Advanced Cellulosic Biofuel

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Comment by allen bauman on August 28, 2009 at 4:52pm

If Carolyn McCarthy is your Congresswoman please add district group NY-04 to your list of groups.
Fall will be here soon and we know where the politicians will be.
We need to be organized and available in larger numbers to get our message across. Please join District Group NY-04 today!!!!!!
Allen Bauman
District Leader NY-04

Comment by George F. Oerther, Jr. on May 21, 2009 at 1:58pm

A Condensed History of Fuel Ethanol
By
George F. Oerther, Jr., President
Infinite Renewable Energy, Inc.

Why did we ever decide to use gasoline as a motor fuel in the first place? At the time the automobile was invented, it was not really known outside of the fledgling oil industry, where it was considered a nuisance byproduct.

It was a terrible choice to use. Engines that tried to use it were damaged from the “knocking” caused by pre-ignition, it was highly flammable, and it smelled bad. We did not know at the time what would be caused by the extra carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, since there was still plenty of closed canopy tropical rain forest around the world to handle this relatively small increase in carbon dioxide.

There was a strong resistance to using this foul smelling stuff that would burn you up, irritate your skin if it got on you, cause health problems if you breathed too much of the vapor, and damage your engine if you tried to accelerate too fast. The overall perception was that we should stay with ethanol; it smelled better, was significantly less of a fire hazard (they were using “wet” ethanol, 130 – 160 proof), and was no real problem if it got on you. And almost everybody made some of it, so you could get it anywhere.

Consider this claim: “From our cellulose waste products on the farm such as straw, corn-stalks, corn cobs and all similar sorts of material we throw away, we can get, by present known methods, enough alcohol to run our automotive equipment in the United States.” Bill Clinton? Al Gore? George H W Bush? Barak Obama? George W Bush? Jimmy Carter? Joe Biden? John McCain?
This claim was first made in:
A. 1983
B. 1945
C. 1921
D. 2004

If that sounds like something you’ve heard recently, well, it should, because that claim has often been repeated since it was originally made 88 years ago, way back in 1921. That’s the year Thomas Midgley, an American inventor, serenaded the benefits of cellulosic ethanol to the Society of Automotive Engineers in Indianapolis. When his employer (GM) acquired the patent to tetraethyl lead as an antiknock additive to gasoline shortly thereafter, he changed his tune.

That marked the beginning of the end of the “Oilies vs Alkies” trade war described to me by W. L. Fitzgerald of Frankfort, KY, who was a moonshiner during prohibition. He did not tell me about this part, found in Wikipedia:

“In December 1921, while working under the direction of Charles Kettering at Dayton Research Laboratories - a subsidiary of General Motors (he began working there in 1916), Midgley discovered that the addition of tetraethyllead (TEL) to gasoline prevented internal combustion engines from "knocking". The company dubbed the substance "Ethyl", avoiding all mention of lead in reports and advertising. Oil companies and auto makers, especially GM which owned the patent (filed by Kettering and Midgley), strenuously promoted leaded fuel as an alternative to ethanol or ethanol-blended fuels, on which they could make very little profit.[3]”

According to Mr. Fitzgerald, they were finally able to join forces with the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) to ban the production of ethanol for a long enough period to eliminate its use as a motor fuel.

We all have heard and seen the damage done by lead in the environment, and both Midgley and GM were aware of it. During one phase of hearings, Midgley poured some TEL over his hands, and deeply inhaled the vapors coming off a container of it. When he didn’t fall over and die immediately, the technically uninformed members of the committee were convinced it was safe. (Lesson: anyone who graduates from college must have at least a working knowledge of general scientific principles and the technologies that come from them.) Midgley was in treatment for a year recovering from the exposure.

But Midgley was just another pseudoscientist who was willing to sell out science for a buck. He is also the individual to blame for the massive use of CFC refrigerants that we are just now beginning to get back under control. But “Be not dismayed, God is not mocked”, science finally got its revenge on Midgley. He had patented a device using ropes and pulleys to assist the partially disabled to get out of bed. When he was using his device later in life, he slipped, got entangled in the ropes, and choked to death. Rod Serling should have picked up on that one in his “Night Gallery” TV series.

Who knows how much different all our lives might have been if Midgley had just focused on patenting a technology to make cellulosic ethanol. But the key was there in the phrase “current known methods”, which eliminated patents to be secured on it. Even now, the only patents available for the microbe technology advanced by Infinite
Renewable Energy are patents on new genetically engineered microbes. And that path leads to selling an enzyme cocktail made from the microbes, since patent defense would be prohibitive if the microbes got into widespread use.

