[kellynla]

Hosein Shapouri of the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that such factories wouldn't need energy from fossil fuels to run the plant.

"[They] can even produce extra electricity that can be sent to the public power grid," Shapouri said. "These plants will be self-sufficient."

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

These plants will be self-sufficient.

The corn plants?

:-)

[Mike Darancette]

Dude, Grass?

[spinestein]

They did a 5 minute "in depth" story on Iogen (Carl Sagan would have pronounced it "ee-o-jen") this morning on NPR.

In spite of NPR's fawning over them, I'm still very impressed with their results and can't wait to see this type of technology really used on a large scale. Farming fast growing plants like grass and fermenting it into alcohol to be burned for energy for human use is how solar power SHOULD be done and I hope Iogen reaps the rewards for the decades of research they've done, particularly on the enzymes used to break down the cellulose before fermentation.

[null and void]

Ass, gas, or grass.

Nobody rides for free...

[RayChuang88]

Right now, the race is on to find ways to drastically increase the production of ethanol.

There are several companies looking at turning plant cellulose into ethanol, most already reaching the point of building a pilot plant to test scaling up the technology. Because plant cellulose is far more common than corn, wheat and sugar beet production combined, this could open the way to make ethanol on a scale that makes the Brazilian ethanol program seem like a minor event in comparison.

And this is only the beginning: the use of special oil-laden algae "fed" by smokestack emissions could make it possible grow enough algae to produce hundreds of millions of gallons of biologically-based diesel fuel/heating oil per year just in the USA alone by retrofitting current coal-fired and natural gas-fired powerplants, with the "waste" from the processing of the algae capable of being processed further into ethanol rather easily.

In short, technology outruns the naysayers again.

[when the time is right]

Before they spend all this money on their first commercial plant...why don't they fly down to Brazil and see these plants operating all over the country. The farms have co-op type refineries that use the waste product to fuel them and sell their product on the open market. No government needed.

[SE Mom]

bookmark

[JustDoItAlways]

This company, Iogen, has been pushing this technology for over 15 years, spent $200 million of other people's money and can't even get their demonstration plant working properly.

The key to this technology is breaking down cellulose into a product that can then be converted into ethanol via the normal process.

But Moma Nature has spent the last 200 million years experimenting with different ways to break down cellulose efficiently. She hasn't been successful yet. If she had been, we would not be building our homes, decks and fences with wood.

Termites (or more accurately, the bugs in their guts) seem to be most successful organism to date into breaking down wood (cellulose.) But is that process efficient enough to be scaled up to the industrial scale? Probably not.

[knews_hound]

Homebrewers PING

I am seeing a lot of these stories lately, do any of you have experience with a still?

My brother and I are giving it some thought but it seems like an awful lot of work.

Thoughts, replies or smartass remarks?

On or off the Homebrewers Ping list, let me know.

Cheers,

knewshound

In Pakistan, the beating continues

[all4one]

Ethanol Ping....

[Toby06]

This would be good news if ethanol was as good a motorfuel as gasoline.

Drill ANWAR, California, New Jersey, and the gulf!