Purdue's Can-Do Biofuels Promise to Meet All U.S. Transport Needs
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 03.15.07
Churning up plant matter—such as agricultural and forest waste—into liquid fuel isn't a new concept, but chemical engineers from Purdue University are proposing an new environmentally friendly process that could provide all the fuel for "the entire U.S. transportation sector." (These are the same hallowed halls of academia that brought us the garbage-to-diesel generator. Man, are these guys FOCUSED.)
The difference in this new approach: The addition of hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification.
Adding hydrogen suppresses the creation of carbon dioxide, thus increasing the efficiency of the process. This makes it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass, according to Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue's Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.
The researchers have even come up with a snazzy name to describe their approach: the "hybrid hydrogen-carbon process." But you can just call it H2CAR for short, if that's too much of a mouthful.
"Further research is needed to make this a large-scale reality," Agrawal said. "We could use H2CAR to provide a sustainable fuel supply to meet the needs of the entire U.S. transportation sector—all cars, trucks, trains and airplanes." :: Purdue University
Photo credit: George Kavanagh/Getty Images
Same idea behind "clean coal" or "CTL" technology.
My worry with ethanol from "plant waste" is that "plant waste" can include all of our forests, so we could switch from mining our last pristine places to clear cutting them and turning them into ethanol farms. Do you think that big business will suddenly develop scruples?
There are already tons of biomass waste from current agriculture and logging, no need to cut more forests.
Once we have cellulosic ethanol, we can even use switchgrass and hemp and stuff like that.. FAst-growing, no need for pesticides and fertilisers. Can be grown in crappy land..
"In the H2CAR concept, hydrogen would be harvested by splitting water molecules, possibly with a well-known method called electrolysis"
The trouble with this it that it is inefficient. Solar is virtually imposable, because of low efficiency of electrolysis. Using a nuclear reactor is the only viable way, resulting in about 50% practical efficiency. From what I have read, if this is done properly, after investment costs, the resulting hydrogen could be cheaper per BTU than gasoline.
Currently, only about 5% of the worlds hydrogen comes from electrolysis, the vast majority coming from natural gas burning.
The theory behind it is good, but I fear cost cutting and compromises being a setback in carbon emissions reduction.
"In the H2CAR concept, hydrogen would be harvested by splitting water molecules, possibly with a well-known method called electrolysis"
The trouble with this it that it is inefficient. Solar is virtually imposable, because of low efficiency of electrolysis. Using a nuclear reactor is the only viable way, resulting in about 50% practical efficiency. From what I have read, if this is done properly, after investment costs, the resulting hydrogen could be cheaper per BTU than gasoline.
Currently, only about 5% of the worlds hydrogen comes from electrolysis, the vast majority coming from natural gas burning.
The theory behind it is good, but I fear cost cutting and compromises being a setback in carbon emissions reduction.
Why waste all that perfectly good electricity splitting water into H2 and O2? Why not develop Li polymer battery production and bring the price into the realm of the common man's Plug In Car.
Whether we like it or not, ALL cars will eventually be electric. Its clean, versatile, the infrastructure is already in place, and the technology of electrical energy storage is advancing EVERY DAY. Spiltting up H2O into its constituents is stupid, unless the REALISTIC gain in this process for moving X amount of people or goods around the world outweighs the gain of producing more electric power to recharge more batteries in more electric vehicles.