Biofuel Diversity at the University of North Dakota

Call me paranoid but there may be plans afoot to stop America becoming fuel independent. Take away the crops for fuel arguments! Let's see what they come up with next.

I totally agree with semester. I think any experimenting on alternative fuels that will make the usa self sufficient, and thus people being more self sufficient is a direct threat to the people that control energy. It would mean a shifting of mass wealth in this society. Alternative sources of energy also sparks the creative american mind which has been asleep for many years.
This new kind of idea would lead people to think more on the lines of being self sufficient, and thus have an effect on certain segments of business in our society. It is a revolutionary idea that has been discouraged and almost labeled cooky.
But America would never have been formed if people had been afraid to take risks.

I'm sick of hearing about biofuels. It's a step in the wrong direction. I don't know about hydrogen, where will it come from? What happens when we start breaking down the air that we breathe and the water we drink so we can fuel our cars? I think electric power is the way to go, as long as the energy source is clean i.e. hydro-electric, nuclear, wind, so on... I guess anything is better than oil...

Baxjr, that comment just proves to the rest of us how little you have looked into some of these subjects. Why don't you take some time to get informed and then you wouldn't be afraid of hydrogen or ethanol.

Hydrogen's the most abundant element in the galaxy, and breaking down water into oxygen and hydrogen yields more volume of gas (both H and O2) than the water that went into the process. When hydrogen is combusted in the presence of oxygen, do you know what the byproduct is? Pure H2O. Water. That's all. No carbon dioxide, no carbon monoxide, no sulfrous compounds, no ash. Other than it's high flammability, it makes a perfect portable fuel. And we've all had lots of experience shipping and handling pressurized flammable gases/liquids, such as propane, acetylene. (Have a propane gas grill? I do.) I guarantee that if companies spent as much $$$$MONEY$$$$ on R&D for efficient ways to crack water into hydrogen (and building infrastructure) as oil companies do on more efficient ways to pull petroleum out of the ground, we'd all be driving fuel cell cars in less than 5 years.

While I agree that ethanol from foodstocks is a stupid idea (someone needs their "scientist card" revoked), the fact that we have all the infrastructure in place and it's relatively easy to modify engines to use ethanol is extremely compelling.
However, there are so many other WASTE products that we should be looking at using for ethanol instead of raw product. The average American household wastes 14% of the food they purchase (not to mention restaurants), and if that goes into a landfill many of the nutrients are locked out of the ecosystem. And the rotting produces methane and CO2. Instead, use this as the feed stock for an ethanol.

Also, lots more research needs to be done into cellulosic ethanol, which can be created from any construction/yard waste materials. I don't know about where you're from, but around here when they clear a new wooded lot for construction, they cut down all the large trees, then use a bulldozer to push down all the saplings and brush into a pile, then burn it.
With cellulosic ethanol, you can explore using many fast growing non/depleting plants for the process, such as bamboo, hemp, kudzu (would be nice to find a use for that stuff).

As far as the electric issue, solar and wind are great ideas, hydroelectric and geothermal need to be more fully utilized. and nuclear energy could be made safer than it is now (search pebble-bed reactors and Gen. IV and V+ technologies) but it is still more viable long-term than electricity from coal power, which is globally still the prevalent technology for power generation.

Just don't knock new technologies until you have looked into them further. They can all benefit us and help curb pollution.

The problem is that there is not enough of that type of waste to support the need for ethanol. So the problem is (other than the fact that ethanol doesn't burn clean) is that they are going to have to grow some sort of crops to support it--switchgrass, algae, whatever. So guess what the Brazilians are doing to keep up w/ demand? Making space. Where? The rainforest... I'm pretty sure that thing is important, plus brazil is now the 4th largest Carbon emitter because of all the burning. Ethanol has pretty much put carbon pollution into hyper-drive.

Yay! Lets detroy the world to make it cleaner!

I will say that hysrogen is a much better idea, but I'd like to see some information on what happens when you start moving stuff around like that...

everyone should watch the movie Fuel. it goes over all of the possibilities for biofuel. from leftover cooking oil to the production of algae that takes the co2 from the air and uses it as food as well as the sun, for it. even trees that grow the maturity in 3 years to be cut down and used for it. and the great thing is that these trees grow back from their own stumps, and in three more years, another batch ready to go.