[Scape]

Kudzunol

http://kudzunol.com/

I wonder if they could do the same for scotch broom.

[sandorski]

Sounds good. Would be concerned with how much Energy is required to make it though.

[Bruce_the_vii]

You can get fuel from weeds by bacteria, fungi, partial combustion or enzyme treatment. This enzyme treatment is a breakthrough and here's the canadian company doing it.

http://www.iogen.ca/

It's a multistep process and isn't that cheap (from what I can make out).

[N_Fiddledog]

I have all these questions about Bio-fuel in general, but I'm not curious enough, nor to I have the free time to hit Google on all of them. Don't get mad at me OK. I want to try it the easy way, and just ask here, in case anybody has the answers off the top of their head.

There's all this stuff you can use to make bio-fuel out of - Kudzu, algae, wood-chips, corn, palm-oil, bio-trash, etc. Is there one engine that runs them all, with equal efficiency, or are there problems with cross-overs from different sources? It's all ultimately ethanol, isn't it?

Is there a market for small ethanol producers from different sources? Could you have ma and pa operations, either producing and selling, or buying from different sourced, small-producers, and selling?

Has anybody ever worked on what I'll call the ultimate hybrid engine? What I mean is you could run it on anything from gas, to diesel, to natural gas, to propane, to ethanol? Is that even possible?

Is there a preferred ethanol-specific engine?

[Choban]

The problem with reasearch in this area is that the big oil companies are all lobby groups as well, they pay politicians campane funds and then call in the favors. As long as these politicians are in their back pockets the oil companies don't have to worry about serious competition from alternative fuel sources

[Bruce_the_vii]

N_Fiddledog wrote:

I have all these questions about Bio-fuel in general, but I'm not curious enough, nor to I have the free time to hit Google on all of them. Don't get mad at me OK. I want to try it the easy way, and just ask here, in case anybody has the answers off the top of their head.

There's all this stuff you can use to make bio-fuel out of - Kudzu, algae, wood-chips, corn, palm-oil, bio-trash, etc. Is there one engine that runs them all, with equal efficiency, or are there problems with cross-overs from different sources? It's all ultimately ethanol, isn't it?

Is there a market for small ethanol producers from different sources? Could you have ma and pa operations, either producing and selling, or buying from different sourced, small-producers, and selling?

Has anybody ever worked on what I'll call the ultimate hybrid engine? What I mean is you could run it on anything from gas, to diesel, to natural gas, to propane, to ethanol? Is that even possible?

Is there a preferred ethanol-specific engine?

Wikipedia is a better source than Google for quick references. The articles there are brief and do reference the essentials like practicality.

There is a book by a nobel scientist on the methane/methanol economy. This is the most conventient form of biomass energy, wood alchol. Gas engines run on all the fuels but diesel. All these biofuels can be processed into one another with additional energy input. There is also a trillion bbls of shale oil and a trillion tons of coal that will be competition with biofuels.

[N_Fiddledog]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

There is a book by a nobel scientist on the methane/methanol economy. This is the most conventient form of biomass energy, wood alchol. Gas engines run on all the fuels but diesel. All these biofuels can be processed into one another with additional energy input. There is also a trillion bbls of shale oil and a trillion tons of coal that will be competition with biofuels.

Gas engines need a conversion to run stuff like natural gas, or propane, but they'll run any form of ethanol without one, right? But isn't there an efficiency problem with ethanol in a gas engine? Are all forms of ethanol equally efficient, no matter the source?

[xerxes]

[Bruce_the_vii]

I'm not an expert, the conversion of gas engines to other fuels is not difficult. Ethanol is wood alcohol, it's all the same molecule. Take some time with Wikipedia on alternate energy - the articles are very essential and too the point.

[PluggyRug]

sandorski wrote:

Sounds good. Would be concerned with how much Energy is required to make it though.

Ethanol production in the doldrums.

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3221