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Old 05-02-2008, 06:44 PM
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Default $1.00 a gallon

Hope it happens!
2008-April-29
Coskata Comes One Step Closer to Producing $1 per gallon Ethanol
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By: Chris Terry
GMnext Team Member

Just this morning, I stopped to fill up my gas tank (to the tune of $35 for 10 gallons…). As usual, I cringed a bit – last year, I could fill up my entire tank (14 gallons) for that same price. I’m not alone. Right now, everyone’s feeling the high price of fuel.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however: Coskata.

Coskata, you’ll remember, was the company that GM partnered with in January to help produce non-grain based ethanol (not just cellulosic, but any carbon source could theoretically be used, including old tires and other waste).

Coskata’s announcement last week that it will build a demonstration facility near Pittsburgh brings it one step closer to full ethanol production. The $25 million project will be located at the Westinghouse Plasma Center, and target production is set for 40,000 gallons of ethanol per year. In addition, Coskata has also pledged to “commission a full-scale, 50 million – 100 million gallon-per-year commercial plant by the year 2011.” (Granted, that’s just a drop in the bucket. Each year, the US consumes over 146 billion gallons of gasoline.)

The plan is that the Pennsylvania facility will begin delivering ethanol in early 2009. Obviously that’s not tomorrow, but it is certainly in the foreseeable future.

This is where it gets really interesting. In 1983, the GM Central Foundry Division collaborated with Westinghouse Electric Corp., later known as Westinghouse Plasma Corp., and others to develop a high-volume plasma torch furnace, called a plasma arc cupola, that could more flexibly produce molten iron used to make automotive engine blocks, crankshafts and brake components.

GM’s first application of plasma torch technology was in 1989 at its foundry in Defiance, Ohio. Now, nearly 20 years later, that plasma technology, which is still used today, is also being used for cellulosic ethanol production. Pretty cool. (To check out what plasma gasification looks like, see the diagram below.)



GM knows that to support an ethanol infrastructure, some serious changes will have to be made. More cars will have to be E85 capable and more fueling stations will have to carry the alternative fuel. Everyone, including auto manufacturers, the government and consumers are going to have to continue stepping up to the plate. It’s not going to be instant or easy, but it is going to be worthwhile.
Old 05-03-2008, 12:15 AM
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It will not be and is never that easy, though.
Old 05-03-2008, 12:59 PM
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Thats cool and all, but ethanol is still not the answer.
Old 05-04-2008, 03:31 PM
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Basic cars will need to change to some other form of tech to drive them. But ethanol is a viable solution to the cars running the roads now, and to keep us gasers having fun!
Old 05-04-2008, 04:09 PM
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Ethanol is not the answer. ****, they're even finding that some people are HIGHLY allergic to the fumes as the stuff is being burned. There have been a couple news reports about people who can't even drive in, or be next to, ethanol powered cars b/c of their allergic reactions. I don't think these folks are alone in their allergies, and you can bet your *** they are fearful as hell that ethanol may become more wide spread than it is now.

Let's build more refineries please? Increase the rate at which were supplied and we'll decrease the price based on our demand. Hoho.
Old 05-04-2008, 04:12 PM
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Would be nice!
Old 05-04-2008, 04:45 PM
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why can't we just drill of shore and in anwar? oh thats right, politics! (and a few extremist environmentalists)
Old 05-04-2008, 04:53 PM
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heres my .02

once this gets going full course, we will run through the same issues, everyone will want this new gas (demand) and they will only be producing xx amount of gallons, and we will need (XXXXX amount) [supply issue] then they will raise the price, which will be where we are today....so why waste all the cash to get back to high prices???

another example of dirty $$ makin schemes.

when digital video cameras came out with the idea of going straight to DVD it was a huge hit right? and then they came out with the idea to go straight to a hard drive and have hours of video on demand? wow such cool techno advancements right?

problem is - the hard drive camcorders were already developed and practically in the box ready to be sold when the dvd handy cams from sony came out...but why did they stop the release? so they could sale us all dvd handy cams, then the follow year our **** was outta date...

/rant
Old 05-04-2008, 05:00 PM
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Originally Posted by kozak
Thats cool and all, but ethanol is still not the answer.
Old 05-04-2008, 05:01 PM
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War is the answer. Finish the damn thing, take over the country, and we have cheaper gas.
Old 05-05-2008, 11:55 AM
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Originally Posted by OSUBraden
Ethanol is not the answer. ****, they're even finding that some people are HIGHLY allergic to the fumes as the stuff is being burned. There have been a couple news reports about people who can't even drive in, or be next to, ethanol powered cars b/c of their allergic reactions. I don't think these folks are alone in their allergies, and you can bet your *** they are fearful as hell that ethanol may become more wide spread than it is now.

Let's build more refineries please? Increase the rate at which were supplied and we'll decrease the price based on our demand. Hoho.
Until you are a scientist my friend I would not make this claim. I haven't heard anything like that before.

Lets give it some time and see what they come up with. They already said they can make the stuff other than using corn which can drive up the price of food. http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23

This is a good start, lets be positive and hope this is a solution!

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

"It's not five years away, it's not 10 years away. It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.

The discovery underscores the rapid innovation under way in the race to make cellulosic ethanol cheaply. With the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requiring an almost five-fold increase in ethanol production to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022, scientists are working quickly to reach that breakthrough.

"It signals just how hot the competition is right now," said David Friedman, research director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "There are a lot of people diving into this right now, trying to figure out how to crack the nut. This increases my confidence that someone will do it."

Besides cutting production costs to fire sale prices, the process avoids some key drawbacks of making ethanol from corn, company officials said. It wouldn't impact the food supply, and its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency. The end result will be E85 sold at the pump for about a dollar cheaper per gallon than gasoline, according to the company.