Unfortunately, the current round of patented cellulose technologies cannot support themselves or their investors without significant government subsidies, and the corn process cannot even survive with them due to the pressure on corn prices from the food chain. The need for highly trained labor and expensive equipment for separating, isolating, and standardizing the enzymes, coupled with the difficulty in getting the enzymes to the cellulose make the enzyme processes far too expensive at this time. Only by getting back to inexpensively implemented basics with a technology that cannot be patented (nor blocked by someone else patenting it) can we establish an inexpensive fuel that will stand on its own merits without subsidy.

Now it’s time to deal the next card in “what goes around, comes around”. When Prohibition was finally repealed there remained some difficult licensing and permitting issues hovering over ethanol. It is now time for the “Alkies” and the “Greenies” to unite with the “Oilies” to get back on track to sustainable fuel independence. But in doing so, remember Midgley’s reward for abusing science. There are many valid reasons for using ethanol, the ultimate sustainable and renewable fuel, as Henry Ford originally planned. Do not go overboard with false claims about environmental issues. Remember enough of your basic science to know that the food source for the entire planet is the carbon dioxide fixed by plants in sunlight. When you take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, you take food out of the food chain.

There is a valid need to control the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is a growing need to feed an expanding population, and it seems strange that no one seems to be keying in on oxygen depletion. It is not a huge problem at this time, but remove too much carbon dioxide and it will be. Does anyone see the way all three of these are linked?

I learned about the carbon dioxide – oxygen cycle back in 6th grade science class. Plants turn Carbon Dioxide and water into sugar and Oxygen. Animals eat plant sugars, breathe Oxygen, exhale Carbon Dioxide and excrete the fertilizer to grow the plants. Did any of you ever grow one of those sealed terrariums where you needed to balance plants, animals and water? If you have more animals you need more plants and water. If you remove plants, you need to remove the excess animals and water. And has not man, in his “infinite wisdom” removed a very large amount of plant material from this sealed terrarium we inhabit as he cleared the forests?

(Key music) The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, (end music) and you can see it in Gaviotas, Colombia, where they have successfully restored a part of the closed canopy tropical rain forest. And it is interesting to note that when they increased the plant canopy, they also increased the rainfall in the area to the point that the local population could earn money by bottling the rainwater and selling it at other drier locations. All must work together in harmony if we are to survive, and we dare not subjugate basic science to the “almighty dollar” in the environmental field as Midgley did in his work.

There are reasons we really do need to get back to the track that Midgley was on before he let himself get deluded. There is a lesson that is in our history for more than 5000 years: the love of money is the root of all evil. Not the money itself, but Man’s greed that will let him kill anyone and everyone, ultimately even himself, who gets in the way of the chase.

This is why Infinite Renewable Energy has chosen the path we have taken. We need to focus on what is best for the planet and its inhabitants, not just on how much money can be made for a few people in the short term. That is the basis for our use of modified ancient technologies to recover irrigation water from saline sources and from the atmosphere itself to expand the base of arable land. That is the basis for establishing food crop/energy crop ratios for agriculture. That is the reason for keeping the systems simple and inexpensive so the poor need not starve because they cannot buy food.

Comment by George F. Oerther, Jr. on May 21, 2009 at 1:38pm

Jeffrey, Mascoma is trying to follow the GMO route so they can have a patentable process. Infinite Renewable Energy, Inc. (www.ire-incorp.com) already has a commercial scale multi-microbe process going to licensed facilities here in the US and abroad. Mascoma is going to have a costly fight on their hands trying to defend their patent once they get into production. That's why we did not go the patent route. Just make the ethanol for about 70 cents per gallon and go with it. No one else can patent it either to block us. Remember Colonel Sanders' "11 herbs and spices"? Same concept.

Comment by Jeffrey Michael Paganini on May 21, 2009 at 12:52pm

A Cellulosic Biofuel Breakthrough


consolidated bioprocessing paves the way to low cost cellulosic biofuels.
MARIE DAGHLIAN

“This is a true breakthrough that takes us much, much closer to billions of gallons of low cost cellulosic biofuels.”

There are many paths towards turning biological material into fuel. More than 1,800 biofuels companies are using nearly as many different technologies to turn biomass into a renewable source of energy. And many of these technologies work on a variety of feedstocks, at least in the lab or at pilot-scale plants. The problem is not the technology per se, but rather whether the technology will make sufficient quantities of some type of fuel cheaply enough to be cost competitive with traditional petroleum fuels. Mascoma thinks it has the answer: consolidated bioprocessing.

