Getting off the "oil addiction" needle is a vital national priority or it ought to be. Changing our energy sources will reform our entire economic approach and hasten our ability to claim self sufficency - a key step to working for peace in my opinion. Equally if not more important the implications of getting off the carbon based oil and coal energy are essential in our efforts to slow and hopefully reverse our pathway to global warming. I was heartened by the recently revealed research from Virginia Tech for bio derived hydrogen. It seems that our future energy could come from Log Cabin Maple Syryp or a close chemical cousin to my favorite pancake additive. Please follow me to the syrup line just below to hear more of this new technology...
Have you heard of this?
PORTLAND, Ore. — University and government researchers are investigating whether a blend of starch, enzymes and water could produce hydrogen fuel for future cars.
"Our energy conversion efficiency is so high that we believe we can provide the fuel for all future vehicle transportation," claimed Percival Zhang, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Va.).
The Energy Department has mandated that ethanol from plant sources should power 30 percent of vehicles by 2012, and that a "hydrogen economy" based on fuel-cells should power vehicles by 2020. Teams from Virginia Tech, University of Georgia and Oak Ridge National Laboratory claim their technology exceeds DoE's goals with a biomass/fuel cell conversion process they claim is cheaper, more compact and organic.
Several major stumbling blocks are at work to prevent a viable hydrogen alternative. Largest among them is the delivery system and infrastructure that would need to be created to get the hydrogen gas to your "fuel cell". Sorage of the hydrogen at the point of sale and at the end users vehicle presented challenges that continues to make hydrogen a muc distant alternative. Professor Zhang's work may have a solution to many of the major hydrogen issues.
It is a new process that aims to release hydrogen from water and carbohydrate by using multiple enzymes as a catalyst, Zhang said. "In nature, most hydrogen is produced from anaerobic fermentation. But hydrogen, along with acetic acid, is a co-product and the hydrogen yield is pretty low -- only four molecules per molecule of glucose. In our process, hydrogen is the main product and hydrogen yields are three-times higher, and the likely production costs are low -- about $1 per pound of hydrogen. "
Over the years, many substances have been proposed as "hydrogen carriers,"such as methanol, ethanol, hydrocarbons, or ammonia -- all of which require special storage and distribution. Also, the thermochemical reforming systems require high temperatures and are complicated and bulky. Starch, on the other hand, can be distributed by grocery stores, Zhang points out.
"So it is environmentally friendly, energy efficient, requires no special infrastructure, and is extremely safe. We have killed three birds with one stone,"he said. "We have hydrogen production with a mild reaction and low cost. We have hydrogen storage and transport in the form of starch or syrups. And no special infrastructure is needed."
Science Daily Link
So basically you have a method that creates hydrogen from the introduction of an enzymatic process that yields water, some CO2 and HYDROGEN. Is the day coming that you drive down to the grocery store or feed store and by a packet of enzymes and starch syrup created from wood prduct waste, sugar beets, old newspaper, or kelp grown in kelp farms. This all sounds like good news to me.
Polysaccharides like starch and cellulose are used by plants for energy storage and building blocks and are very stable until exposed to enzymes. Just add enzymes to a mixture of starch and water and "the enzymes use the energy in the starch to break up water into only carbon dioxide and hydrogen,"Zhang said.
A membrane bleeds off the carbon dioxide and the hydrogen is used by the fuel cell to create electricity. Water, a product of that fuel cell process, will be recycled for the starch-water reactor. Laboratory tests confirm that it all takes place at low temperature -- about 86 degrees F -- and atmospheric pressure.
The vision is for the ingredients to be mixed in the fuel tank of your car, for instance. A car with an approximately 12-gallon tank could hold 27 kilograms (kg) of starch, which is the equivalent of 4 kg of hydrogen. The range would be more than 300 miles, Zhang estimates. One kg of starch will produce the same energy output as 1.12 kg (0.38 gallons) of gasoline.
The Department of Energy has a goal to replace energy dependence on oil by a 30% by 2020 by bio ethanol. This has created some controversy about increasing corn cost and the cost for food production. However this process as developed by Professor Zhang's team claims that 100% replacement of current oil dependence is possible using the same biomass that would give us 30% reduction by 2012.
"What is more important, the energy conversion efficiency from the sugar-hydrogen-fuel cell system is extremely high -- greater than three times higher than a sugar-ethanol-internal combustion engine,"Zhang said. "It means that if about 30 percent of transportation fuel can be replaced by ethanol from biomass as the DOE proposed, the same amount of biomass will be sufficient to provide 100 percent of vehicle transportation fuel through this technology."
In addition, the use of carbohydrates from biomass as transportation fuels will produce zero net carbon dioxide emissions and bring benefits to national energy security and the economy, Zhang said.
This is a great alternative - just one of multiple approaches that will be required to end our addication. Do you thin we should take this one out for spin and see how it drives?