It has been an elusive goal for the legion of chemists trying to pull it off: Replace crude oil as the root source for plastic, fuels and scores of other industrial and household chemicals with inexpensive, nonpolluting renewable plant matter.
Scientists took a giant step closer to the biorefinery today, reporting in the journal Science that they have directly converted sugars ubiquitous in nature to an alternative source for those products that make oil so valuable, with very little of the residual impurities that have made the quest so daunting.
“What we have done that no one else has been able to do is convert glucose directly in high yields to a primary building block for fuel and polyesters,” said Z. Conrad Zhang, senior author who led the research and a scientist with the PNNL-based Institute for Interfacial Catalysis, or IIC.
That building block is called HMF, which stands for hydroxymethylfurfural. It is a chemical derived from carbohydrates such as glucose and fructose and is viewed as a promising surrogate for petroleum-based chemicals.
As Zhang put it, “The opportunities are endless and the chemistry is starting to get interesting.”
When we get past the dimwits who think science and technology is something inherently satanic, something gets accomplished.
this looks sweet – I get the feeling that agribuisness is going to be HUGE soon
When we get past the dimwits who think science and technology is something inherently satanic, something gets accomplished.
Praise Jebus!
One of my favorite quotes is that, “Commerce always trumps politics”.
Much early research – before petro-chemicals – was vegetable-based. Diesel tech being one of the better examples. The explosive growth in R&D that accompanied the petroleum-based phenomenon will probably be matched by the need to convert to renewables.
Those who are incapable of switching, those who are hidebound reactionaries, will be shoved aside in the marketplace. It ain’t gonna be pretty and it won’t be overnight. But, anyone feel like opening a typewriter factory, nowadays?
Hydroxymethylfurfural is still a hydrocarbon based fuel and burning it would still produce Co2, probably at only a 13% or so reduction as with corn derrived ethanol. So as a fuel, it’s not a step in the right direction IMO.
Also this from our friend Wiki…
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences nominated HMF based on the potential for widespread exposure in the diet, evidence for carcinogenic potential of other members of this class, and the fact that little is known about HMF toxicity. NTP plans to develop protocols to investigate the metabolism, toxicity and carcinogenicity of HMF.
One issue with biofuels is that we need to ensure that we are not putting rich peoples’ fuel in competition with poor peoples’ food. We’ve already got some evidence of this. Corn prices are increasing in the U.S. at least due to corn ethanol, which is a horrible fuel, requiring just a bit less energy to make it than it returns when you burn it.
We’re also already seeing some other unforeseen consequences of biofuels. Anyone out there like tequila? I realize this is not a life sustaining substance for anyone. But, in Mexico, they are burning huge fields of agave to plant corn for ethanol as a fuel. Expect increases in tequila prices.
If tequila were the only effect, this would be a huge win. However, when it puts fuel in competition with fuel, wealthy people are going to be driving at the expense of poor people eating. Anyone have a problem with that? Does it feel just a little like fueling our cars with the bodies of the less fortunate? The thought makes me physically ill.
I’m not sure how or whether this fuel in particular addresses the issue. I just think it must be addressed before I can support this.
Haven’t checked… (@ work), but is the US still paying farmers NOT to grow crops?
lazy researcher:
J/P=?
I have the strange feeling the Big oil companies are going to invest in turning nations capable of growing large quantities of Sugar into tyrannic regimes that suit their needs.
4–I’m thinking that “by definition” you are 100% wrong -but- you provide a very specific 13% figure so you must have a source/idea somewhere?
All plant based/renewable carbon sources are 100% neutral as they get their carbon from the air and return it to the air.
This is NOT the same as fuel from coal for instance that takes sequestered carbon sources and releases it to the air.
I guess it would be “fair” to include the gas and so forth it takes to transport such products around in their creation/distribution/disposal process that IF thats the distinction, it should be clearly noted.
So—what do you mean?
