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  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Ethanol proposals
  • Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 11:25:16 EST

>From this morning's paper (Feb. 2, 2006)...

Triangle is evolving past oil

Catherine Clabby and Sabine Vollmer, Staff Writers

If the United States gets serious about diminishing its dependence on oil --
as President Bush says it must -- Raghubir Gupta has a powder at the ready.

While the nation gorged on oil, Triangle innovators such as Gupta have
labored for decades to create substitutes for black gold. They struggle to
make
coal cleaner, make field crops a better gasoline substitute and more.

"Every day we make more progress," said Gupta, who runs an energy technology
center at RTI International.

Triangle scientists said Wednesday that they are closer than ever to
fulfilling a prophecy Bush made in his State of the Union address. Technology
is the
best path to energy independence, the president said Tuesday. But the
scientists can't make it happen alone. Market forces and greater public
investment
must lend muscle.

At RTI, a research institute in Research Triangle Park, scientists are
working to clean up coal that's converted to gas. Burning America's plentiful
coal,
as many power plants do, pollutes the air with sulphur, nitrogen, mercury and
heavy metals.

So-called gasified coal, however, delivers more useful energy per ton but
less pollution. It can make steam for electricity or be a prime ingredient in
other fuels.

Gupta's powder extracts sulphur from gasified coal making it a pure and
potentially useful byproduct. Eastman Chemical Co. is testing it at a plant
in
Tennessee.

In recent years, Triangle researchers have become deeply involved in
improving production of ethanol, an automotive fuel often made from grain and
corn,
which is blended with gasoline.

Novozymes, a Danish company with operations in Franklinton, is the largest
producer of natural enzymes needed to make ethanol. The enzymes, chemicals
produced by bacteria and fungi, will be used for much of the 4 billion
gallons of
ethanol that will be made in the United States this year.

Ethanol is made from corn kernels, which are currently plentiful but
expensive to use for fuel because the supply is primarily used as a food
source.

Over the past five years, Novozymes has worked with the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., to turn cheaper corn stalks into fuel.
The
federal government sponsored the project with $17 million. The work could
produce a 40-fold cost cut in ethanol manufacturing.

N.C. State University scientists are also pursuing ingredients cheaper than
grain, such as waste from pulp and paper production, chicken waste and
feathers and switchgrass.

"The technology isn't ready for prime time," said Steve Kelley, a professor
at NCSU's College of Natural Resources, but in his lab it works.

Additional federal funding would help, Kelley said. The Bush administration
and Congress have talked about biofuels replacing oil, he said, but the talk
hasn't been backed by enough money.

"I don't give the current administration or Congress a lot of credit for
coming through with anything substantial," he said.

The U.S. Department of Energy's biofuels program has $91 million in funding
this year. The department's total funding for renewable energy research was
actually cut.

That has prompted layoffs at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said
Kelley, who recently left that lab for NCSU.

Sometimes the challenge isn't the scientific viability, but the economics.
At NCSU, chemical engineers and N.C. Solar Center researchers are looking for
ways to alter glycerol, a byproduct of biodiesel production. The amount of
glycerol now pouring into the marketplace exceeds what's required by
industries
that traditionally use it, including makers of cosmetics and fragrances.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the researchers are
using catalysts and enzymes to alter glycerol to make it useful as a raw
material for plastics and other products. Selling more glycerol would cut the
cost of
biodiesel, said Steve Peretti, one of the researchers.

North Carolina residents, especially compared with those of other Southern
states, have been receptive to alternative energy. About 50,000 homes in this
state are heated with passive solar panels, said Larry Shirley, director of
the
N.C. energy office. Schools are starting to use natural light rather than
light bulbs to brighten cafeterias, gyms and libraries.

More than 4,600 state-owned cars run on biodiesel or ethanol. Piedmont
Biofuels, a cooperative that peddles biodiesel, has five pumps in the
Triangle.
Hybrid cars, powered both by gasoline and batteries, made up 1.3 percent of
cars
sold last year, but they are regularly spotted on Interstate 40.

NCSU will host a national conference this spring on new research into using
wood chips, field crops and grasses as energy sources.

Still, despite Bush's calls for change Tuesday, government support for such
regional gains hasn't grown at the same rate, Shirley said. Unlike more than
20
other states, North Carolina doesn't levy small fees on electricity customers
to encourage renewable energy use, he said.

Offices such as his, which encourage energy conservation and alternative
fuels, have weathered federal subsidy cuts. The Department of Energy this
year is
closing regional offices that encourage changes in energy use, he said.

"What we'll have to do is wait to see if the legislation and the appropr
iations come," he said.

In RTI International's research bunkers, scientists are more optimistic. The
Energy Department has supported their work on improving gasified coal for
years. But now, as gasoline and natural gas rise in price, industry might be
more
likely to consider modified coal worth an investment.

"In the '90s, when the price of oil and natural gas were so cheap, these
processes looked expensive," said David Myers, vice president of engineering
and
technology at RTI. "But with the price points where they are at now, there's
renewed interest."


http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/395518.html

Anyone in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area please note the conference
coming up this spring at NCSU. I would expect the presenters here to have
state of
the art information.




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