[ghad]

I am not sure if this news has made it to the english speaking PO community yet. I consider it one of the most amazing developments, so I give you a short summary.

A professor at the Max Planck institute in Germany puts garden waste, wood or any other organic material with water and some citric acid as a catalyst into something like a pressure cooker, and keeps it at 180 degrees celsius for about 12 hours. It is only necessary to heat it up to start the process, then it will develop the heat itself.

After 12 hours the result is just pulverised coal and water. Not only is this procedure amazingly simple, but the yield is far superior to every other method of winning energy from biomass: almost 100% of the carbon contained in the original plant material is converted into coal.

Therefore they expect a yearly yield of about 14 tons of coal from one hectare switch grass or the like. Which is a multiple of the energy you could win with other procedures like ethanol or so. The coal could then be converted to petrol or diesel with coal-to-liquid procedures.
For those who understand German a link to the documentation:
Link

There is also a video, and though they speak German it might be worth to watch it anyway: Link. If you have any questions or need something particular translated please feel free to ask me.

{please use the url tool for long links. thanks -- turmoil}

[Doly]

It looks similar to the traditional method of making wood coal. Not used very much because you need wood to start with, and the reason people started burning coal was because they were running out of wood.

I'm sure it works, but the question is: how much can you produce with it? It's just another kind of biofuel, really, and the classic question for all biofuels is the same: how much you can realistically get? I don't think it's possible to get anything remotely like the current production of oil without using land needed for food crops.

[ghad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'I')t looks similar to the traditional method of making wood coal. Not used very much because you need wood to start with, and the reason people started burning coal was because they were running out of wood.
I'm sure it works, but the question is: how much can you produce with it? It's just another kind of biofuel, really, and the classic question for all biofuels is the same: how much you can realistically get? I don't think it's possible to get anything remotely like the current production of oil without using land needed for food crops.

[WisJim]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ghad', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', ' ') the reason people started burning coal was because they were running out of wood. I'm sure it works, but the question is: how much can you produce with it? It's just another kind of biofuel, really, and the classic question for all biofuels is the same: how much you can realistically get? I don't think it's possible to get anything remotely like the current production of oil without using land needed for food crops.

[aflurry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'T')here is no such thing as "waste" in an ecosystem. If you take all that material and convert it to fuel to burn, you need to replace it somehow or you will quickly deplete the soil - then you won't be able to grow the material anymore.

[Fergus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'T')here is no such thing as "waste" in an ecosystem. If you take all that material and convert it to fuel to burn, you need to replace it somehow or you will quickly deplete the soil - then you won't be able to grow the material anymore.

[aflurry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fergus', 'I') mean with such little land use needed for this, cant we do both, grow coal and food. Why is it always one or the other, Why cant we have both?

[Fergus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('aflurry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fergus', 'I') mean with such little land use needed for this, cant we do both, grow coal and food. Why is it always one or the other, Why cant we have both?

[ghad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'T')here is no such thing as "waste" in an ecosystem. If you take all that material and convert it to fuel to burn, you need to replace it somehow or you will quickly deplete the soil - then you won't be able to grow the material anymore.

[EnergyUnlimited]

But why do you want to make charcoal first, not just to burn the wood directly in your fireplace (nice passtime in those cold wintery days)?
It just looks like additional and not necessary process before final burning.

The ash could perhaps be returned to soil back to prevent loss of potassium and other microelements and this would alievate soil depletion problems to certain extent.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')arren Staley, chairman and CEO of Cargill Inc., estimates that, even if 100 percent of the U.S. corn crop were used to produce ethanol, it would replace only 20 percent of motor fuel. At the FEW, one of the ethanol industry’s most prominent lobbyists, from whom one might expect the most rosy of predictions, told the gathering that he estimated that in 20 years, the industry could provide 25 percent of the entire U.S. energy needs. To reach this goal, the ethanol industry is working feverishly on R&D to produce ethanol from plant biomass. This would allow a much higher ethanol yield from corn, but also make ethanol production feasible from other plants.

[CARVER]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'B')ut why do you want to make charcoal first, not just to burn the wood directly in your fireplace (nice passtime in those cold wintery days)?
It just looks like additional and not necessary process before final burning.