permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

>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.