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Author Topic: Grass into gas  (Read 1128 times)

Offline Angus

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« Reply #30 on: October 09, 2007, 04:45:40 AM »
Downside = fuel price.
The profit margin in Europe is much better due to their taxed and expensive fuel, however they have damaged the biofuel growth by taxing theirs.
The EU is also cutting down on substities, which will make manufacture pr. ha more expensive.
Always boils down to the money.....
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Offline rpm

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« Reply #31 on: October 09, 2007, 04:46:18 AM »
In my little podunk county alone there are over 20,000 acres of government land dedicated to growing grass (not switchgrass). That does not include all the private land that is sitting idle due to USDA crop allotments or other idle lands.

You want to stop big government and the nanny-state? Eliminate the crop allotments and open the land to switchgrass production. You put people to work, you make a needed product, you make America stronger.

Let switchgrass become a ready commodity with every Mom and Pop farmer turning out all they can, selling it at the local market. It doesn't take much to grow grass. All you need is water, sun and soil.

By God, that sounds like America to me. But, I am an amerihating liberal.
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Offline Nashwan

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« Reply #32 on: October 09, 2007, 05:07:42 AM »
Quote
Let switchgrass become a ready commodity with every Mom and Pop farmer turning out all they can, selling it at the local market. It doesn't take much to grow grass. All you need is water, sun and soil.


Corn is being used to make ethanol because the government are subsidising it, and because they are mandating fuel blends that require ethanol.

Don't make the mistake of thinking it's cheaper than oil.

Some countries in the topics can grow crops like sugar cane that can just about compete with oil without subsidies, although even then they need lots of very cheap labour to do it. At the moment there's nothing you can grow in the US that will compete with gasoline on price. If there were, then they wouldn't be asking for government subsidies before they started producing ethanol, they'd be doing it and making money.
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Offline Angus

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« Reply #33 on: October 09, 2007, 06:10:09 AM »
Gasoline and Oil are cheap in the USA compared to i.e. Europe.
Rapeseed oil for own use in European agriculture is already yealding nicely pro sq if calculated into the purchasing price of fuels needed on the spot.
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It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. (Werner Mölders)

Offline Ghosth

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Grass into gas
« Reply #34 on: October 09, 2007, 07:42:05 AM »
RPM is right, this country has millions of acres in Conservation Reserve Programs taking erodeable land OUT of production.

For switchgrass production the land does not ever need to be tilled. So no erosion takes place, the grass roots are there doing there job.

All that land can produce 8 to 12 Tons per acre of switchgrass. Cut it, stack it, use it when you need it. Each county could have a small production plant instead of a few HUGE ones. Each county gets a few more jobs, a few more tax dollars, and less chance of huge goverment pork.

Yes its still experimental, yes they are still working on producing the right enzymes and yeasts to change the  cellulose to sugar to alcohol. However it IS possible, and feasable, and it costs us NOTHING.

Its a renewable resource that we can harvest every year. Unlike oil, that once its gone its gone for GOOD!

Its high time this country took control back from the huge multinational corps and put it BACK in the hands of "we the people".
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Offline Angus

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« Reply #35 on: October 09, 2007, 07:55:10 AM »
How do you define switchgrass?
And 12 tons per acre, is quite much. Is that in dry matter, standardized (85%) or crude?
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It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. (Werner Mölders)

Offline Maverick

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« Reply #36 on: October 09, 2007, 10:46:19 AM »
I see several posts extolling the virtue about switchgrass and how it is the right solution for the problem. Another says that farmers are holding us back because they are not producing the stuff and leaving land fallow.

My question is this. When does supply start to feed demand? Anyone?

It feeds the demand when there IS a demand. To date I have not heard one of the proponents of switchgrass list the number of plants producing a viable fuel with it. Until there is a means of actually using it, there is no demand and farmers will not use arable land for that purpose nor should they.