Consolidated bioprocessing is a low-cost strategy for production of biofuels from cellulosic biomass that bypasses the need for using costly cellulase enzymes by using engineered microorganisms that produce cellulases and ethanol at high yield in a single step. On May 7, the Lebanon, New Hampshire-based Mascoma announced it had made major research advances in consolidated bioprocessing. Consolidated bioprocessing, recently called “the golden dream” of ethanol production by Helena Chum of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was noted as “the ultimate low-cost configuration for cellulose hydrolysis and fermentation” in the DOE/USDA 2006 Roadmap because it avoids the need for added cellulose enzymes to process pretreated lignocellulose into ethanol.

In early May in San Francisco, Mascoma Chief Technology Officer Mike Ladisch presented multiple research advances as proof-of-concept for consolidated bioprocessing during the 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals in San Francisco. These include advances with both thermophiles, bacteria that grow at high temperatures, and recombinant cellulolytic yeasts. Mascoma has seen a 60 percent increase in the volume of ethanol produced by an engineered thermophile, and a 3,000-fold increase in cellulase expression using recombinant, cellulolytic yeast, compared to what it could produce in June of 2008.

Mascoma’s proof-of-concept consolidated bioprocessor is considered to be an important R&D advance in cellulosic biofuels production. “This is a true breakthrough that takes us much, much closer to billions of gallons of low cost cellulosic biofuels,” says Michigan State University’s Bruce Dale, who is also editor of the journal Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefineries. “Many had thought that consolidated bioprocessing was years or even decades away, but the future just arrived. Mascoma has permanently changed the biofuels landscape from here on.”

Jim Flatt, Mascoma executive vice president of research, development and operations, says that it will “enable the reduction in operating and capital costs required for cost-effective commercial production of ethanol,” and bring Mascoma closer to the commercialization of its product.

Now the company must demonstrate how quickly it can translate the lab results into production results in the plant. Mascoma began producing cellulosic ethanol at its pilot facility in Rome, New York last February, processing up to 20 tons of wood a year. It will provide process performance engineering data to support construction of a commercial biorefinery in Kinross, Michigan. In October, 2008, the Department of Energy announced that it would provide $26 million in funding for the facility, to which the state of Michigan will add $23.5 million.

Comment by Jeffrey Michael Paganini on May 20, 2009 at 6:55am

Good to see you back on line,

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Comment by Richard G (DICK) Bowman PhD on April 22, 2009 at 3:07pm

YES-- I agree-- The fellas in charge ask for HELP-- (as: Bill Gates -"We want the save the world !!) but his STAFF-- not ever rock the boat-- are not in TUNE-- or they are following other orders-- keep quiet-- as we all need to keep our jobs here. Also CNN and MSNBC only CHAT -- LIVE TALK with folks that have new BOOKS for SALE-- funded by TIME bought by their publishers to spin their wares. !!!
Spent the day waiting for the phone to ring -- or get interesting email-- (yours came -- Thank You) . Tis' EARTH-DAY so I mowed my lawn. Fixed my old Snapper lawn mower-- cleaned its gas system --new filter etc.. I am interested in WATER recover systems-- and about almost everything-- my light-subject is chemistry. But just bought NANO Technology book-- Fundementals-- WOW !! the world way down below micro- is also strange stuff, strange names and concepts-- stuff the same size as a piece of light -- 100,000 photons strike top of head of pin in each second-- summer time noon-- Also working on Photo cells -of course-- I am like Michael Faradsy --think > model > test > and then publish. rather than study > do math > name funny stuff & concepts > then publish and then try to find TESTS. I work in problem-solve mode, not tweak--the-system mode..

We need a TAKE ACTION GROUP-- as it takes15 task-players to make a SYSTEM work-- and we look- funny- wearing more than five hats, TEAM work is the answer. I have 100 projects -- too good to stay in my dusty notebooks from my 80+ years -- only 29,308 days on Planet Earth working and thinking...

OBAMA just named a new CTO -- top-side Chief Technoogy Officer-- We need to have an INVENT-DESIGN SEARCH expert person/ firm/ find/ sell/ promote & to organize all this great stuff that us litle guys dream up -- in our at-home-tiny-labs-- my located at: 90 Benberry Ct Kuttawa KY 42055 (near Paducah, KY)

Comment by George F. Oerther, Jr. on April 22, 2009 at 2:06pm

Dick, interesting that you should mention the Gates Foundation. I, too, submitted a proposal through channels that was based on establishing 100-family villages in Somalia and other dying African nations recovering the water needed from the atmosphere and from sea or wastewater sources, growing a balanced blend of energy and food crops, making ethanol and electricity from the biomass, powering agricultural equipment with the ethanol, and using the electricity to power clinics and schools, and providing in-home refrigeration to preserve the food supply. Carbon dioxide from fermentation would be used to set up freezer facilities for food crops that can be sold to their neighbors to make money to spend on clothing and the finer things in life.