Coskata won't have a pilot plant running until this time next year, and it will produce just 40,000 gallons a year. Still, several experts said Coskata shows enough promise to leave them cautiously optimistic.

"The question will come down to 'Can they deliver?'" said Nathanael Greene, a senior energy-policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The approach is interesting and promising in the problems it addresses."

Coskata uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas, which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Rather than fermenting that gas or using thermo-chemical catalysts to produce ethanol, Coskata pumps it into a reactor containing bacteria that consume the gas and excrete ethanol. Richard Tobey, Coskata's vice president of engineering, says the process yields 99.7 percent pure ethanol.

Gasification and bacterial conversion are common methods of producing ethanol, but biofuel experts said Coskata is the first to combine them. Doing so, they said, merges the feedstock flexibility of gasification with the relatively low cost of bacterial conversion.

Tobey said Coskata's method generates more ethanol per ton of feedstock than corn-based ethanol and requires far less water, heat and pressure. Those cost savings allow it to turn, say, two bales of hay into five gallons of ethanol for less than $1 a gallon, the company said. Corn-based ethanol costs $1.40 a gallon to produce, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.

The company plans to have its first commercial-scale plant producing up to 100 million gallons of ethanol a year by 2011. Friedman and Greene said the timeline is realistic.

May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.

Making ethanol is one thing, but there's almost no infrastructure in place for distributing it. But the company's method solves that problem because ethanol could be made locally from whatever feedstock is available, Tobey said.

"You're not bound by location," he said. "If you're in Orange County, you can use municipal waste. If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can use wood waste. Florida has sugar. The Midwest has corn. Each region has been blessed with the ability to grow its own biomass."

Still, consumers will need some way of getting that fuel into their vehicle. Less than 1 percent of the nation's 170,000 gas stations sell E85, said Mike Omotoso, senior manager of the global power train group at J.D. Power & Associates.

"Even if you produce it county by county, you still need an infrastructure," he said. "People aren't going to go to some remote location for fuel."

But with production set to ramp up quickly to meet the 36 billion gallon mandate, ethanol advocates believe it won't be long before E85 is widely available.
Old 05-06-2008, 02:56 PM
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Originally Posted by SLP LS1
Until you are a scientist my friend I would not make this claim. I haven't heard anything like that before.

Lets give it some time and see what they come up with. They already said they can make the stuff other than using corn which can drive up the price of food. http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23

This is a good start, lets be positive and hope this is a solution!
But the problem is A) ethanol is subsidised with massive tax breaks, B) made from a food source (product replacement and price competition / product competition, the price of apples vs. the price of oranges anyone from micro econ?)

Corn ethanol is feed for 3rd world nations, all beef and milk cattle, every chicken produced for human food, ect, ect, ect. What happens when you add in one more competing end use AND a mandate (yep a mandate which is regulation) by the government to use more of it? Price has to go up. Simple micro economics at their finest.

The solution is alternative energies that aren't derived from food products but rather cellulious ethanol and bio-diesel, solids (coal and composted waste) to liquid fuels, and gas (natural and other light petro) to liquids. Along with short term relief with oil exploration (hell even Cuba and the Chicoms are drilling off the Florida cost) and new refineries.

Contrary to reporting though, useage is down.
Old 05-06-2008, 05:41 PM
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Ethanol is a case study in wishing something was that is not.

W
Old 05-06-2008, 08:06 PM
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It may not be the answer... but I'm enjoying paying $2.65/gallon for E85 in my daily driver, as opposed to $3.43/gallon for 87 octane.
Old 05-07-2008, 10:48 AM
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Originally Posted by Grave
It may not be the answer... but I'm enjoying paying $2.65/gallon for E85 in my daily driver, as opposed to $3.43/gallon for 87 octane.
What's your fuel mileage difference?
Old 05-07-2008, 11:23 AM
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Originally Posted by sb427f-car
What's your fuel mileage difference?
I bet you don't get the same mpg though.
Old 05-07-2008, 11:41 AM
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You won't, but its minimal. Ethanol burns at 9:1 compared 14.7:1 on our current gas motors. Friends that i know which use E85 say they get 22 on gas and about 20 on E85, that's minimal in my mind.

Like someone else said E85 is the answer to our current cars, we need a fuel that we can convert our current autos to run on. It's even better that we can use human waste to make the fuel, that's a major concern right now.
Old 05-07-2008, 08:28 PM
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Originally Posted by sb427f-car
What's your fuel mileage difference?
Originally Posted by kozak
I bet you don't get the same mpg though.
The mpg did decrease, but I haven't driven enough to give you an end difference.

Even still... even with the mpg hit, I'm still spending less as opposed to now $3.45/gallon 87 octane.

Originally Posted by BanditTA
Like someone else said E85 is the answer to our current cars, we need a fuel that we can convert our current autos to run on. It's even better that we can use human waste to make the fuel, that's a major concern right now.
Give a whole new meaning to the term "Fartcan", eh?
Old 05-12-2008, 09:17 PM
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Originally Posted by BanditTA
You won't, but its minimal. Ethanol burns at 9:1 compared 14.7:1 on our current gas motors. Friends that i know which use E85 say they get 22 on gas and about 20 on E85, that's minimal in my mind.

Like someone else said E85 is the answer to our current cars, we need a fuel that we can convert our current autos to run on. It's even better that we can use human waste to make the fuel, that's a major concern right now.


How about HHO (Oxyhydrogen) ? Also know as water cars .....
Old 06-29-2008, 07:45 PM
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Originally Posted by crazymonkey
How about HHO (Oxyhydrogen) ? Also know as water cars .....
Oh my god!!!! Di-hydrogen monoxide??? Are you crazy?


Quick Reply: $1.00 a gallon



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