5–why not let the free market rule? Rich people already use corn to feed cows, why draw the line at cars? Let the poor eat switchgrass.
I haven’t seen a alternative fuels program yet that didn’t have secret corporate subsidies and pay-offs for it somewhere. Always fun to see them come to light. There are many and various ones in the corn to gas schemes. Its about as honest as our border policy. Shame really.
#8,I finally found where I read that tidbit… link here
“Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley recently examined six major studies of ethanol production and concluded that using ethanol made from corn instead of gasoline would lead to a moderate 13 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions.”
But I wholeheartedlky disagree with your comment…
“All plant based/renewable carbon sources are 100% neutral as they get their carbon from the air and return it to the air. This is NOT the same as fuel from coal for instance that takes sequestered carbon sources and releases it to the air.”
So you’re trying to tell me that a certain time lapse renders naturally captured carbon as the original source? In other words, if you grow a plant and burn it, you consider that 100% neutral, but if you grow a plant and store it for 10, 100, 1000, a million years, it and then burn it, that somehow negates the neutrality of the process.
Interesting logic.
#9–Sorry to make you do that extra look up==but thanks for the effort. Yes, the current distribution process lessens the net gain but there is still neutrality for the actual one gallon of ethanol burned.
You have my logic exactly correct. The CO2 is neutral in both your examples in that they both catch the entire cycle.
What is NOT neutral is to not GROW THE PLANT in the cycle such as we are doing now. If feels great to be understood. //// Bobbo.
Bobbo, whether we grow the plants now, or they grew before…. there is no difference. The cycle continues. Growing the plants for fuel has a negative effect because we don’t leave the natural capture of carbon be. We burn it and put it back into the atmosphere! That’s just as bad as burning “found” oil. Just let it stay captured, and we would all be better off.
Also, your reasoning of NOT to grow the plant is faulty. Fertile land naturally fills in with carbon eating vegetation. There’s no need for man to intervene except to manipulate that carbon back into the atmosphere, or for the production of food. One cancels the natural cleansing of carbon from the air, and the other feeds people and also keeps the carbon trapped. The current worldwide goal is to REMOVE carbon from the atmosphere and then NOT put it right back.
Yes, I understood you completely, but I still don’t accept your reasoning. I hope you can now see the logic in mine.
12–You give me too much credit. Its not my reasoning but rather reference to defined terms and concepts.
“carbon sequestration” and “carbon neutrality” are pretty well agreed upon terms and easily googled.
Logically, there is a difference between plants that grew before and plants we could grow now. I have to guess you mean that the carbon cycle continues making that distinction moot, but another cycle exists that we should be concerned with==human life on our planet. If we interrupt the natural carbon cycle long enough, as we just about have, our own short walk in the sun will likewise be interrupted and evolution will have to go back and recycle life from another lower life form. And if that is too unlikely, then civilization as we know it can also cycle once again.
You severly misstate the current world goal which is to reduce emmissions of carbon into the atmosphere. The percent of carbon in the atmosphere is increased when you take sequested dead plants (coal) and burn them. There is no increase of carbon into the atmosphere over a cycle of one growing/harvesting period if what you burn was grown.
Now the above is so obvious and well known and nowhere debated, that I presume the point you are trying to make escapes me. For that, I apologize.
Book TV on right now–environmental panel. Talking about potential ocean collapse due to rising acidity which is “etching” the shells of invertebrates.
Panel agrees we have about 10 years to “reverse” the increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Whether its 10 or 100 years, any talk about things working out in a million year cycle is “not in the game.”
Anybody want to bet atmospheric and oceanic acidity won’t even level off in 10 years much less reverse?
“Carbon sequestration” and “carbon neutrality” are commonly used terms. Many googled sites distort their meaning by trying to make them seem more than they are. Carbon sequstration is simply carbon that was hidden from view until we found it. It’s still carbon, it still came from plants,and it won’t pollute the air unless we burn it.
