fuel treatment for ethonol gas

Very true about heavy subsidization of the oil industry, plus the new emphasis on natural gas retrieval by fracking (while natural gas is still being flared off in the conventional oil fields--do we see a disconnect here?) I don't pretend to be an expert on Brazil, my understanding was that the primary utilization was post-extraction cane products (bagasse)==certainly they close their loop a lot tighter than we do here. An old timer who was a neighbor of mine years ago made the statement "Junk is a modern invention--" meaning in times past we as a society were not as wasteful as we are now. Our grandkids and great-grandkids will grow up wondering what the heck we were thinking, just burning irreplaceable sources of chemicals just to drive to the mall--

Oil is produced by heat and pressure acting on organic matter. There is no shortage, and never will be as long as we know how to grow algae and build glorified pressure cookers.

Not much in this world is "irreplaceable".

Organic material, heat, pressure, and time. Lots of research into algae, duckweed, switchgrass, and other plant bases going on in this area (central NC); the next few years should be interesting to see which platform is most successful!

rosie, are you talking about making cellulostic ethanol? I THINK Heath was trying to make the point that the earth has no trouble making more oil then we could ever burn. But I am not sure. Could both of you elaborate a little?

rosie said:

.... my understanding was that the primary utilization was post-extraction cane products (bagasse)==certainly they close their loop a lot tighter than we do here.

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Most of the Brazil sugar cane plants are set up as dual plants, to produce sugar or to ferment sugar into ethanol. They will do whichever is more profitable at the moment. They do use the bagasse to power boilers.
The corn ethanol loop is fairly well closed. The byproduct is sold to cattle feeders as a high protein cattle feed. The ethanol process only takes out the carbohydrates. It is roughly a 1/3 ratio: 18 lbs of corn makes 6 lbs of ethanol, 6 lbs of carbon dioxide in fermentation, and 6 lbs of cattle feed.

rosie said:

Our grandkids and great-grandkids will grow up wondering what the heck we were thinking, just burning irreplaceable sources of chemicals just to drive to the mall--

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AGREED!

dozer1 said:

rosie, are you talking about making cellulostic ethanol? I THINK Heath was trying to make the point that the earth has no trouble making more oil then we could ever burn. But I am not sure. Could both of you elaborate a little?

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Somewhat by natural processes, but more to the point by man made ones...

Thermal Depolymerization - YouTube

Think about WWII. We couldn't stop the Germans from making oil and gas, because when you get down to the chemistry of making small hydrocarbons from big long hydrocarbons, it really isn't that tough. With cracking and stitching catalysts, modern chemical engineers can make any version of "petroleum" you want.... it just costs more than drilling a hole in the ground and sucking out a few million barrels.

The sky is (almost) never falling. But would a newspaper headline that said "Everything is fine!" ever outsell the one that says "We're all going to die!" just because it happens to be true?

Well, that was an interesting video. I have never heard of that before that I can recall. It would be great to turn garbage and all kinds of crapoli into crude oil. Just think, a Prius could run about a year on a bald 53" Michelin tire I will keep watching for more about that, but it must be aways off yet. Definetely a cool concept and vid. Food for thought. mmmmm

Imagine how many raw materials could be reclaimed by a well structured refinery.... raw mixed waste in one end... ingots of metal, activated charcoal, and diesel out the other.

It isn't tough if you think of it one step at a time.

I would predict we will be mining landfills in our lifetimes, if only as a way to offset costs and reclaim the land for use. Complex volatile chemicals can be processed in a similar manner. The only thing we lack is the will, and the freedom from the nightmare of expensive regulatory hoops you would have to jump through to build/operate it.

The research is with cellulosic ethanol, duckweed biodiesel, and other plant platforms. Landfill mining is also taking place regarding methane capture, not that this is a new concept. I don't work in any of those industries but I know people who do. We might wish to look overseas for what people, as Heath points out, have been doing for decades. Recycling in other countries is far ahead of efforts in the States: 30+ years ago New Zealand collected all household trash (in conveniently provided heavy duty paper sacks), reclaimed all recyclables, composted what could be composted, and burned the rest to provide the energy to keep it running--again as the saying goes, there ain't nothing new under the sun