Wood chips prove ethanol grows on trees (Maine)

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=115734&ac=PHnws

Researchers at the University of Maine have developed a way to
heat and squeeze wood to make ethanol, a process that is
factoring into a U.S. Senate debate over how to reduce the
country's need for oil.

"It's a new way of doing business," said Hemant Pendse,
chairman of the chemical and biological engineering department
at the university's Orono campus. "We have proven this
technology in the lab."

Encouraging such research is one aspect of energy legislation
the Senate began debating last week. The bill could fail because
it addresses contentious issues such as setting new standards
for vehicle fuel efficiency. But encouraging renewable fuels, such
as ethanol and wind power, is at the heart of the proposal.

"I think there are a lot of other ways people can produce energy
than fossil fuels," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of
the Energy Committee.

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[4dsc]

1. REad this

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/search/label/Kergy

Always a good source for any news about ethanol be it cellulose or otherwise..

[DireStrike]

2. awesome

now we just need like 50 earths on which to grow trees in order to make enough fuel for everyone.

[daa]

3. So Reagan was right after all. nm

[kestrel91316]

4. Oh, goodie!!!!! Now we can cut down ALL THE FORESTS so we can

continue driving the way we always have, in the fuel hogs we always have.

I am not encouraged for the future of human civilization or perhaps even human life.

[jpak]

5. No one is going to cut down all the trees...

:)

This process utilizes hemicellulose that is normally discarded during the paper-making process (and is a major contributor to pulp mill effluent BOD).

It does not require the harvest of more trees for paper production - it just uses them more efficiently...

:hi:

[kestrel91316]

6. Give it time. Some corporation (an oil co subsidiary?) will start

mowing them down as fast as they can.

[phantom power]

7. Until the demand exceeds the existing waste stream.

[jpak]

8. This doesn't come from waste wood

It comes from pulp wood currently used to produce paper.

Paper markets (not ethanol demand) drive pulp wood demand.

Ethanol and lignin-derived chemicals are just by-products of the process.

[phantom power]

9. Either way...

If our ethanol is coming from wood, there is going to come a point where demand for ethanol exceeds the total that we can produce, unless Big Ethanol starts cutting down trees specifically to make ethanol. It won't take long to arrive at that point either.

Either that, or there will have to be sufficient political will-power to say "this is all the ethanol we can produce sustainably, and we aren't making any more."

Considering that it is our collective lack of willpower that has us all the bind we're in, I can only conclude that the smart money is on the "Big Ethanol cuts down trees unsustainbly" scenario.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. "this is all the ethanol we can produce sustainably...

...and we aren't making any more."

I'll have what he's smoking.
:)

[Nihil]

11. Oh for a land where that was law ...

... "This is all the XYZ we can produce sustainably and we aren't
making any more."

:hippie:

[jpak]

12. This is the Paper Industry - not Big Ethanol

Cellulose fiber (paper pulp) is far more valuable than the (by-product) ethanol produced - the economics are completely different.

dream on...