See the link:

http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/wb/xp-101303

This is precisely the kind of innovation we need...

 

Ok. First of all, sounds like a good idea on paper. Ethanol plant produces food for cattle, cattle produce fuel for plant, sell beef for burgers, sell ethanol for fuel, sell leftover manure (turning manure to methane still leaves a big part of the solids behind) for fertilizer. Could be a good business venture.


One question:
"Burning the methane will cut the amount of the greenhouse gas -- which could contribute to global warming -- released into the environment."

Ok, what's the byproduct of burning methane? Any chance that byproduct would be a greenhouse gas??????

I've no problem with the idea in general. Just don't try to blow smoke at me about reducing greenhouse gasses.

 

Well, they complain about the methane the cows produce, so it at least gets used instead of just released...

 

Of course, when CH4 is burned, one of the product is CO2, a major greenhouse gas. However. according to wiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gases ) methane is the worse of two (higher GWP = Global Warming Potetial) so we're better off by burning methane.

What I don't like about alcohol and E85 is the following:
IMHO, this is the Achilles' heel of E85, and need to be improved to be a viable fuel in the long term.

 

The fossil base is the heating aspect, and maybe if they are including it, is the fuels used on the farms. If they use the methane for heating, then that lowers the petroleum usage. Natural gas is what is used typically, as it is readily available Last I knew, natural gas isn't at much risk of running out, but that still is no excuse, if they can get the heat from natural sources, other than petroleum, it would be better. There are some as well that are taking the stalks and such for burning. Initially, ethanol is using natural gass, but in time, they likely will move away from it.
The one thing about ANY alternative fuel is that it takes time to figure out how to produce it, as well as use it. If we are truly going to move away from petrofuels, the engines will also have to as well, or however the power source. We simply will not be able to just keep using the exact same engine, and expect all the fuels to work in them. It takes time and money to build the infrastructure, and if we all just wait for it to be there, it won't happen.

 

Interestingly, if you keep reading a little bit:

 

Good point -- I missed that one. Now, my question is how do they do it? Using roughly 1/20th of the energy is no small feat, if that's the case.

 

Methane! That's the whole point. Burn the methane from the bovine poo.

Here's how it works:
Corn in.
Corn gets brewed into ethanol, with distillers grain as a waste product.
Cows eat distillers grain.
Cows output poo.
Poo outputs methane.
Methane is burned to heat the mash to distill the ethanol, closing the loop.
Anhydrous ethanol out, cows out.

So it's basically corn in, ethanol and cows out. So now you have your food and your fuel...

If you keep reading even further, they were also talking about using methane from landfills.

Edit:
Also, for the "grennhouse gas" thing, note that the CO2 released from the methanol ultimately came from the corn. Since the corn plants will intake a similar amount of CO2 next year when the corn plant grows, the net amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere is zero.

 

I'm not asking about the complete process -- I want to know how can they use a single unit of energy when producing 46 energy units of ethanol. One possibility is that they simply don't count methane, other is that they somehow made the distillation process so much more efficient than elsewhere. Or there might be some other trickery somewhere.

 

Yes, they dont count the methane, since that is produced at the plant.

 

Then it's just some "creativity" with the numbers ....

 

How so? It's not like they have to buy it. All they're doing is figuring the ethanol plant as a whole. Energy out over energy in. And in the end, isn't that what counts?

 

Wouldn't it be more efficient to just burn the DDG in a boiler? No need to fool with cows and methane production or collection.

I don't buy the 46:1 ratio they put out there. No way, no how.

 

Energy for distillation should be counted in the same way, whether the methane is a cow byproduct, or comes from a natural gas company.

Now, if they've used something like a heat pump or heat exchanger to scavange some heat from somewhere else in the process, thereby lessening the external energy requirement for distillation, that would be different, and they could rightly claim a higher number.

 

Go read about it yourself:

http://www.e3biofuels.com/