A replacement for ethanol?

[mort]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

If it sounds too good to be true it is.
Something doesn't add up. Some where between it being so cheap, simple and portable.
My engineer likes to say "all the easy stuff has been done already".

I agree, mostly. It sounds very much pie in the sky. But this bio-based gasoline isn't cheap. In the test they got the cellulose free. They say $1.50 for the conversion per gallon. Refinery costs are about $0.20 per gallon of fossil gasoline. So it is a breakthrough at being only 7.5 times more expensive than fossil gasoline to "refine", but the equivalent cost of cellulose stock is about $50 per barrel of crude oil, which is $86 today.

-mort

[serialk11r]

Holy crap cellulose stock is that expensive?

Is municipal organic and paper/wood waste cheaper?

[freebeard]

suspectnumber961 -- Thank you for this wonderful thread. I have watched their video over and over and took notes. Seriously. This isn't about fuel, it's about Global Poverty.

I've known for some time that the only reasonable Global Mega-Engineering approach to a War on Climate involves Biochar. Cool Planet gets it. Apparently there is a United States Biochar Initiative that just met at Sonoma State University. They were there with vehicles burning the fuel they are currently producing from their 4 acre pilot plot. They have a 100 acre plot in the high desert to receive their soil amendment.

Look at their investors: Google Ventures, GE, BP, Conoco-Philips, NRG

Their close-loop cycle spins off food and fuel as by-product. That's not the important part. The cycle is actually a virtuous spiral. Every time you go around 4-8 times you have twice as much farmland.

The company originally spec'd out 2000 first-world plants. Google.org wants 100,000 plants for the third world. That's 100,000 million-gallons-a-year plants that would catapult the locals past 'first-world' standard of living. Google is doing it to promote their Android operating system

With today's yield numbers:

• 1% land area -- Fuel all the world's cars
• 2% land area -- Zero-net carbon Emission by 2030
• 3% land area -- Reduce Global CO2 100ppm in 40 years

and they can convert desert to farmland to get there.

I'm a little skeptical of their Negative Fuel Carbon Cycle slide, though. It's a soil cycle, fuel is a byproduct. The part that goes "Biochar-Processing-Soil Amendment" I think should read "Activated Charcoal-Processing-Biochar".

I don't think this has anything to do with methanol. Their Biomass Fractionator uses sub-nanometer Quantum Wells to get from free-radical hydrocarbons to the finished product. Allegedly.

[RobertISaar]

....... i want to believe, but it all seems far too convenient.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Holy crap cellulose stock is that expensive?

Is municipal organic and paper/wood waste cheaper?

Yes it is cheaper but there is not nearly enough to meet demand.
Start to give you an idea how much they will need. A pound of wood holds about 10,000 BTUs of heat.
A gallon of gas packs at least 120,000 BTUs.

The process isn't 100% efficient and the process appears to leave a good portion of energy behind as "active charcoal" waste.

I'm thinking they would need at least 20 pounds of wood to produce each gallon of gasoline.

[freebeard]

'"active charcoal" waste' + microorganisms + 2 weeks = a reversal of desertification.

The 109-octane fuel you get to enjoy is as byproduct. They blend it with dinosaur juice to introduce it into the fueling infrastructure.

[redneck]

They appear to have a very capable team.

Cool Planet | Team and Investors

>

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

A pound of wood holds about 10,000 BTUs of heat.
A gallon of gas packs at least 120,000 BTUs.

The process isn't 100% efficient and the process appears to leave a good portion of energy behind as "active charcoal" waste.

I'm thinking they would need at least 20 pounds of wood to produce each gallon of gasoline.

It would be helpful to use similar units when making BTU comparisons between wood and gasoline. A gallon of gasoline weighs roughly 6lbs, so according to your figures, it has twice the energy density of wood at 20,000 BTU per pound.

EDIT: from How Stuff Works

Propane: 21,500 BTU per pound
Butane: 21,200 BTU per pound
Gasoline: 17,500 BTU per pound
Coal: 10,000 BTU per pound
Wood: 7,000 BTU per pound

[oil pan 4]

Opps I was thinking of coal.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by redneck

They appear to have a very capable team.

Cool Planet | Team and Investors

The more I read the happier I get.

Mike Cheiky invented Cool Planet's revolutionary biomass fractionator...previously founded...Transonic Combustion, whose technology enhances automobile gas mileage by supercritical fuel injection... Cheiky and his wife, Charity, started Ohio Scientific, an early microcomputer company credited with shipping the first fully assembled floppy disc based microcomputer and the first non-removable hard disc microcomputer.

Ohio *beep*ing Scientific