Carbon in the form of oil is also, by definition, sequestered in plants, whether you cultivate them or they grow naturally. The fact is that there is no difference between the two except time. Plants naturally take the carbon out of the air. Plants don’t “naturally” perform a “carbon neutral” process. It’s usually a one way trip to storage. When we meddle with the natural proceess and we return CO2 to the atmosphere that would otherwise be in captured… it’s the very same as burning fossil fuel.
Anyway bobbo, we both want to have a safe and healthy earth and that’s what really matters. You are a decent fellow to discuss with. You can have the last word (which I’ll read.) 😉
#14 – JimR,
Carbon sequestration is simply carbon that was hidden from view until we found it. It’s still carbon, it still came from plants,and it won’t pollute the air unless we burn it.
Mostly correct. The incorrect bit is that not all carbon sequestration is equal.
Carbon sequestered in coal, oil, and natural gas deep below the surface of the earth is sequestered and has been sequestered for millions of years. Burning this carbon puts carbon back in the biosphere that had been all but removed from it previously.
Carbon sequestered in old growth forests has been sequestered for tens of thousands of years. Further, with the exception of tropical rain forests that have poor or no soil, most old growth forests have 99% of their carbon sequestered in the soil. All the trees, undergrowth, etc. make up just 1% of the carbon of these forests. Clear cutting, frees up much of the carbon from the soil. Lumber, even when not burned sequesters carbon for 30 to 100 years depending on the type of wood. So, even without burning, clear cutting frees up a tremendous amount of carbon that had been sequestered for tens of thousands of years.
Carbon sequestered in tree farms is carbon that will be sequestered for only as long as the cycle of cutting the farm, typically around 30 years.
Carbon sequestered underground by pumping carbon dioxide underground may or may not be sequestered for any significant amount of time. This is totally untried and unproven technology.
#9 – JimR,
See my previous comment for an explanation of why some biofuels may be considered carbon neutral. The problems with biofuels are that they put fuel in competition with food and that many are truly NOT carbon neutral.
Wait you may say, we just planted those plants. While they were growing, they took carbon out of the atmosphere. After they were grown, we cut them and burned them releasing the carbon back to the atmosphere for a net increase in carbon of zero, i.e. carbon neutral.
Though this is the standard explanation of the carbon neutrality of biofuels, there is a serious problem with the logic. In many cases, the farmers and the later processing of the plants into fuel actually requires fuel, which may or may not be biofuel.
So, corn ethanol being the prime example, it takes almost as much fuel to produce the damn stuff as you get out of it. Last I heard, the best case for corn ethanol was a factor of 1.3. This means that corn ethanol is, at absolute best, 30% better than just burning the oil it took to produce it. It’s hardly worth it, unless you’re a huge corporation in the agribusiness taking massive subsidies for the modest increase in efficiency.
That said, second generation ethanol sources, such as native switch grass, can actually be worth considering from a strict fuel standpoint. From the standpoint of whether we should be growing food on that land instead, I can’t answer the question.
#14—Thanks Jim:::
“it still came from plants,and it won’t pollute the air unless we burn it.”
and thats the whole issue==we are burning it.
Anyhoo, since we both want the same thing, a safe and healthy earth, its too bad we both will live to see major dissappointment.===and thanks for engaging in the diaologue.
MS, I know you are really into this topic. Thanks for the input. I;m still not convinced that man is the cause of global warming but I can see with my eyes that we’re fking up the planet in other ways with poisons, pollution and destroying everything good. Plants grow better with increased CO2 levels, so maybe… after we fail to lower CO2, and the polluters and the wealthiest all lined up along the earth’s bodies of water get what they deserve with the brunt of it… maybe THEN the increased CO2 will turn out to be helpful in regenerating a more lush and healthy earth. Just a wild fantasy.
Can’t this be done with hemp plants? We grow some hemp for industrial use, mix in some good sensimilla for home use, and all’s well.