Posted on 05/14/2008 9:51:31 PM PDT by BlueSky194
General Motors has purchased an equity stake in Coskata Inc. of Warrenville, Ill., which has come up with a process that uses bacteria to produce E85 ethanol fuel out of garbage, scrap tires, wood chips, and even recycled foam, rubber and plastic in today's junked cars.
While E85 is currently made from food-based sources, GM says non-food-based ethanol can be produced for about $1 a gallon, or about half of what it costs using corn today ? meaning E85 could be priced under $2 a gallon at the pump.
E85 contains less energy than gas and gets 25-30% lower mileage than regular lead-free gasoline. But at $2 a gallon, the price wipes out the mileage disadvantage while also providing a use for garbage and scrap tires? they could produce fuel to get us to work and back rather then get buried in unsightly landfills.
In fact, GM says, a facility could be set up at the landfill that would both produce the fuel and eliminate the typical garbage-depot eyesore. Or the fuel could be produced from tree scraps at lumber mills in the forest, or using lumber taken from homes destroyed by tornados, hurricanes or floods.
Unlike corn-based ethanol, which requires between three and seven gallons of water to produce one gallon of fuel, Coskata says it only takes one gallon of water to produce one gallon of non-food-based ethanol ? and the water can be recycled to produce more.
The first pilot plant will begin producing the fuel in the fourth quarter of this year for use in testing vehicles at GM's Proving Grounds in Michigan, and a plant producing up to 100 million gallons of the fuel for retail sale will be operational in 2011.
GM, which announced the deal with Coskata at today's Detroit auto show media days, is holding talks with oil companies to determine which ones will offer the fuel.
nancy pelosi will be sending her winged monkeys out to stop all this nonsense
What is the octane? How many MPG do you get from it?
How will the infrastructure survive without $0.60 a gallon in state and federal taxes? How will the federal government impose its will on the states if it cannot hold gas taxes in exchange for passing the laws (speed limits, DUI BAC, drinking age, etc.) that are beyond the federal domain?
Also what toll will this take on engine that were designed for a better grade of fuel?
Yeah. And then another two dollars a gallon to transport it since you can’t pipe ethanol.
Ethanol eats certain types of material used in hoses and seals... etc.
If a car is designed for it, there are no issues.
Biodiesel can be made from used vegetable oil from restaurants, are they looking into that?
IBTBTTFP.
Does anyone use a hydrogen generator?
It’s considerably higher in octane, but lower in BTU’s/gallon. So you’ll get more power but less mileage.
Hell, we should throw her in the hopper. The unfortunate consequence of that is that the output would be sludge.
And those are just a few of the good preliminary questions.
They could speed up this process and get us all using it for even less than $2/gallon at the “pump”. But instead, watch how it becomes a political football, weakened steadily by the Saudi lobby.
The big problem with E85 is your need stations where you can get it.
With the oil companies controlling most of the stations, it is difficult. They do not make ethanol and have to buy it from someone else. They do not make the kind of profits that they do with gasoline.
Gas is now 4 dollars a gallon.
E85 would only be 2 dollars a gallon.
With E85, there is a strong incentive to mandate gas stations to install at least one E85 pump. The oil lobby in DC will harshly oppose it.
“Does anyone use a hydrogen generator?”
Forget the hydrogen propaganda... You have to make hydrogen by burning real fuel. Most of the hydrogen on earth is already burnt (water).
I used to think this too, but then I thought about raw economics. In reality, here is what I think we'll see:
Gas is now 4 dollars a gallon.
E85 would only be2 dollars$3.99999 a gallon.
(translation: profit!)
How about dead bodies? Can E-85 be made from dead bodies?
Every body I know has already laid claim to that grease.
The restarants are starting to charge for it now.
It ain’t free anymore.
Whatever the virtues of this process may or may not be, you have to applaud GM for exhibiting enlightened self interest, instead of supinely taking whatever the energy companies throw at them. Maybe we’ll see GM E-85 stations sprouting up around the country (and without further attacks on the food supply).
There must be 5-10,000 restaurants in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metromess: There aren’t that many diesels around, are there?
BTW, I bought my 1984 Mercedes 300D Turbo for only $100 back in 2005, and it’s been pretty dependable (under 145K miles at present), but I sure would enjoy it even more at under a dollar a gallon.
| "We turned my truck into a wood burning gasifier! The vacuum cleaner hose the pumps the gasifier gas (hydrogen) to the engine of the truck. Through the 5 gallon paint bucket with a filter in it. It’s literally made of garbage. My truck runs on wood. I can’t wait to bring it to the smog station… it’ll have almost no emissions. Suck it, veggy oil hippy… were takin’ alt fuel to the racetrack!!!" |
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