Using corn, a food and feed product, for alcohol has proven the supply and demand truth. You build a plant to produce alcohol and start a larger market segment for it and the farmers are perfectly happy to supply corn for the now higher price. Problem is that it also tends to drive the price of any and all products related to corn, and they are legion, far higher than they were previously. Everyone now pays even more than they did before for more products due to the the shortage of supply and the market response to sell to the highest bidder. If fields used for other food items are moved to switchgrass, what other food items will be shorted in order to try and produce what is now supplied by petroleum?
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Offline Angus

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« Reply #37 on: October 09, 2007, 10:51:05 AM »
The demand for biofuel will also raise land price. It is already beginning in Europe.
However, there is a buffer of land that is not being used, land in rotation, and land that even gets substitized for not being used.
So, no really bad news.
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It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. (Werner Mölders)

Offline Toad

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« Reply #38 on: October 09, 2007, 11:48:29 AM »
Switchgrass is on the menu; progress continues.

These companies have all applied for US government loans to start these plants. I think this is a good investment for the research alone. If it pans out... the world will change.

Alico, Inc., La Belle, FL Florida is the proposed location for a project that plans a first-of-a-kind commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant that would use multiple feedstocks and produce multiple products.

Blue Fire Ethanol, Inc., Irvine, CA California is the proposed location for a project that would build a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant using an array of low-cost feedstocks.

Choren USA, a unit of Choren Industries, GmbH, Freiberg, Germany The Southeastern U.S. is the proposed location for a project that would construct an industrial-scale biomass gasification facility for clean synthetic diesel fuels.

Endicott Biofuels, Houston, TX Virginia is the proposed location for construction of a second-generation biodiesel .0 and bio-derived products plant that would feature a high level of feedstock flexibility allowing for the production of a broad range of biodiesel fuels.

Iogen Biorefinery Partners, LLC, Arlington, VA Iogen plans to build a biorefinery in Idaho to produce ethanol from a wide range of cellulosic feedstocks and other byproducts of value to several industries.

POET Biorefining, Sioux Falls, SD POET is building a cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, IA, that can accommodate multiple feedstocks in the production of ethanol and higher value byproducts.

Jatropha is probably even better than switchgrass and India is already producing some biodiesel from it.

There are alternatives worth pursuing. Maybe the US government is finally ready to do so.
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Offline Toad

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« Reply #39 on: October 09, 2007, 11:52:06 AM »
What's jatropha you say?



Quote
Jatropha stacks up nicely compared with other feedstocks, as soybeans and rapeseed have a relatively low oil yield compared with Jatropha — 375 kilograms per hectare for soybeans in the United States (280 gallons per acre) and 1,000 kilograms per hectare of rapeseed in Europe (740 gallons per acre) to 3,000 kilograms per hectare of Jatropha (2,226 gallons per acre) in India. Good planning, quality planting material, standardized agronomy practices and good crop management could increase yields


Jatropha grows just about anywhere, even deserts. Doesn't take much moisture, doesn't need great soils.
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Offline AquaShrimp

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« Reply #40 on: October 09, 2007, 01:53:33 PM »
There is a type of algae that can produce 100,000 (one hundred thousand) gallons of oil per acre.  A 100 million dollar research facility is being built in Texas to test it.
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Offline Maverick

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« Reply #41 on: October 09, 2007, 02:56:06 PM »
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Originally posted by AquaShrimp
There is a type of algae that can produce 100,000 (one hundred thousand) gallons of oil per acre.  A 100 million dollar research facility is being built in Texas to test it.


Link?
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Offline AquaShrimp

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« Reply #42 on: October 09, 2007, 04:09:19 PM »
I read it in "The Houston Chronicle".  The October 8, 2007 edition.
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Offline AquaShrimp

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« Reply #43 on: October 09, 2007, 04:20:21 PM »
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Offline Angus

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« Reply #44 on: October 09, 2007, 06:31:43 PM »
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Originally posted by Toad
What's jatropha you say?





Jatropha grows just about anywhere, even deserts. Doesn't take much moisture, doesn't need great soils.


Not sure of the other crops, but the rapeseed diesel is almost an exess product (with 2 x the oil output in tonnage to become high quality cattlefeed) as well as the processing being really simple.

Process as well as growing will weight a lot, and many of the paper folks that play with those numbers have no clue of agriculture....
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It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. (Werner Mölders)
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