which would be preferable in terms of fuel properties, because the protectionist tariff of $0.54 per gallon applies only to ethanol.

BP and DuPont have indeed embarked on a project to produce biobutanol, initially using sugar crops in the UK. That country used butanol in Spitfires during WW2 and does not maintain a protectionist tariff on ethanol. A process for turning cellulose into simple sugars (hexose and pentose) is in the works. Once you have sugars, you can produce any alcohol you like with the appropriate (genetically engineered) bacteria. Ethanol fermentation is simply better-understood than most because we've been doing it for millenia. Unlike butanol, pentanol's octane numbers are too low for use without an octane improver.

Shell, VW and Iogen are investigating the feasibility of producing cellulose ethanol from straw in Germany. It looks likely that the US will not be the first country to produce industrial quantities of alcohol fuel(s) (additives) from (hemi-)cellulose.

t-
It is also possible to bioengineer an environmental limitation on an organism such that it will only survive in specific lab conditions. This would control the possibility of "escape into the wilds".

Considering there are at least 3 thermal BTL processes I wonder about these token research projects. F-T and TDP are both more energy efficient than fermentation and distillsation. Ethanol is not a benefit to farmers as much as it is a pay back for campaign contributions from ADM and Cargill.

Commuter vehicles that run on Alternative Fuel such as Natural Gas, Ethanol and others should be offered incentives or rebates from the government to purchase or drive them. And the more people you commute with would increase incentives. Public transportation is fine but people feel inconvienced by them as they do not want to walk that extra block but myabe need to.

http://www.eco-fueler.net/bm1011

Thanks, Rafael, for eloquently voicing my suspicion regarding the DOE's motive in the CE agenda.

It seems to me that there is already a much simpler and more efficient way to exploit energy from cellulosic biomass, and that is the high-temp pyrolysis or gasification of dry biomass. This is a very simple process of using high heat up to 800 degrees C in the absence of O2 to heat up the biomass until thermal breakdown of complex organic molecules into simple hydrocarbon molecules such as methane, ethane, and CO and some hydrogen occur, depending on the temperatures and other conditions. The methane and H2 can be use directly in ICE or home heating, or be used to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuel via the FT process. Unlike the ethanol making process using low temp heat that cannot be recuperated for electricity production, the high-temp gasification process uses high temp heat that can be recycled to run steam turbine for electrical generation at very high efficiency at above 40% thermal efficiency, thus the EROIE is much better for the gasification process. No enzymes used, and no genetically-engineered organism used, either, so no fear of unknown environmental consequences should these "mutants" escape! Imagine a super bacteria used to digest cellulose now got into the gut of termites or other bugs (ants) and they are invading your wooden house!!
Thus, gasification of cellulosic of biomass can be used to provide biomethane and hydrogen to start the transition into the future, when low-cost hydrogen and methane can be produced inorganically en masse from concentrated solar energy via the solid-oxide high-temp electrolysis of H2O and CO2. If xTL fuel is desired, the methane and hydrogen feedstock is already available in large quantity for FT synthesis, and it's only up to the end user and local air-quality regulatory body to decide whether very clean gaseous fuel to be used locally, or synthetic liquid fuel to be used instead, where air pollution is not a major issue.

This report exposes many of the practical difficulties of ethanol: getting the biomass into a form that can be fermented, the high energy requirements to distill the resulting beer and then, of course, the properties of the resulting ethanol itself.

Tom D is right, BTL is the way to go.

I am thinking after reading Rafaels postings I must be needing to distill cellulosic ethanol for drinking or any ethanol! This conspiring politics hatings mixing with energy theries is looking backward to me. Please be sticking to energies to help find solutions more soon. Ethanol is being a good drink and longer carbon chain better fuel.

I think the emphasis on ethanol instead of butanol may be of three reasons.
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1) The farmers grow crops that can be easily turned into fuel via yeast. Farm lobby may have a hand at this. There is electroal politics, and the kabuki dance in Iowa every four years for the presidential caucuses/elections. It is established, and anyone who does not toe the line may be seen/percieved to be hostile to the american farmer. No one with preidential ambitions will commit political suicide on this issue.
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2a) If ethanol costs per gallon the same as gasoline, but not per BTU/mile, then there may be a profit to be made. Lets say (for argument's sake) that the gallon of gasoline goes back down to $2.50 a gallon. The real cost of a gallon of ethanol/E-85 per mile may be 50%/40% higher; it may be even more. Thus the real cost would be in the $3.70 range. ChChinn! Do I hear the cash register?
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2b) The increased real cost may push the consumer to drive less/more efficiently. Thus consumption may go down. The thought of going 20 mpg on Ethanol and burning 6 gallons instead of the old 30 mpg/4 gallons a day for commuting may make people think. It is regulations/policies by market mechanisms and would fit in with the Bush White House.
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3) With ther real cost by driving with ethanol higher, it may make the consumer go back to gasoline, or onto diesel. Big Oil may be letting ethanol blossom for this reason. It makes an alternative available, while stunting/drawing off $$$&brains for more R&D into better fuels/fuel production. Meanwhile, they slowly develop/ obtain replacements for Fossil energy to dominate the direct/indirect solar energy processes of the future. Thus ensure their future survival/success, hence their influence on the economy and politics, and thereby..... ...power.

Eng.-Poet. Certain information sources claim that Large Direct Carbon Fuel Cells have twice the efficiency of basic Coal fired power generating plants, (70% to 80% vs 35% to 40%) and produce 50% less CO2.

Would this be CO2 by ton of coal (or other feed stocks) used or by Kwh of electricity produced? Assuming that it is by Kwh produced, even a 50% CO2 reduction would represent an unsustainable level, when used on a massive scale.

Are there any of those Large Direct Carbon Fuel Cells in operation? If so, what are the proven economic and environmental impacts or advantages/disadvantages over other power generating facilities?

Roger Pham:  The IGCC plants lose a substantial amount of energy in the gasification process (plus back-work to run the air separation unit); the efficiencies I've seen are around 40% from Wabash River.  That's good, but nowhere near as good as DCFC.  John Cooper claims to have routinely measured 80% efficiency, and that's based on the HHV, not LHV.

Harvey:  I don't know if any large DCFC's are in operation.  If I were running the energy department, getting a test plant up and running would be one of my top priorities.  The total efficiency of DCFC's is high enough that we could run the whole country on biomass-produced charcoal (zero net carbon), and the CO2 could either be sequestered or fed into the same sorts of processes proposed for growing fuel algae from fossil-plant exhaust.  That gives you a power system which could be strongly carbon-negative.  IMO, we need that yesterday.