We’ve been looking for ethanol news all afternoon, but unfortunately all we can turn up are cranky blog entries about corn being yanked from the mouths of starving orphans and ethanol is a waste of time and money and other Republican hand-waving. Same with electric cars, only that topic brings out the whiners who want their glorious electropia now now now and are pissed off that a magic wand hasn’t been waved over the energy grid yet. It’s maddening. So we decided to not completely bum ourselves out and find something fun to post on the blog instead, and it just so happens that we found a fun little cartoon about how ethanol is actually made. Bonus points for the use of clip art and ubiquitous 1950s instructional video music. Click the Car to watch it, and we’ll see you next week when, hopefully, there will be something besides meaningless conjecture on the Internet.
While the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal continues to sound ethanol’s death knell, citing financial issues that aren’t—-to be fair—-necessarily unfounded. However, they routinely ignore the many cool innovations going on within the biofuel industry right now, the latest of which is perfect for what’s left of summer: watermelon ethanol. The journal Biotechnology for Biofuels reports that “20% of the watermelon crop doesn’t go to market every year due to imperfections, bad spots, or weird shapes.” But instead of just plowing them back into the ground, “watermelon juice can be fermented and used directly, or it can be used as a ‘diluent, supplemental feedstock, and nitrogen supplement’ with other biofuel crops.” Watermelon juice also has several health benefits, and can be used to produce lycopene, which is important for prostate health.
This development came out of left field for us, we must admit, but we’re pretty enthused about it - making fuel from waste crops that would otherwise be thrown away is at the heart of conservation. Besides, if they can distill fried chicken grease and leftover coleslaw into biofuel, every 4th of July picnic ever would be a boon to the industry.
Speaking of, someone write Nick Cannon, NAS, and Affion (the three guys who made “Eat That Watermelon“) and let them know about this. Dated references to minstrelsy are all well and good, but we’ve got a planet to save, dammit!
Stay tuned to Corn Car for an exclusive interview with Baltimore DIY Squad about their solar oven, and other sustainability efforts - we’ll be talking with them on Wednesday and posting soon afterwards. In the meantime, here’s a link they sent us to the “Sport” Solar Oven. It works like a crock pot and, of course, cooks using the power of our mother star.
Also, just for fun, here’s a cartoon illustrating how ethanol is made.
While Corn Car is none too fond of the airline industry for a variety of reasons (for example, they beg the government for money every year, evidently surprised by the fact that taxpayers are sick to death of their terrible service, price-gouging, and inconsistency), we will give those evil bastards credit where it’s due - they’ve really put some effort into testing new biofuel mixtures in their planes. Last week saw Continental Airlines fly a Boeing 737 across the Gulf of Mexico using a combination of regular jet fuel and a biofuel made from algae and jatropha oil, which is pretty powerful stuff whose host weed can be grown almost anywhere.
This was the first effort from an American plane, but jatropha-based fuel has caught on internationally. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Air New Zealand became the world’s first airline to fly a plane powered partly by jatropha-based fuel,” and “Japan Airlines is planning a test flight using fuel refined from camelina, a flowering weed.” Evidently this flurry of activity is based around the idea that yes, fuel prices have fallen due to economic turmoil, but the airlines don’t want to be left with Pete in hand when they go up again. Smart.
Aviation industry experts are cautioning against any undue excitement, noting that it will be years before biofuels start replacing traditional fossil fuels, if they ever do. But they always say stuff like that, so their underwhelmed response was hardly surprising. This is an important step for biofuels, and a promising one given that algae and jatropha weed aren’t food crops. Well, not for humans, anyway. Besides, it’s kind of neat to think that the viscous crap growing on the underside of your dad’s boat, or Eddie Van Halen (pictured at left), could help power an airplane.
Gasification might sound like something your uncle goes through after too much dairy, but it’s actually an old biofuel technology that scientists are reexamining in the wake of the current fuel crisis. According to a Science Daily press release, gasification “is a process that turns carbon-based feedstocks under high temperature and pressure in an oxygen-controlled atmosphere into synthesis gas, or syngas.” Before the advent of the electric light bulb, gas was squeezed out of coal (and used to power gas fixtures) by gasification, and it was briefly considered as an ethanol extraction process back in the 70s. But the stakes might be even higher today, and there’s an ethanol mandate to meet, which means that whatever extraction/distillation methods we use need to be as streamlined and efficient as possible.
Turning the syngas into ethanol might be a key - Ames Lab chemist and Chemical and Biological Science Program Director Victor Lin was quick to point out its merits to Science Daily. “It expands the kinds of materials that can be converted into fuels,” Lin said, adding that such materials include “the waste product from the distilling process or any number of other sources of biomass, such as switchgrass or wood pulp.” In fact, pretty much any carbon-based material can be converted into syngas. And where there’s syngas, ethanol’s not far behind.
