Ethanol from almost anything? Coskata opens Lighthouse cellulosic ethanol plant

[JohnWxy]

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/18/coskata-lighthouse-cellulosic-ethanol-plant-opens/


Coskata says the Flagship will be "the first commercially-viable, feedstock-flexible ethanol facility." The company has not taken any government money to date, but they may apply for DOE loan guarantees for the Flagship plant.
~~
~~

Flex ethanol is the term Coskata is using for ethanol that can be made with almost any feedstock, i.e., ethanol made using the Coskata process. As we've heard since day one, the plasma torches and microorganisms can turn everything from tires to coal to municipal waste into ethanol. Flexible inputs = flex ethanol.

Making flex ethanol is fast, too. Coskata CEO Bill Roe said that it takes "just minutes" to go from feedstock to ethanol. The Coskata process is continuous, not a batch process, and the entire team in Madison was clear that there are no longer any technical hurdles to overcome in order to start full-scale cellulosic ethanol production using this system.
~~
~~

Roe explained that the exact cost depends on the feedstock going into the gasifier. Municipal waste will get you ethanol that costs much less than a dollar a gallon, virgin hardwood would cost you much more (but anyone using that particular feedstock is of questionable sanity).
~~
~~

[madokie]

1. Using a gasifier

seems like the gasifier technology is going to be playing a bigger role in our energy production. Its how we should be converting coal to electric power too.

[NNadir]

2. There are predictably, zero anti-nuke fundies who favor phasing out coal.

In an average week, I examine more information about energy chemistry than you would even find it possible to learn in your entire remaining life, a life that has clearly avoided knowing a shred of a mote about science.

What appalls me is old tired anti-science farts who have the contempt for the future to greenwash coal anything, gasification, burning, ash, whatever...

Coal kills. Period.

Coal gasification is widely practiced on this planet in quantities that have never become even close to being acceptable.

There are zero dumb anti-nuke fundies on this website who have any fucking idea about how to dispose of dangerous fossil fuel wastes, even though said wastes kill people continuously in a vast scale.

The same coal apologists come here and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine insipidly about what they call (insipidly again) "nuclear waste."

The number of dumb fundie anti-nukes who know what's in used nuclear fuel, and how valuable it is, and how much it is the last best hope of the human race is also zero.

These facts make clear the mechanism of how ignorance kills.

[Fledermaus]

3. In an average week, how many kook responses do we see from you ?

If it not nuclear, its CRAP!.

[madokie]

5. Who cares what you say anymore

I know I don't. It's the same ole shit time after time post after post. I don't have to know anything more than I know now to know that I don't want any nuclear energy, and you can suck on that big boy. I also think we're throwing good money after bad everytime one of our pennies goes towards doing anything with nuclear energy. It's a dead horse that is only sucking needed finances away from the renewables, solar and wind industries.

Talk your shit all you want big boy but take your stinking ass on over to Iraq and see what depleted uranium is doing to those people and then tell me that nuclear waste is safe. in the mean time foad :puke:

[Braulio]

6. I like coal gasification myself

All we have to do is gasify the coal and inject the CO2 into depleted gas fields or something like that.

[Nihil]

7. Well, it works ...

> All we have to do is gasify the coal and inject the CO2 into
> depleted gas fields or something like that.

... but only at the airy-fairy, hand-waving, wishful thinking level like that.

In the real world, it sucks big time and f*cks up the planet.

(Not that this concerns most people, of course, as the fantasy option allows
them to believe in "business as usual", "greed is good" and "screw the world"
in the same way that they always have done ... just thought I'd point it out ...)

[excess_3]

4. this is hard to believe.

my doubt it...
it seems to me that the organisms
will be poisoned by trace pollutants
in the syn-gas.