If black gold is oil, then green gold is Cellulosic Ethanol. Why? Probably because bio-fuel made out of straw, and other plant wastes.
Perhaps for you to truly appreciate this green gold, I’d better give a brief idea of what conventional ethanol is and how cellulosic ethanol is the same yet different.
Ethanol as you know it is a volatile, flammable and colourless liquid. Also known by other names such as ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol it’s commonly used as a solvent of substances in various industry that stretch from the food and beverage all the way to medical.
Now next to alcoholic beverages, the next most prominent use of ethanol has got to be as fuel for heat and light and also as a fuel for internal combustion engines. Which to you and me that means it’s in motor fuel- which indirectly means it’s leaving carbon prints (with our help of consumption!)
Which brings me now to Cellulosic Ethanol. What’s makes it any different from conventional ethanol? Surely we all get why it’s a metaphoric gold (its fuel), but why is it green?
While chemically identical to conventional ethanol which is produced from corn or soybeans, Cellulosic Ethanol is produced from a wide array of feedstocks, that includes non-food plant materials such as agricultural wastes, dedicated energy crops such as switchgrass, sugarcane (bagasse) and wood products.
Cellulosic biofuel does not require fertilizers, pesticides, energy, and water to grow. It exhibits net energy content three times higher than corn ethanol and emits a much lower net level of greenhouse gases.
So really in a nutshell Cellulosic Ethanol is a champion because:
- It’s renewable
- It can be domestically produced, and
- It burns cleaner than gas.
So if it’s such a wonderful discovery and so much better than gasoline, why aren’t our cars running 100% on them? Well sadly I have to say it’s because while we’ve found the cure, we haven’t exactly perfection our application of it.
You see here are the few downsides:
- Ethanol can’t travel in pipelines because it picks up excess water and impurities. Which means it will have to be distributed/transported by trucks, trains, or barges, – for certain more expensive and complicated than gas sending it down a pipeline
- · Ethanol contains less energy than gas. So as drivers, you’ll find yourself without that desired effective mileage and having to make more frequent trips to the pump.
In summary, it’s just going to end up more expensive. So once more sustainability will just have to be a little patient while our great scientists work on a way to making it affordable.
But fret not for there is still hope; we’ve already found Cellulosic Ethanol…now all that’s left is to learn how afford using it.
