> "Michael S. Lorrey" wrote: I'm aware that using standard
> fermentation/distillation sytems probably has significant losses. Spike,
> didn't you do some calculations on conversion of grain to ethanol a
> short while back?
Ja, but it was just a back of the envelope calc. I got the numbers
from a site that was unapologetically pro-farm. For instance, they
often used the phrase "will help corn prices" and "improve corn
prices" to mean *increase* the price. {8^D
> What conversion efficiency were you talking about and
> what technology were you basing that on?
All standard nothing-tricky today-tech, no GM. In rough numbers it
was 150 bushels per acre-year, 2.5 gallons ethanol per bushel,
then figuring closed loop (using ethanol in the harvesting, processing,
water delivery and fermentation etc, you get about 38% as I
recall, so it comes out to about a gallon per bushel of corn or
about 150 gallons per acre year, which in understandable units
comes to about 1400-ish liters per hectare year. So I figure
all the land under cultivation in the US, if planted in corn and
fermented would take care of about a third of our energy use,
which gave me a new respect for how much energy we devour.
Those were outdated (1989) numbers for energy use, and
Barbara pointed out that it is probably higher now with the
popularity of Detroit urban assault vehicles.
I did have a kind of disturbing thought about this as I imagined
converting some of the unused American open space into
corn fields: if we did do something like that, we might need to
come up with some tricky new technology to kill birds! Perhaps
a radar tracking system with a pulse laser or something. The
greens wouldnt like that one damn bit. Im thinking something
like that could be adapted for popping locusts outta the air too,
which actually sounds like it would be kinda cool to work on.
Our military high energy lasers and tracking systems could be
adapted I would think. I havent a guess on how to keep the
green vandals from destoying the things.
Im looking at buying a hybrid car.
> Are you aware of any
> technologies that would be more efficient than yeast based fermentation?
Havent looked into it. How about if you find us a site with
some numbers? spike
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