It would take about 10,000 acres per village, or about 100 acres per family. That incluldes the acreage necessary to grow animals as a protein source to go with the fruits and vegetables. I can send you a copy of the powerpoint presentation that we put together, if you are interested.

The decision? The foundation did not see that I had enough personal assets committed to the project. This is the only sustainable answer to the Somali problem, it all comes back down to food and energy. As long as people are starving and dying of thirst, they have no other option but to take hostages. I remember another question "Am I my brother's keeper?" From the first slide in the presentation referenced above:
---
TAKE ON A POOR MAN TO SUPPORT, AND HE WILL IMPOVERISH YOU BOTH.

TAKE ON A HUNGRY MAN TO FEED, AND HE WILL STARVE YOU BOTH.

ENABLE A POOR MAN TO SUPPORT HIMSELF, AND HE WILL SHARE THAT SUPPORT WITH HIS NEIGHBOR.

ENABLE A HUNGRY MAN TO GROW HIS OWN FOOD, AND HE WILL FEED HIS VILLAGE.
---
I am not interested in "keeping" anyone, I have barely enough resources to keep my own family. But if only some the resources that nations are willing to spend on war were to be used instead to enable a small population to support itself and assist those around them, the overall cost in terms of wasted lives and wasted resources would be very small indeed. Dick, I join you in the cry "Why will they not listen???"

Comment by Richard G (DICK) Bowman PhD on April 22, 2009 at 8:39am

I too remember JFK comment-- "STOP everything and go invent Clean Water !!". This was when I started my WATER SOLUTION as I watched others taking BAD WATER INLAND and use every bit-- only to have a HUGE PILE of NASTY STUFF-- THEY even talked about towing ICEBERGS to San Francisco. I tried to get to Bill Gates (Foundation)-- but the "input past the front door is locked". NO ACCESS- Even lately, trying to get to White House-- NO ACCESS- and Pickens, Buffet are all too busy pushing their own projects.

Yes we need to JOIN + FIND + DOCUMENT good Group Think and TAKE ACTION !! We need our own INSIDE folks to get to the TOP.!! It takes a TEAM to WIN WIN WIN-- some of us have ONLY part of the puzzle. Same is true get access to Obama Cabinet and etc etc.. They say they want HELP--but the System says NO--!! We need to be represented. Some of us have the ability to look-at-a project-- and know -- it won't fly !!..

New Ideas and Products come 95% from small business-- yet 95% of R&D Funds goes to Universities where students do the work with old think and old text book data.

Right now I am trying to help local Econ.Devpmt STAFF(s) -- Fix their own Economy-- but THEY are too busy to listen to REAL SOLUTIONS-- They are out just easy-helping a new person start a shoe repair shop or another tiny small business as they have 540 equal-access-clients. Our unemployment at 9.8 % in KY, or 16.8 %. in MI. lots of HYPE- but no real action; will get much worse.

Yes, we need to find the right Wash DC persons-- or ACCESS MEANS -- to bring think-invent persons --our own Group Effort-- so to FIX the ECONOMY-- We DO have, bits and pieces, and full-- technical answers. Now only 3% of inventions make money !.. Takes US Patent Office (PTO) 3 weeks to get back post card-- two years to get first (automatic) REJECT notice. We need, and America needs a WIn-Win-WIn. We are NOT organized. Who wants to HELP ??? My email - designky@vci.net -- WE need ACTION not just more talk.

Comment by George F. Oerther, Jr. on April 22, 2009 at 7:33am

Dick, you sure hit the nail on the head with the water comment. I have found two ancient water technologies, one that with minor modification can provide cheap desalination of brackish wastewater or sea water, the other that bleeds water whenever the dewpoint is above 40 F. We intend to use them to provide irrigation and potable water in regions that have irregular rainfall patterns such as the desert southwest here in the USA. There are large land areas that have never been cultivated due to insufficient water. Central Australia is a good example. With all the doom and gloom about overpopulation and global warming, why doesn't someone go back and look at a comment by Jack Kennedy: I look at something and ask why not? And you are right about it taking a little money. But the alternatives: War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death are serious enemies to the survival of mankind; yet we waste money fighting senseless wars against each other instead of cooperating together to address the common problem. Many of us on this forum have very important pieces of the solution, and we share our vision together to benefit mankind. Maybe it goes back to an old question "Who has believed our report?"

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