thinking about the future energy source
Monday, January 14th, 2008um… I am not a big fan of fuel cells (explained elsewhere) since they are electrical based and the amount of pollutions created during the manufacturing of its reactants is equally if not worse than burning diesel fuel.
A major break through was announced today on the potential of using switchgrass (yeah the weed that grows on marginal farm land) to make ethanol. The effort was led by Kenneth Vogel, a geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Lincoln, Nebraska. Vogel and his colleagues basically enlisted 10 farms and demonstrated the following.
1. Ethanols produced from switchgrass is as much as 540% efficient than the total energies (diesel trucks fuels etc).
2. The carbon pollution emitted to the atmosphere upon combustion is equivalent to the amount of greenhouse gases (CO2) absorbed. i.e. it’s carbon neutral.
Reference:
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AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES:
PNAS published January 7, 2008, 10.1073/pnas.0704767105 |
