Doubled Yield For Bio-Fuel From Waste 97
hankwang writes "Dutch chemical company DSM announced a new process for production of ethanol from agricultural waste. Most bio-fuel ethanol now is produced from food crops such as corn and sugar cane. Ethanol produced from cellulose would use waste products such as wood chips, citrus peel, and straw. The new process is claimed to increase the yield by a factor of two compared to existing processes, thanks to new enzymes and special yeast strains."
Re:Duke Nukem Forever (Score:5, Informative)
Cellulosic isn't remotely cost effective even when the source materials are free or nearly so, as when wood chips or other waste products from other industries are used.
I used to grow corn. The subsidies vary from year to year. For the last several years, they have amounted to around 5-10% of the price of corn. There are also subsidies for ethanol production itself.
One fact to consider is that pulpwood has subsidies, as well.
But are the enzymes cheap enough? (Score:3, Informative)
Enzymes for conversion of cellulose into something more useful as a fuel have been around for years. The problem is that the enzymes tend to cost too much. This outfit at least has a plan to grow the enzymes at the refinery, rather than shipping them in. The costs of these processes have dropped substantially in recent years. [nytimes.com]
Fuels are very cheap per unit volume. Any input to the process has to be even cheaper.
Re:Monsanto effect (Score:3, Informative)
As you quite rightly mention in your first paragraph, people have been creating "special" yeasts for years. There are already literally countless "special" yeasts manufactured for use in beverage making and industry.
In other words- that's hardly new. Presumably that problem has long since already been encountered and solved.
Re:Monsanto effect (Score:3, Informative)
An overwhelming majority of the beer and wine and spirits we drink are made from specialized yeasts. Its not terribly difficult to keep a specialized yeast strain from being contaminated by other yeasts. Ask any homebrewer (like me).
Re:Won't be too long... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Duke Nukem Forever (Score:3, Informative)
Cellulosic isn't remotely cost effective even when the source materials are free or nearly so, as when wood chips or other waste products from other industries are used.
Or possibly less than free.
I know a few people who do tree care for a living, and one of their larger expenses is paying someone to dispose of their wood chips.
Several tons of wood chips a month.
They would be thrilled if someone would take them for free. Or for less than the cost of tipping fees at the landfill (also solving another problem in the process...)
Re:makes for a nice talking point (Score:5, Informative)
As we all learned in Econ 101, if you decrease availability you push the price up. This is not to say that the higher price goes to the farmer, unless you are a large corporate owned farm where the corporation owns the distribution chain.
You will get no argument from me that the Options markets are parasitic, but they can only hold prices up for so long before the increased prices cause surplus goods and thus push prices down which cause options contracts to become very costly to the investors who manipulated the market. Having an alternate use for the food, like the production of ethanol, only helps the speculators hold the price higher. Since these same people are the ones who invest in things like ethanol plants, they can help themselves by building more ethanol capacity and getting government regulations in place to force more ethanol into the fuel supplies.
Any way you look at it, family farmers and the poor (and yes most poor work and work hard) end up getting screwed again by large multi-national corporations and the politicians they buy.