Re: ETHANOL OR METHANOL?



Uncle Ben wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Uncle Ben wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
...
Biofuels will be a useful adjunct but will never replace petroleum. At best I hear
estimates of them eventually providing maybe 10% of energy currently provided by oil.

Zubrin ("Energy Victory") argues persuasively to the contrary. I
recommend buying and reading that book.

Sounds too populist for me to take it that seriously at present. Let's see some reviews
from scientists.

Zubrin is a nuclear engineer. I am a physicist. My review is
"excellent."

About butanol: I found a review by Robert Rapier, a butanol engineer
with much experience. He says that, yes, butanol would be nice, but
the only available method at this time for making butanol from biomass
yields a very dilute aqueous solution. It is prohibitively expensive
to distill it out of the water. More research is needed.

It sounds to me like he's misinformed.

http://www2.dupont.com/Biofuels/en_US/
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/B/Bio_biobutanol_fact_sheet_jun06.pdf

http://www.google.com/search?hl=ena&rls=en&hs=RDU&q=%22dupont%22+bp+biobutanol&btnG=Search

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/07/bp-sugar-british-and-dupont-unveil-plans-to-produce-biofuels/

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/06/bp_and_dupont_t.html

Maybe DuPont and BP are wrong ?

Doesn't sound like a resounding plus for that book though.

Graham

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