Re: [Biofuel] Fwd: Re: Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis, turns biomass into Green gasoline

2008-04-13 Thread Keith Addison
Hi Kirk

Interesting comments from a biologist friend. Hope he is wrong :(
   Kirk

He has a point here:

   Then converting agriculture to fuel production, after 60 years of 
saying the food supply cannot keep up with demand, is diabolical 
subversion of agriculture by the population control mob which wants 
another excuse for exterminating 90% of the population.

I don't think they're looking for another excuse though, they just 
keep changing what they call it (they used to call it eugenics, for 
instance).

Actually the growth in the food supply stayed 17% ahead of the 
population growth over the last 30 years. Or so the figures say, but 
those are the figures for industrial food production, which isn't 
actually food, it's commodities, grown for money, not to feed people. 
The food most people eat still comes mostly from small farms (where 
they haven't been destroyed by agribiz) and city farms, and that 
doesn't get counted. Farmers lie anyway to outsiders from the city 
looking for numbers, if they've got any sense, which they usually 
have got.

Anyway, it's not because of overpopulation nor because of a lack of 
food that so many people starve (852 million officially, though it's 
more than that), it's mainly because they've been shoved off the land 
and out of the economy by industrial agriculture, as heavily promoted 
and enabled by the Rockefeller Foundation, which also has long been 
the main nest of the population control mob, what a coincidence (and 
indeed the Rockefeller Foundation used to call it eugenics).

Meanwhile soaring food prices, scarcity and world-wide food riots are 
not (or not yet) due to pressures on the food supply caused by 
increased biofuels production as so widely alleged, but mainly to 
soaring petroleum prices.

IMHO the question to ask about all the next-generation so-called 
green fuels techniques being touted is whether they fit the 
Appropriate Technology model - can you do it at village-level? 
Probably not, it's more likely to be industrial-scale. People do some 
lab work and file for some patents and make big claims, pretending 
it's something that actually exists, but usually it's just 
investment-bait. The problem with the Appropriate Technology model is 
that it's so difficult for entrepreneurs and investors to make any 
money out of it, unlike industrial-scale projects.

But if it doesn't fit the Appropriate Technology model it's useless.

Best

Keith


G Novak  wrote:


 Kirk,

   This process for green gasoline is more hoodwinking, about like 
the cures for cancer which are in the news three times a week. 
Scientists try to justify expensive research that way.  Here's why 
this procedure and all others are not realistic:
   
   1. It costs too much to ship corn refuse or switchgrass to 
processing plants no matter how it is processed.  The stuff is so 
light and bulky that it takes more fuel to ship it 20 miles than it 
is worth, while there is not enough produced in a 20 mile radius to 
justify the expense of building a plant.

   2. Biomass is loaded with oxygen and nitrogen containing compounds 
which have to be removed before any processing.  Removing that stuff 
is noncompetitive, and it creates a problem of disposal.
   
   Then they didn't say what the catalyst was.  It is obviously too 
expensive, and maybe hazardous, to mention.

   Then converting agriculture to fuel production, after 60 years of 
saying the food supply cannot keep up with demand, is diabolical 
subversion of agriculture by the population control mob which wants 
another excuse for exterminating 90% of the population.
   
   Gary Novak
www.nov55.com
Science is Broken
   
   
 - Original Message -
   From: Kirk McLoren
   To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 11:38 PM
   Subject: Fwd: [Biofuel] Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis, turns biomass 
into Green gasoline




Bruno M. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  
Catalytic fast pyrolysis turns plant biomass such as wood and 
grasses into green gasoline
-
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080407102812.htm


ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) shy; Researchers have made a 
breakthrough in the development of green gasoline, a liquid 
identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass 
sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.

Reporting in the April 7, 2008 issue of Chemistry  Sustainability, 
Energy  Materials (ChemSusChem), chemical engineer and National 
Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER awardee George Huber of the 
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) and his graduate 
students Torren Carlson and Tushar Vispute announced the first 
direct conversion of plant cellulose into gasoline components.