The long and short of it is that Kuyper added a gene found in elephant poop to the baker’s yeast that combines with sugar to make ethanol. This gene can break down the sugars in the materials left over from a batch of ethanol, which can in turn be processed into more ethanol. This is a big step, and Kuyper deservedly received a Ph.D for his efforts thus far. Expanding his work to the industrial level will help the bio-ethanol process tremendously, and we here at Corn Car officially salute his efforts by presenting him with The Corn Car Suggestive Teddy Bear Award for Scientific Innovation.
We here at Corn Car (well, this writer, anyway) were pretty sure that - since we’ve made it a point to never eat yogurt or mushrooms - the only uses for fungus were giving Super Mario extra lives and providing ledges/springboards for Toejam and Earl. But ethanol has changed that, with the recent discovery that the fungus Rhizopus microsporus removes solids and organic material from the watery gunk left behind by ethanol production. With that detritus removed, said gunk (also known as stillage) can be recycled back into ethanol production, which hadn’t been feasible before.
Iowa State professor Han van Leeuwen, who’s leading the research project that made this discovery, said that “the process could change ethanol production in dry-grind plants so much that energy costs can be reduced by as much as one-third.” Successful application of the fungus would also reduce ethanol plant water usage, add value and nutrients to the livestock feed produced by ethanol plants, and improve the overall energy balance of ethanol production.
As we’ve stated in previous updates on ethanol production, it’s nice to see this kind of frontier ingenuity applied to things that aren’t computers for a change. We just hope that, should Earth ever reach Peak Fungus, we’ll be able to work out a trade agreement with Planet Funkotron.
So a lot of ethanol source ideas are being thrown around these days, and while we’re happy with where current research is headed, the current dialogue boils down to corn v. switchgrass with very little deviation. Are there possibilities that we’re overlooking? Here are five suggestions we haven’t heard much about, along with some thoughts as to why.
Chocolate
Projected benefits: Aside from the basic idea sounding awesome, there’s tons of sugar in chocolate that can be converted into ethanol. Plus, chocolate smells way better than gas and the fumes aren’t nearly as bad for you. Why it’s not happening: R&D is steering away from dual-use fuel sources like corn and sugar, and byproducts thereof. And that’s not considering the effect of menopausal women or World of Warcraft players on market prices and general availability.
Semen Projected benefits: It’s plentiful, and the extraction process is really fun. And the water in semen can probably be put to good use through electrolysis. Why it isn’t happening: No one is comfortable with the adult entertainment industry seizing this as a marketing tool. Besides, any halfway-serious endorsement of this idea would get you murdered in your sleep by Pat Robertson.
Pot Projected benefits: It has 4 times the cellulose value of corn, and it can be grown anywhere by pretty much anyone. If some crazed ex-hippie whose brain is pretty much a shapeless clump of malted hops and bong resin can grow it on the side of a mountain, it shouldn’t be too hard for career farmers in Iowa to integrate into their crop rotation. Why it isn’t happening: You know that crazed ex-hippie we just talked about? Well multiply him by several thousand. That’s the marijuana legalization movement; an unreliable coalition of college kids and glassy-eyed heshers who can’t package their brilliant ideas in a way that appeals to anyone. They’re like NRA members, only less motivated.
Urine Projected benefits: It’s sterile, easy to come by, and the extraction process is simple, if lacking the thrills of semen extraction. Plus, it’s already been shown that we can power batteries with the ions found in urine, and apparently BMWs use it to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Why it isn’t happening: Gas stations are unpleasant enough, ya know?
Hydrogen Projected Benefits: Hydrogen fuel cells are more efficient than internal combustion engines and don’t produce harmful emissions. Why it isn’t happening: We’re still putting more energy into fuel cell production than we’re getting from the results. Also, certain faults of hydrogen, relevant to the topic or not, are still very much alive in the public consciousness.
And, we’re spent! Readers, feel free to suggest things we’ve missed.
We’ve been looking for ethanol news all afternoon, but unfortunately all we can turn up are cranky blog entries about corn being yanked from the mouths of starving orphans and ethanol is a waste of time and money and other Republican hand-waving. Same with electric cars, only that topic brings out the whiners who want their glorious electropia now now now and are pissed off that a magic wand hasn’t been waved over the energy grid yet. It’s maddening. So we decided to not completely bum ourselves out and find something fun to post on the blog instead, and it just so happens that we found a fun little cartoon about how ethanol is actually made. Bonus points for the use of clip art and ubiquitous 1950s instructional video music. Click the Car to watch it, and we’ll see you next week when, hopefully, there will be something besides meaningless conjecture on the Internet.
While Corn Car is none too fond of the airline industry for a variety of reasons (for example, they beg the government for money every year, evidently surprised by the fact that taxpayers are sick to death of their terrible service, price-gouging, and inconsistency), we will give those evil bastards credit where it’s due - they’ve really put some effort into testing new biofuel mixtures in their planes. Last week saw Continental Airlines 
