[Terrapreta] Fuel

[Chuck Yokota]

The writer of the article made a math error, and forgot one of the
multiplications of 1000.  The electric energy and the biofuel energy are
just about equal.  Of course, the energy for the biofuel comes from the
sunlight in photosynthesis, with the CO2 being the raw material used for
algae growth.  The process is possible, and it will depend on the costs
of construction, operation, and maintenance to show how viable it is.
And in the end, the carbon will be released as CO2 when the biofuel is
burned.

 

________________________________

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Michael
Bailes
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 3:49 AM
To: Terra Preta
Cc: Keith Howard
Subject: [Terrapreta] Fuel

 

http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2006/09/07/co2-helps-make-biofuel/


CO2 Helps Make Biofuel
<http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2006/09/07/co2-helps-make-biofuel/> 


If you believe too much CO2 is going to cause catastrophic climate
change, then you'll love this - we can use CO2 to increase the rate of
plant growth; biofuel plants in particular.

How this will work in practice isn't exactly clear.  As we have noted,
it will be a tragedy if we scrub CO2 out of our industrial emissions to
stop possible global warming, while leaving unacceptable amounts of
other airborne pollutants lower on the priority list.  If you're going
to regulate CO2, while you're at it, at least make sure you eliminate
the carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide,
and sulpher dioxide, because we know they're bad.  Where I live in
California, the summertime air is filthy, and it isn't CO2.

In any case, one company that seems to have some good ideas as to how to
use CO2 to grow biofuel is GS-CleanTech <http://www.gs-cleantech.com/>
(the GS stands for "Green Shift").  On the page with their products and
services overview <http://www.gs-cleantech.com/product_desc.php?mode=3>
, they make several interesting claims.  Here's one:

"GS CleanTech's patented C02 Bioreactor reduces greenhouse gas emissions
while creating an additional feedstock for renewable fuel production. If
applied at ethanol facilities, it would boost fuel production by more
than 15%, and if applied to coal fired power generation, it could
produce more than 200 million gallons of renewable fuel annually for
every 1,000 MW of electricity produced."

The devil is always in the details.  First of all, they probably mean
"for every 1,000 megawatt-years of electricity produced."  So how much
energy is in a megawatt-year, and how much energy is in 200 million
gallons of renewable fuel? 

Energy in 1,000 megawatt-years:  Take 3,416 BTU's (British Thermal Unit,
our favorite way to do energy conversions) per kilowatt hour.  Multiply
by 24 hours per day, and 365 days per year.  Now you have
kilowatt-years.  Multiply again to get megawatt-years, and then multiply
again by 1,000 to get 1,000 megawatt years.  Result:  29.9 billion.

Energy in 200 million gallons:  A generous estimate of BTU's per gallon
of ethanol would be about 150,000.  Multiply by 200 million.  Result:
30 trillion. 

More at

http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2006/09/07/co2-helps-make-biofuel/

-- 
Michael the Archangel

"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden. . . . 
Most people don't know that"
FROM
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-content/permaculture.swf 

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