In the same issue, James Dumesic and colleagues from the University 
of Wisconsin-Madison announce an integrated process for creating 
chemical components of jet fuel using a green 

[Biofuel] Fwd: Re: Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis, turns biomass into Green gasoline

2008-04-12 Thread Kirk McLoren
Interesting comments from a biologist friend. Hope he is wrong :(
  Kirk

G Novak  wrote:
  

Kirk,
   
  This process for green gasoline is more hoodwinking, about like the cures for 
cancer which are in the news three times a week.  Scientists try to justify 
expensive research that way.  Here's why this procedure and all others are not 
realistic:
   
  1. It costs too much to ship corn refuse or switchgrass to processing plants 
no matter how it is processed.  The stuff is so light and bulky that it takes 
more fuel to ship it 20 miles than it is worth, while there is not enough 
produced in a 20 mile radius to justify the expense of building a plant.
   
  2. Biomass is loaded with oxygen and nitrogen containing compounds which have 
to be removed before any processing.  Removing that stuff is noncompetitive, 
and it creates a problem of disposal.
   
  Then they didn't say what the catalyst was.  It is obviously too expensive, 
and maybe hazardous, to mention.
   
  Then converting agriculture to fuel production, after 60 years of saying the 
food supply cannot keep up with demand, is diabolical subversion of agriculture 
by the population control mob which wants another excuse for exterminating 90% 
of the population.
   
  Gary Novak
www.nov55.com
Science is Broken
   
   
- Original Message - 
  From: Kirk McLoren 
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 11:38 PM
  Subject: Fwd: [Biofuel] Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis, turns biomass into Green 
gasoline
  



Bruno M. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:   
Catalytic fast pyrolysis turns plant biomass such as wood and grasses into 
green gasoline
-
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080407102812.htm


ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) shy; Researchers have made a breakthrough in the 
development of green gasoline, a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet 
created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.

Reporting in the April 7, 2008 issue of Chemistry  Sustainability, Energy  
Materials (ChemSusChem), chemical engineer and National Science Foundation 
(NSF) CAREER awardee George Huber of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst 
(UMass) and his graduate students Torren Carlson and Tushar Vispute announced 
the first direct conversion of plant cellulose into gasoline components.

In the same issue, James Dumesic and colleagues from the University of 
Wisconsin-Madison announce an integrated process for creating chemical 
components of jet fuel using a green gasoline approach. While Dumesic's group 
had previously demonstrated the production of jet-fuel components using 
separate steps, their current work shows that the steps can be integrated and 
run sequentially, without complex separation and purification processes between 
reactors.

While it may be five to 10 years before green gasoline arrives at the pump or 
finds its way into a fighter jet, these breakthroughs have bypassed significant 
hurdles to bringing green gasoline biofuels to market.

It is likely that the future consumer will not even know that they are putting 
biofuels into their car, said Huber. Biofuels in the future will most likely 
be similar in chemical composition to gasoline and diesel fuel used today. The 
challenge for chemical engineers is to efficiently produce liquid fuels from 
biomass while fitting into the existing infrastructure today.

For their new approach, the UMass researchers rapidly heated cellulose in the 
presence of solid catalysts, materials that speed up reactions without 
sacrificing themselves in the process. They then rapidly cooled the products to 
create a liquid that contains many of the compounds found in gasoline.

The entire process was completed in under two minutes using relatively moderate 
amounts of heat. The compounds that formed in that single step, like 
naphthalene and toluene, make up one fourth of the suite of chemicals found in 
gasoline. The liquid can be further treated to form the remaining fuel 
components or can be used as is for a high octane gasoline blend.

Green gasoline is an attractive alternative to bioethanol since it can be used 
in existing engines and does not incur the 30 percent gas mileage penalty of 
ethanol-based flex fuel, said John Regalbuto, who directs the Catalysis and 
Biocatalysis Program at NSF and supported this research.

In theory it requires much less energy to make than ethanol, giving it a 
smaller carbon footprint and making it cheaper to produce, Regalbuto said. 
Making it from cellulose sources such as switchgrass or poplar trees grown as 
energy crops, or forest or agricultural residues such as wood chips or corn 
stover, solves the lifecycle greenhouse gas problem that has recently surfaced 
with corn ethanol and soy biodiesel.

Beyond academic laboratories, both small businesses and Fortune 500 petroleum 
refiners are