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Directory:Ethanol

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Directory of Ethanol technologies and resources.

Contents

Companies

  • Verenium - was formed in June 2007 through the merger of Diversa Corporation, a global leader in enzyme technology, and Celunol Corporation, a leading developer of cellulosic ethanol process technologies and projects.
  • The EFuel100 MicroFueler™ is the world's first portable ethanol micro-refinery system; it replaces the traditional ethanol reflux column system with a solid state distillation technology, making it possible for homeowners and small businesses to safely and cost-effectively create their own fuel, on-site (available 4th Quarter, 2008).
  • EthanolSeed.com is a small company that sells plant material (Seeds, tubers, etc...), for ethanol making plants for the small land owner, gardener, or family. It has been difficult to find plant material in the past, but it is one of the first steps in ethanol production. Currently selling sorghum seeds. You can buy seeds today, have them by the end of the week, plant them, and your on your way to fuel production, at least maybe sometime in the future.

Products

  • Ethanol Powered Mazda Furai Racecar - The Furai is Mazda’s next hope in the future of car racing. While going green on the race track is not exactly an eco-minded endeavor, we’re still intrigued that this vehicle can be fully powered by ethanol. The very cool looking performance sports car shows that if ethanol has a place in the auto industry, that place is in the car racing arena. Fuel economy? 2.3 miles per gallon... (Inhabitat; July 29, 2008)
  • Low-concentration ethanol stove for rural areas in India (pdf) - An efficient stove running on a 50:50 ethanol-water mixture with output similar to the conventionally-used LPG and kerosene stoves -- a first of its kind -- has been successfully developed at the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute. (Energy for Sustainable Development; March, 2007)

Technologies

  • Mexico & Agaves: Moving from Tequila to Ethanol - With a history that stretches well back into pre-Columbian times, certain varieties of the Agave family are beginning to capture the attention of investors and researchers interested in indigenous plants and trees in countries around the world that are not used to produce food and have attributes that make them prospective sources of ethanol. (Renewable Energy World; August 7, 2008)
  • Ethanol from Garbage and Old Tires - Tubes packed with bundles of white fibers are the core of a bioreactor, which is the heart of a new technology that Coskata claims combine thermochemical and biological approaches to make ethanol out of wood chips, household garbage, grass, and old tires--indeed, just about any organic material. (MIT Technology Review; March/April 2008)
  • Methanol -- Ethanol's Sister Product - Ethanol can be an even more effective energy alternative to petroleum if the unused portion of the crop are used to create methanol. (PESWiki; Feb. 26, 2006)
  • Tectane: H20 Injector and Aquahol - H2O Injector is an inexpensive add-on device for car engines which reduces emissions and increases mileage up to 40%, and can allow cars to run on 75-octane gasoline or ethanol fuels. Aquahol is the separate injection of 80% ethanol and 20% water, which is the cleanest-burning fuel. Drawbacks?
  • Switchgrass shows promise for ethanol production - A large-scale trial of switchgrass suggests that prairie grasses grown using only moderate amounts of fertilizer on marginal land can produce significant amounts of ethanol, making the crop a more viable plant source of biofuel than previously thought. (PhysOrg; Jan. 7, 2008) (CBS News) (Slashdot)
  • Cannabis Hemp as a Global Warming Solution - Proponents argue that easily grown and robust Cannabis Hemp is one of the best if not the very best plants overall for fuel, building supplies, medicine, fiber, food, paper, and substitute for wood. Some go so far as to argue that it could be the best solution to global warming.
  • Biofuel nanotech process intensification - NanoDynamics' ND Fusion rotating tube reactor provides for faster, higher, more efficient ethanol yields by boosting fermentation without damaging fragile yeast cells and generates higher purity ethanol with lower energy and capital cost. It has the ability to economically convert sugarcane process streams to ethanol. (Biopact; Feb. 27, 2007)
  • Zeolite Membrane for Ethanol Dehydration - Mitsui Engineering will use a zeolite membrane in dehydration systems for bioethanol plants, to remove water from the ethanol produced. Only water passes through the membrane, thereby helping to reduce process fuel consumption by around 10% compared to other methods. (Green Car Congress; Jul. 11, 2007)

