From Sugar To Gasoline

From Sugar To Gasoline

www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Sep. 19, 2008) — Following independent paths of investigation, two research teams are announcing this month that they have successfully converted sugar-potentially derived from agricultural waste and non-food plants-into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and a range of other valuable chemicals.

Chemical engineer Randy Cortright and his colleagues at Virent Energy Systems of Madison, Wisc., a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research awardee, and researchers led by NSF-supported chemical engineer James Dumesic of the University of Wisconsin at Madison are now announcing that sugars and carbohydrates can be processed like petroleum into the full suite of products that drive the fuel, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

"NSF and other federal funding agencies are advocating the new paradigm of next generation hydrocarbon biofuels," said John Regalbuto, director of the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and chair of an interagency working group on biomass conversion. "Even when solar and wind, in addition to clean coal and nuclear, become highly developed, and cars become electric or plug-in hybrid, we will still need high energy-density gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for planes, trains, trucks, and boats. The processes that these teams developed are superb examples of pathways that will enable the sustainable production of these fuels."

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One of the reasons why ethanol from corn is a dead end is that not only does it take a lot of corn (must make Monsantos and ADM a lot of money too... probably the reason its being pushed) but it takes a lot of energy to convert the starches in corn to sugars and then from there to fuel... in other words it takes an extra step and it wastes energy... Brazil uses sugar cane far more efficiently.

This is interesting though.

www.sciencedaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

yeah, like if I could convert Milk to Gas.. it would still cost me $3.50/gallon. I sincerely hope that planets brainiacs come up with a really cheap fuel or engine that is cheap to operate and wont damage our environment. I am still waiting for that quantum engine.

I will say this.. we have to applaud any and all efforts towards the goal of replacing fossil fuel.