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New biofuels process developed
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by nukegingrich | March 14, 2007 at 06:09 pm
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., March 14 (UPI) -- U.S. chemical engineers have created an environmentally friendly process for producing huge amounts of liquid fuels from plant matter.The Purdue University scientists said the new technology can produce liquid fuels from biomass in amounts that can provide all of the fuel needed for the entire U.S. transportation sector.
The technique involves adding hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification.
Chemical engineering Professor Rakesh Agrawal said adding hydrogen during that step suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the efficiency of the process, making it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass.
This touches all the right "hot buttons"
carbon-free, environmentally friendly, renewable fuel sources, biomass, sustainable fuel supply.
This is potentially a culture-changing event.
(h/t swamps)
Update: here is the pdf of "Sustainable Fuel for the Transportation Sector", by Rakesh Agrawal, et al, published online March 14, 2007.
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selena_kyle
Mountain View, California, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 12:54 on March 16th, 2007
At NowPublic, this is high praise from NowPublic editors!
Nice find. What would be the obstacles to such shangri-la technology as this? I reckon that high on the lsit would be opposition from entrenched economic intereste, i.e. Big Oil .
Your story is now on the home page for awhile, and everywhere else the “good stuff” box shows up. Many thanks for your great work.
at 13:56 on March 16th, 2007
The ignored aspect on the biofuels approach is that growing biofuels vegetation - corn, sugar cane, grain crops etc is that they take from the soil with each harvest. Soil fertility decline is an aspect that has been overlooked.
Sure fertilisers, but sourcing those is an issue as well in the long run.