Cellulosic

  • Cellulosic Ethanol on the Cheap - Mascoma, a cellulosic biofuels company based in Lebanon, NH, reports significant advances in its goal of simplifying the cellulosic ethanol process by skipping the use of costly enzymes, which could potentially reduce cellulosic ethanol's production costs by 20 to 30 percent. (MIT Technology Review; May 12, 2009)
  • A Better Biofuel Bug - Zymetis has genetically modified a rare, cellulose-eating bacterium to break down and convert cellulose into sugars necessary to make ethanol, and it recently completed its first commercial-scale trial. (MIT Technology Review; March 18, 2009)
  • Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Opens - A 1.4 million gallon demonstration-scale plant in Jennings, LA will use waste biomass to make biofuel. (MIT Technology Review; May 28, 2008)
  • Is vinegar the secret ingredient for biofuels? - ZeaChem says it has come up with a method of making cellulosic ethanol that results in close to 40 percent more fuel per ton of wood chips than competing processes, and at a price at the pump of around $1.10 to $1.50. See Video. (CNet News; March 12, 2008)
  • Hydrogenolysis Process for Cellulosic Ethanol - ZeaChem combines the output of fermentation and gasification into hydrogenolysis, for the production of ethanol from cellulosic biomass feedstocks. ZeaChem claims that its technology will produce 50% more ethanol per ton of feed and results in an energy output that is more than ten times greater than the input. (Green Car Congress; Jul. 2, 2007)
  • Heat-Seeking Bacteria Could Hold Key to Better Cellulosic Ethanol - TMO Renewables believes it has found the silver bullet of cellulosic ethanol production: an organism that eats nearly anything and makes ethanol really quickly. The heat-seeking rod-shaped bacterium thrives in high temperature conditions and is 300 times more effective at making ethanol than its wild strain counterpart. (TreeHugger; Aug. 24, 2007)
  • Biofuels from Wood Chips - Three University of California campuses and West Biofuels LLC, will develop a prototype research reactor to make biofuels without food crops or microbial fermentation. It will use steam, sand and catalysts to efficiently convert forest, urban, and agricultural “cellulosic�? wastes into alcohol that can be used as a gasoline additive. (PhysOrg; Jun. 12, 2007)
  • Brelsford Engineering Inc - BEI is offering a new and efficient dilute-acid chemical process for the conversion of waste cellulose into fermentable sugars and subsequently into bio-ethanol. Capital costs are about 50% of those for comparable dilute concentrated acid, or enzymatic, cellulose hydrolysis processing. Small farm scale fuel ethanol plants can now be economically profitable.
  • Cellulosic ethanol breakthrough - Brazil's Dedini SA announced it has come up with a way to produce cellulosic ethanol on an industrial scale from plant waste, at a cost of US 27 cents a liter (US$ 1.02 per gallon). This development could revolutionize the industry, making it cost-competitive with oil at US$42 a barrel. (Biopact; May 16, 2007)
  • First US Cellulosic Ethanol Plant - Celunol achieves high ethanol yields from cellulosic biomass at costs competitive with conventional sugar and starch feedstocks. Its 50,000 gallon pilot facility commenced operation in November 2006 and a 1.4 million gallon facility is targeted for completion in mid 2007. (The Energy Blog; Feb. 8, 2007)
  • Wood-based Ethanol Plant Slated for Georgia - Range Fuels will build a cellulosic ethanol plant using wood waste from Georgia Pine as the main source of biomass. Its two-step thermo-chemical conversion process to convert biomass into a synthetic gas and then gas to ethanol, eliminates the use of expensive enzymes. (Renewable Energy Access; Feb. 8, 2007)
  • Mascoma - Cellulosic biomass has a cost per BTU equivalent to oil of about $14/barrel. Recent advancements in enzymes, organisms and production technologies allow cost-effective ethanol production from inexpensive cellulosic biomass (grass, wood, agricultural and forestry wastes).
  • Diversa - Developing enzymes that convert renewable resources, such as corn and cellulosic biomass, into renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel. Valley "Ultra-Thin™" enzyme, for the conversion of corn into ethanol, is on the market today and a set of enzymes has been developed for an economical, commercial-scale process to convert starch and cellulosic biomass to fuel ethanol.

