My new 7,000 Gallon Carboy

[Mattress]

Ahh so sort of a proof of concept experiment to apply for future grants. Good Luck!!

Also more curiousity...I work on the downstream of things. We are modifying yeast to produce isobutanol instead of ethanol with current feed sources. Why besides food cost, logistics, etc are you looking into these other feed sources? Do they have more glucose per pound or something?

Warning: Most of this post is speculation I don't work in the agricultural industry or fuel production business.

I would like to see more research in the amount of rendered fuel to amount of nutrients consumed type of thing. For example one corn plant has a lot of stalk and leaves (useless in the production of fuels) whereas something like sugarcane plant has less % waste to amount of nutrients supplied. To actually replace gasoline for america the amount of sq acreage is ridiculous and crop cycling would be near impossible @ the current farm capacity with corn or most other crops. I suppose this wouldn't be difficult to do with a hydroponic setup?

Well this is part of what we are working on. There is a specific amount of ethanol that can be produced from corn grain. However, there is the concept of cellulosic ethanol where you can remove the sugars from the stalks/leaves of corn, sweet sorghum, switchgrass and other crops in order to produce ethanol as well. Granted you should cut corn before it dries like they do silage so that more sugars will be in the rest of the plant.

This is what we have been working on, along with several others. You can get much more ethanol/acre from sweet sorghum than you can from corn, even by using the entire corn stalk. The amount of glucose in the stalks of sweet sorghum is much higher than corn. This gives farmers another crop for producing more ethanol, and may help to stop driving up the price of feed corn.

We take our corn plots versus sweet sorghum and switchgrass, and subject them to a variety of different nutrient levels. Then we are trying to see if any difference can be found between crops and nutrient levels when it comes to ethanol output. So in the end we are trying to find out which crop produces the most ethanol and at what fertilizer levels are optimum.

[Charlie]

7000 gallons in a horizontal vessel with two blowoff hoses and (I assume) no way to control the temp. I've got a bad feeling about this.

How about running a pilot op first to approximate your fermentation heat and headspace requirements. Weld a couple or three 50 gallon steel barrels end to end, saddle some 5 gallon steel buckets and weld them to the sides to serve as hatches. Install temp probes. Mix up the goo. Observe and take measurements.

The heat produced by fermentation should be a well known figure. You'll need to know the surface area of your vessel(s).

Let me know when you do this. I bet I can see the geyser from here .

Charlie

[Charlie]

I would like to see more research in the amount of rendered fuel to amount of nutrients consumed type of thing. For example one corn plant has a lot of stalk and leaves (useless in the production of fuels) whereas something like sugarcane plant has less % waste to amount of nutrients supplied. To actually replace gasoline for america the amount of sq acreage is ridiculous and crop cycling would be near impossible @ the current farm capacity with corn or most other crops. I suppose this wouldn't be difficult to do with a hydroponic setup?

It won't work. If you grow corn to make ethanol (an inferior fuel, at best) every gram you send to the plant reduces the amount available for human consumption.

We did that a couple of years ago. Lots of people died. It's a bad idea.

Sorghum is another thing entirely. It's a high producer, and mostly used for animal food.

Charlie

[BrewChemistinCO]

It won't work. If you grow corn to make ethanol (an inferior fuel, at best)
Charlie

Isobutanol though...improves on some of ethanol's failings. Just sayin.

[whatsontap]

It won't work. If you grow corn to make ethanol (an inferior fuel, at best) every gram you send to the plant reduces the amount available for human consumption.

We did that a couple of years ago. Lots of people died. It's a bad idea.

This post is confusing. People died when we produced ethanol?

[ApresSkiBrewer]

I think he is referring to mathematical models to compare the usage of corn as a fuel/human food.... and that if corn became a popular fuel source with our current technologies it would affect the supply/demand/market price to a point where people wouldn't have access/be able to afford corn as a food source.

In that sense, people 'died'

but I'm completely guessin.

[BrewChemistinCO]

It won't work. If you grow corn to make ethanol (an inferior fuel, at best) every gram you send to the plant reduces the amount available for human consumption.

We did that a couple of years ago. Lots of people died. It's a bad idea.

This post is confusing. People died when we produced ethanol?

I'm assuming he's exaggerating for artistic license. Hard to convey over the internet. It's not the production of EtOH per se thats the problem it's the supply/demand problems with farmers that grow on a limited amount of land. If corn for ethanol production makes more money per acre than corn or other crops for human consumption what do you think the farmer is going to grow. It's one of the many reasons why we aren't running EtOH cars right now.

[Charlie]

This post is confusing. People died when we produced ethanol?

Perhaps because it is not correct. I concatenated two posts. Sorry.

Charlie