Category: ethanol

Although homemade ethanol can certainly be a dangerous thing, it can also be a rather intriguing thing, and so in order to be able to understand everything about homemade ethanol in general, one must learn about how to make it, what is involved in the process, and more, as well as what the dangers are of homemade ethanol; only when all of these matters are discussed can a proper viewpoint be taken on the subject matter.

About Homemade Ethanol

In regards to the matter of homemade ethanol, basically there are several facts that should be taken into consideration, such as: the level of interest in using alcohol as motor fuel has followed cycles of fuel shortages and/or low feed-grain prices; alcohols burn more completely, thus increasing combustion efficiency; and that there are many disadvantages to using alcohols, particularly methyl and ethyl alcohol.

As well, ethanol, which is grain alcohol, can be made out of straw; and in fact the ability to make ethanol from straw rice straw, wheat straw, oat straw, etc.- is truly the modern day equivalent of the Holy Grail or the Philosopher s Stone, as in a time when barely any new oil fields have been discovered in the past ten years, and a war in Iraq rages with such madness that it seems unlikely that anyone will be able to pump oil for the next several years.

As well, intensive research on cellulose conversion to ethanol previously focused on that of mechanical, heat and acid hydrolysis techniques, all of which are expensive, and as well, it should be known however that cellulose ethanol truly has two unique advantages over conventional alcohol.

The first is that the greenhouse gas emission reductions from cellulose ethanol are three times greater than those from grain based ethanol on a life cycle basis, and second, cellulose ethanol is made from a plentiful and renewable resource, which is the non-food portion of agriculture crops.

The ethanol industry in general is truly growing at an incredible pace, and in fact, production was up nearly 23 percent compared to just last June when 180,000 b/d of ethanol was produced; the ethanol industry is also expected to produce more than 3.3 billion gallons in 2004, up from 2.81 gallons in 2003.

Overall it is quite easy to see that there is much to know about ethanol in general, and also that in order to be able to have a proper viewpoint on it altogether, we need to try and understand as much about it in general as we can.

The new green gold of the modern times is cellulosic ethanol which, thanks to research has made possible the transformation of straw and other plant wastes into cellulosic ethanol that is chemically the same as ethanol made out of corn or soybeans. However, this type of ethanol has thrice the net energy as compared with corn ethanol and also does not emit much greenhouse gases and with better and improved technology, cellulosic ethanol may one day replace the costlier imported black gold called oil

Reduce Consumption of Gasoline

Man can reduce consumption of gasoline using cellulosic ethanol and large corporations have also recognized this possibility. There is a basic fundamental difference in how ethanol and is produced since them each use different feed stocks and undergo different processes. Cellulosic ethanol is a kind of ethanol which is made from different biomass that also includes urban, agricultural as well as forest sources. Cellulosic ethanol uses a starting raw material called cellulose and is different to that used for ethanol which is sugar and starches.

To produce it one requires two methods and these are hydrolysis with further fermentation of the free sugar that has been generated as also synthesis gas fermentation or catalysis. The beauty of the making of cellulosic ethanol is that there is no toxic emission given off in the production of ethanol and even though the technology is relatively new, there is much ongoing testing that bodes well for the future.

Government Invests Millions to Commercialize Ethanol Use

A Canadian biotechnology company called Iogen Corporation began selling cellulosic ethanol from April 2004 and its main buyer is the Canadian government as well as the US government that have both invested millions of dollars to enable companies to commercialize cellulosic ethanol. In the search for alternative energies that are used in the transportation industry one has to find something less expensive as well as more environment friendly than gasoline, diesel as well as kerosene.

Cellulosic ethanol may provide the answer as there is an abundance of raw material available which grows in every plant is it straw, grass or wood and transforming them into ethanol could provide one third of the current fuel consumption requirements in the US as also in other countries. There is also plenty of scope for planting cellulose producing crops such as switch grass so that there are enough raw materials available to produce cellulosic ethanol and thus have a viable alternative to current oil usage.