Ethanol Plants

Applications

  • Honda to sell world's 1st bike with bio-ethanol mixed fuel - Honda Motor Company said on Wednesday it has developed the world's first motorcycle powered by an eco-friendly fuel mixed with bio-ethanol and gasoline, which will be put on sale from mid-March in Brazil, one of the world's largest producers and users of bio-ethanol. (India Times; March 11, 2009)

Research and Development

  • 4 Million Tons of Olive Pits Could Be Turned in Ethanol - One new feedstock being tested in Spain, is the leftover pits from olives after the fruit is pressed into olive oil. As the pit takes up about a quarter of the total fruit, and some 4 million tons of them are generated each year, the hope is that this waste product can be made into something more useful, like ethanol. (TreHugger; Oct. 30, 3 2008)
  • Better Bug to Make Cellulosic Ethanol -New genetically modified bacteria could slash the costs of producing ethanol from cellulosic biomass. The microbes produce ethanol at higher temperatures than are possible using yeast, which is currently employed to ferment sugar into the biofuel. (MIT Technology Review; Sept . 9, 2008)
  • Sweet Potato Out-Yields Corn In Ethanol Production Study - In experiments, sweet potatoes grown in Maryland and Alabama yielded two to three times as much carbohydrate for fuel ethanol production as field corn grown in those states, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists report. (Science Daily; Aug. 28, 2008)
  • Research drives improvements in efficient biofuel processing - he Iowa State project is focused on using fungi to clean up and improve the dry-ethanol production process. That process grinds corn kernels and adds water and enzymes. The enzymes break the starches into sugars. The sugars are fermented with yeasts to produce ethanol. (Engineer Live; July 31, 2008)

Resources

Government and Politics

Cautions

  • Ethanol Production Could Jeopardize Soil Productivity - The American Society of Agronomy reports that crop residues possess a critical role in sustaining soil organic matter, and as it is increasingly being used for the production of cellulosic-based ethanol, this removal may impact the long-term productivity of soils. (Newswise; June 2, 2009)
  • Barry County VeraSun plant, area farmers caught up as ethanol loses its spark - The collapse of this once-promising ethanol industry and VeraSun Energy Corp. having filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, has rippled not only through the 40-employee plant along a rural highway halfway between Grand Rapids and Lansing, but the hundreds of corn growers whose farms surround it. (MLive.com; Nov. 16, 2008)
  • The Death of Ethanol: One Thing Wall Street Saw Coming - Once upon a time, ethanol was seen as the future of clean energy and as leading the U.S. to energy independence. “It’s such a waste that the government gave free handouts and subsidies to grow a business that wasn’t sustainable,” said one investment banker familiar with the sector. (Wall Street Journal; Nov. 3, 2008)
  • The Case Against Ethanol - Ethanol and many other grain-based biofuels are an unmitigated folly as both a means of fuel and as an investment. (SeekingAlpha; March 25, 2008)

Presentations

(68 Minutes) Vinod Khosla Biofuels: Think Outside The Barrel
Google TechTalks Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley billionaire, visited Google to deliver a tech talk about the emergence of ethanol as a viable, market ready, and competitive source of renewable energy. On the Ethanol Bandwagon, Big Names and Big Risks (Google Video) March 29, 2006

Comments

See Discussion page

Directories

  • Driving Ethanol- The Ethanol Promotion and Information Council.
  • Ethanol - A visual directory of web resources about ethanol fuel.

See also

- Other Directory listings • Latest • A-I • J-R • S-Z • Tree • News
- PESWiki home page

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