[Gasification] Food meets energy, butanol catalysis anyone?

[Ken Basterfield]

Ken,
 I visited Green Fuels about a year ago to see a demo of their imported Bio
Diesel small plant. They are near Kemble Airfield in Gloucs. and well worth
a visit. I learnt quite a lot from them. They also have a tie up with Alvin
Blanche who are selling complementary oil seed screw presses. Their target
market was farmers for direct conversion of OSR to bio-fuel with the option
of a Green Fuel's bioDiesel plant to go the whole hog.
I can recommend them.
Ken



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-----Original Message-----
From: gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Ken Boak
Sent: 07 May 2007 12:15
To: GASIFICATION at listserv.repp.org
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Food meets energy, butanol catalysis anyone?


List,

There are many inefficiencies present in modern agriculture.  Displacing 
food crops for fuel crops might seem controversial, but many of the crops 
grown, are for purely commercial reasons, and do not reflect the direct 
(human) food value of the crop.

This links to an article discussing the various production efficiencies of 
biofuels, biodiesel from rapeseed and ethanol from wheat.

http://www.biodiesel.co.uk/levington.htm#3.%20Crop%20production%20and%20ener
gy%20output

Whilst ethanol from wheat returns only 11% net energy and is on the limits 
of commercial viability, biodiesel from rapeseed has a 78% energy return 
over investment. In the UK, ethanol from sugarbeet is attracting commercial 
attention, with British Sugar building a beet to ethanol plant in East 
Anglia.

It has been postulated that 75% of the US corn production is fed to 
fattening beef cattle and the remainder is made into corn syrup and ethanol.

Is this really the most efficient use of the crop?

How many bushels of corn does it take to make a pound of prime beef?

Corn must be considered such a low value feedstock that it can be used in 
this manner as cattle feed, and the same wasteful mentality is applied when 
it comes to converting corn to ethanol, or burning corn kernels directly in 
pellet stoves.

>From an evolutionary viewpoint, cattle were much happier and healtier 
>eating
grass, and their cousins, the American Bison, were perfectly adapted to 
eating the low grade prairie grass, which was displaced to make way for 
mechanised farming of corn and wheat.


Ken 




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