Poet Plant Produces First Cellulosic Ethanol

Corn cobs? Isn't there a better use for corn cobs?

I thought cellulosic ethanol production was going to be about using plants from land that is not fit for use in agriculture?

Glenn - I think the plant will be using the cobs (inedible), and not the edible part, so no impact on the food element of the agricultural industry, save for perhaps making rapid use of what otherwise might end up being considered as a waste....

Why not use the cornstover along with corn cobs, although corn cobs and cornstover should be treated differently. I don't think there are enough corn cobs to meet the demand, if poet decided to add a cellulose based ethanol plant to each of its starch based ethanol plant. What are the by-products of this cellulose ethanol plant?

Why not ignore soil erosion? What is compost, anyway?

In the U.S., some of the best agricultural soils occur in Iowa, but over the past century these have declined from an average of 18 to just 10 inches of depth over the past century due to erosion. Erosion rates exceeded soil regeneration rates on close to 30% of agricultural lands in the US in 2001. This loss of topsoil and organic residues results in declining productivity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05berry.html?_r=3&th&emc=th


Problems with Scale

Virtually all of the proposed cellulosic feedstocks (including dedicated energy crops such as perennial grasses and fast growing or genetically engineered trees, agricultural and forestry "wastes and residues", municipal wastes etc.) present serious ecological concerns on the scale required to maintain biorefinery operations and significantly contribute to U.S. energy demands. Furthermore, renewable fuels targets in the US mandate the use of 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol per year, an amount that requires one third of the nations corn crop, and an additional 21 billion gallons a year of "advanced" agrofuels, the definition of which opens the possibility that demand will be met with foreign sources. The massive new demand for agrofuels is escalating deforestation and resulting in conversion of biodiverse and carbon-rich native forests and grasslands into biologically barren and carbon-poor industrial tree plantations and other crop monocultures.

Got Water?
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/biofuels_brief_final.pdf

Over Abundant Waste Wood Myth
http://www.risiinfo.com/technologyarchives/risi-wood-biomass-market-report-woodfiber-supply.html

What is the form of the residue from the cobs after the ethanol production and what is the disposition of the residue?

Glenn Andersen asks, "Corn cobs? Isn't there a better use for corn cobs?"

Yes, Glenn, they were long used as a cheap substitute for toilet paper:

http://www.poopreport.com/Techniques/Content/Wiping/wipingbc.html

Save a tree!

One of the major problems for massive scale cellulosic ethanol production is the availability of feedstock. Agave could play an important role, especially in Southwest USA. One hectare of enhanced Agave tequilana -the semiarid plant we use to produce tequila- can produce 5,000 gallons of distilled ethanol and 80 tonnes of dry biomass with 50+ tonnes of cellulose content per hectare on an annual average (agave takes 6 years to harvest).

Agave thrives in semiarid land (41% of world's inhabitable land is dryland) needs no watering, nor agrochemicals, grows well in any type of soils, even highly eroded and steep ones, gets nitrogen from the air, needs scarce field labour, gets its nitrogen from the air and is no food.

There's more, Agave sugars (3x those in sugarcane) and fibres can be converted into over 40+ industrial bioproducts and chemicals (we have derived eight: bioplastics, fructose, inulin, dry white-powdered syrup (table sugar substitute, for diabetics and dieters), cellulose and paper.
Agave is the best bioenergy feedstock for distilled AND cellulosic ethanol.
Arturo Velez
agaveproject2@gmail.com