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Posted on 07/23/2008 8:39:25 PM PDT by neverdem
After years of false starts, a new industry selling motor fuel made from waste is getting a big push in the United States, with the first commercial sales possible within months.
Many companies have announced plans to build plants that would take in material like wood chips, garbage or crop waste and turn out motor fuels. About 28 small plants are in advanced planning, under construction or, in a handful of cases, already up and running in test mode.
For decades scientists have known it was possible to convert waste to fuel, but in an era of cheap oil, it made little sense. With oil now trading around $125 a barrel and gasoline above $4 a gallon, the potential economics of a waste-to-fuel industry have shifted radically, setting off a frenzy to be first to market.
“I think American innovation is going to come up with the solution,” said Prabhakar Nair, research chief for UOP, a company working on the problem.
Success is far from assured, however. Some of the latest announcements come from small companies whose dreams may be bigger than their bank accounts. They are counting on billions in taxpayer subsidies. Big technological hurdles remain, and even if they can be solved, no one is sure what unintended consequences will emerge or what it will really cost to produce this type of fuel.
“We desperately need it, and I personally think it’s not there yet,” said Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. “You have to look at starts with a grain of salt, especially starts where they say, ‘It’s around the corner, and by the way, can you pay half the bill?’ ”
Still, the incentive to make fuel from something, anything, besides oil and food is greater than ever...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Unfortunately the cost of waste is going up now that the NYT is raising their price to $1.50.
County’s 1st ethanol plant to be built near Lancaster [California]
By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
07/23/2008 11:45:28 AM PDT
As part of Los Angeles County government’s larger plan to address global warming and the high cost of gasoline, the Regional Planning Commission today gave approval to BlueFire Ethanol to build the county’s first ethanol plant near the Lancaster Landfill.
The plant will be the first commercial facility in the nation to process biowaste - woodchips, grass cuttings and other organic waste - and convert it into ethanol, which is used as a clean-burning gasoline additive and as fuel for ethanol-power vehicles.
The plant is the first of three that BlueFire Ethanol says it plans to build in the county.
“Right now, our internal plan for BlueFire Ethanol is we want to build 20 of these types of facilities over the next seven years, and that will get us to roughly 1 billion gallons a year production,” said Arnold Klann, chief executive officer and president.
“But beyond that, since we control the technology and own the technology, we will be licensing it and partnering with other developers around the nation and around the world to build more of these types of facilities.”
The approval comes as the county Department of Public Works is working on a pilot project to construct similar facilities near other landfills in the county to recycle waste and generate fuel and energy.
The planning panel’s approval is the final needed for construction to move forward unless an appeal is filed.
Company officials have said construction could start as early as next month.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_9971751
and when the price of crude collapses, these 28 new plants itching to start up, will be in bankruptcy!!!!
Just think...the NY Slime will be charging 20% more to be printing this garbage (pun intended).
If these people had a brain, they’d be dangerous!!! (Sorry to come up with an old high schoolish expression but I’ve already registered all my disdain and disgust till I’ve run out of things to say in response to all this never ending crappola!!!)
Thanks for the ping....
Cellulosic ethanol plants planned in Tennessee, L.A.
*******************EXCERPT**********************
DuPont (DD) and Genencor, a unit of Denmark's Danisco, said Wednesday that they will break ground this fall on a 250,000 gallon cellulosic ethanol pilot plant in Tennessee.
With Dupont...this is some serious money....
Thanks for the links.
Ping
AIDS Among Latinos on Rise (14% of the U.S. population, they're 22% of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses)
Screening for Risk Factors or Detecting Disease? DEBATE Divides the CV Community
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Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
Do the math, fleet ave. MPG could have been double for the past 50 years (easily could have been done).
Combine that with removing legislation that prevented domestic drilling over the same period, and the sand bunnies would still be starin' at their camels (i.e. no money to buy weapons, oooh, now, who wouldn't like that?).
No, seriously, I axe you, who wouldn't like that?
Again, do the math.
Anybody need a pencil?
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