Using Winemaking Waste For Making Fuel 152
Tator Tot writes "Grape pomace, the mashed up skins and stems left over from making wine and grape juice, could serve as a good starting point for ethanol production, according to a new study (from the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry). Due to growing interest in biofuels, researchers have started looking for cheap and environmentally sustainable ways to produce such fuels, especially ethanol. Biological engineer Jean VanderGheynst at the University of California, Davis, turned to grape pomace, because winemakers in California alone produce over 100,000 tons of the fruit scraps each year, with much of it going to waste."
drop in the bucket (Score:5, Insightful)
so the 100,000 tons, times 2000 pounds per ton, divided by 13 (as per article only half the yield of dry corns 26 lbs. per gallon ethanol), gives 15 million gallons of ethanol. the USA uses 380 million gallons of gasoline per day.
Ethanol isn't sustainable (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no way to ever produce enough to replace gasoline. Right now 40% of our corn stock is, by federal law, ground up and turned into Ethanol, and it manages to offset about 15% of gasoline. We could turn our entire yearly production of grown food into ethanol production and still fall short. It isn't a sustainable technology, no matter how much waste, byproduct, etc., is produced. There simply isn't enough land to make it. Oil took millions of years to create, and was formed from the organic waste of the entire planet. We'll have depleted that million-plus year stock in just under 100 years.
Re:Ethanol isn't sustainable (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no way to ever produce enough to replace gasoline.
Who are you arguing with? Neither TFA nor TFS makes that claim. It's a description of a technique for turning a particular class of waste into a useful product, not a turnkey solution to the energy crisis.
Re:drop in the bucket (Score:5, Insightful)
so the 100,000 tons, times 2000 pounds per ton, divided by 13 (as per article only half the yield of dry corns 26 lbs. per gallon ethanol), gives 15 million gallons of ethanol. the USA uses 380 million gallons of gasoline per day.
Ya? and that means 15 Million less gallons of gas that would be used.
It's a start, combined with other things, would help make a dent in the usage of gas/oil.
I guess you want to wait till gas is $20 a gallon before we start using other fuels? Maybe you do. I don't drive, so I don't buy gas, so really, I don't care much, but it's this attitude that everything has to be big to be effective that is annoying.
Much like no one is going to make a WoW beater, no on is going to come up with a solution that can totally get rid of the use of gas/oil. But we can find a bunch of renewable resources that together can help a lot.
Re:drop in the bucket (Score:5, Insightful)
And? It's essentially free, other than the cost of the actual process. Free raw materials might make it economically viable *now*.
No single solution is going to solve our problems. Even biofuel in general isn't a complete solution. But do the math for this, plus dozens of other types of biofuels, plus geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal, wind, solar, hydrogen fuel cells, and potentially nuclear fission and fusion. See if those can replace coal, oil and natural gas.
Re:drop in the bucket (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh come on.
1) as pointed out above, this is less than a drop in the bucket. I would not call that a dent.
2) It is completely unclear if this would generate any net energy. A case can be made that many of these more inefficient biofuel processes consume more energy than they produce. How does that help.
3) Most importantly, things like this distract from the ONE thing that has a real chance at reducing our dependance on oil, which is nuclear. Solar and wind might help a little, and maybe biofuels can help with energy storage, but what is described here is not a significant part of any real solution.
You can talk about little steps here and there, but it is magical thinking. If we want to get serious about reducing gas usage (I'm not getting into whether this is the right thing, that's a whole separate topic), then nuclear has to be a huge part of the solution.
Re:drop in the bucket (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it really waste? Fertilizer? Animal Feed? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not opposed to gathering up all the organic waste that we can ...
Is it really waste? Isn't this stuff used as fertilizer or animal feed?
We may need to offset the ethanol benefits with the need to turn to big chemical and big agriculture for more fertilizer and feed.