I have proposed that we develop the process of pyrolysis to be used on organic wastes to cut the reemitting of GHGs from the wastes that are basically
a biofuels crop wasted that usurp no land or water from food production.
Not exact matches
If
biofuels are to free us from rising prices at the pump and rising sea levelsthey must be produced from agricultural and urban
wastes rather than corn, soy, and other food
crops.
One of the major problems with
biofuels that algae could solve is space, since algae can yield as much as 100 times more fuel per unit area than other so - called «second generation»
biofuel crops (e.g. non-food
crops or non-food
waste parts of food
crops).
Once harvested, these
crops would get ferried by truck or train to power plants and other industrial facilities where, along with
waste from food
crops and timber harvests, they would be burned for heat or electricity, or converted to ethanol and other liquid
biofuels.
Study author Catherine Bowyer says the next generation of
biofuels, made from
wastes or wood rather than
crops, would have less impact on land use than
biofuels made from
crops, but «the policy is also not effectively stimulating advancements in
biofuel technologies».
The amount of biomass available from corn and food
crops is very small; for
biofuels to have a large impact, we must harness energy from nonedible plants, also known as cellulosic biomass — wood and wood
waste, agricultural
waste, and energy
crops.
No, the EU now gets more than 60 per cent of its renewable energy from biomass: some from
crops grown to make liquid
biofuels, but mostly from
waste wood and felled trees.
Doing this with our organic
wastes -
biofuel crop, some energy is generated and we could greatly expand windmill generated electricity that has no GHG emissions and actually recycles some of the energy excess created by fossil fuels.
The best
biofuel is still ethanol from corn but it has to be part of an integrated production facility which should include the following steps: cattle feed lot, feed all
waste (distiller's dried solids) to the cattle, convert the cattle
waste to methane to supply part of the energy source for the distillation, burn the dry
crop waste to provide the remainder of the energy, irrigate the
crops with the effluent from the methane digestor.
There's been a lot of talk lately about the food crisis, and particularly linking it to growing
crops for
biofuels (a highly inefficient process which seems to drive prices up, particularly in US policy), but Frances More Lappe argued in her books several years ago that there is, in fact, enough food on the planet to feed us all, but localized political troubles (grain rotting in Haitian ports), increasing desertification, food
waste, and problems with global supply chains are better explanations for why so many go hungry.
Methane released from animals and their
wastes can be reduced by altered diets and methane capture systems, and nitrous oxide production can be reduced by judicious fertilizer use27 and improved
waste handling.24 In addition, if
biofuel crops are grown sustainably, 28 they offer emissions reduction opportunities by substituting for fossil fuel - based energy (Ch.
Advanced
biofuels can be derived from lignocellulosic feedstocks, such as agricultural
waste (e.g., corn stover, wheat straw, rice hulls), agricultural processing byproducts (e.g., corn fiber or sugar cane bagasse), forestry and wood processing
waste, the paper portion of municipal solid
waste, or dedicated energy
crops such as switchgrass.
Researchers continue to struggle to develop «second generation»
biofuels that they hope will use enzymes to turn cellulose from wood and
crop waste into ethanol.
Cellulosic ethanol proponents have pushed the idea of using farm
waste as a way to boost
biofuel production without impacting food
crops, but such conversion may carry a hidden cost in areas with insufficient rainfall or lacking irrigation, warns a soil scientist from Washington State University.
Renewable, non-polluting fuels are: electricity (when generated by a clean source), biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol (when these
biofuels are generated using «
waste» material or from
crops grown in a sustainable manner).
I, for one, have always been against turning food
crops into
biofuel right from the get - go, tho I've always thought ag
wastes make good candidates, such as manure, which otherwise pollutes localities near industrial livestock farms.
re: 107 the problem is that it was to be marginal land use, interstitial
crops and
waste plant product that was to be used for
biofuel.
-LSB-...] Tallow -
waste biofuel is more ethical than other alternative fuels, since it does not displace food
crops such as corn... ``
Biofuel A fuel derived from renewable, biological sources, including
crops such as maize and sugar cane, and some forms of
waste.
Since the
waste product already exists, it means creating the pellets requires no resource - intensive
crop watering, as must be done with other
biofuels.