Solar Synergy: Partnering Alcohol with Gasification

I just watched David Blume's "Alcohol Can Be a Gas" video last night and it got me thinking about the potential synergies between alcohol production and gasification. The video is 2 hours and 40 minutes of great info that ranges from U.S. history to permaculture to completing natural cycles. As you look at the structure of biomass you see that plants use photosynthesis to create complex chains from sugars.

Here is the order:
Sugars
Starches
Cellulose
Lignin

Each builds on the next and get progressively harder to break down. Alcohol production is superior at utilizing sugars and starches from fruit, starchy waste (i.e donuts), and corn (yuck). Sugar beets which grow in my area get a nice yield of liquid fuel per acre. David says 1300 gallons, but I have read as low as 400, which is still twice as much as corn.

When it gets to cellulose and lignin, gasification is superior at breaking down these complex chains. Partnering the two technologies together we can use more of the plant, i.e. extract more solar energy, and use the waste heat from gasification to power the still.

I should note that people have been agressively dealt with over making alcohol, while us gasifier nuts are left alone at the lunatic fringe. Sometimes I get myopic thinking that gasification has to be THE solution, but learning about the prevalence of alcohol production in America's past showed me that it can be done on a small decentralized scale. Obviously not all of us have farmland so like any energy solution it isn't for everyone.

A quick question- are you guys interested in home made alcohol as a fuel? And if so, do you want to see it on Victory. We are a Gasworks afterall. Please let me know in the comments.

Here is part 1 of a interview with David

Tags: home made alcohol

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Comment by Steve Unruh on July 4, 2009 at 8:14am: Radam your observation and comment is spot on the mark.
Electrics in the city delivery vans and trolley/light rail, dense (coal) now liquid fuels for intercity/long distance movement of people and material and rural using whatever they had available was what fueled our civilization in the early 20th century. Necessity will dictate we all evolve back into this hybrid approve again. Each method then has its strengths maximized and weaknesses minimized. We only have become the way we are now do to the impulse of major wars to develope the energy densest fuels possible (bigger faster airplanes, tanks, trucks and ships) driving down the price and gutting us with seemingly cheap convenient petroleum fuels.
Yeah of course, especially here in the US with a little "help" from the vested interests to sell more vehicles, tires, and motor fuels.
Any how Radam in your lifetime you WILL see these changes you predict come true. Some of us were just thirty, forty years too early for our peace of minds in knowing this. The age of cheap oil is gone now. The parties over. After a bit of hangover, forward and on to a cleaner, brighter future.
Regards
SteveU.
Now, forward back to the future.

Comment by charles woody on July 3, 2009 at 2:57am: COOL! Just what I needed to start the day off right!

Comment by ben on July 2, 2009 at 7:50pm: Charles,
I ordered a 16' weather balloon today, so I can try to store some gas in the near future. Wish me luck. I got it from scientificsales.com for about $100 if anyone else wants to try.

Comment by charles woody on July 2, 2009 at 5:40pm: Well fellow gasifiers I own the david blume book alcohol can be a gas..VERY COOL PERMACULTURE! But turning syngas into a liquid fuel sounds REALLY COOL! Cause cellulosic to ethanol sounds good but when? Methanol sounds good

Comment by Robert Dowds on July 2, 2009 at 7:09am: From what I remember from reading the book, you can make 9000 gal. a year by filling out a simpler form(non comercial)& a map showing the location of the plant, which according to the newsletter the ATF are rubber stamping right now because of being choked by all the applications.

Comment by Radam on July 2, 2009 at 4:27am: I know all I say sounds too easy, but that is when I am only a student with little or no practical experience and as such see no show stoppers in the way.

There is also a possibility of using Clostridium ljungdahlii, a bacteria which supposedly converts syngas directly to ethanol.

Anyway, I see alcohol as the only practical replacement for gasoline. Mobile gasifiers would probably work on farms and in woody areas, but not just for anyone. Electric cars are best for city dwellers, hydrogen might just be their range extension. But for all around, ethanol and methanol are the most likely candidates.

Unless someone really makes a cheap longstanding and energetic battery. Couse then the best way would be to plug the gasifiers to CHP engines so that homes get heated and cars get the juice.

Comment by Stephen Brown on July 1, 2009 at 9:15pm: David Blume has demonstrated that virtually all cars on the road today will operate using 50% ethanol with no modification at all. The only caveat is that you have to gradually work up to that ratio because of all the gunk on your gas tank walls. This is potentially game changing information the same as gasification technology. To replace 50% of our energy using local sources is an economic lightning bolt.
In a county of 50,000 cars using 500 gallons of gas a year each. Replacing 50% of that fuel using locally made ethanol would keep $37,500,000 circulating within that county every year, year after year, this is money that would not be ex(p)(t)orted to the pockets of MegaOilRon.
It is a travesty that most American don't have any alternatives to this G.R.U.N.C.H. Gross Universal Cash Heist. (Both terms from ACBAG)
I can see gasification/ethanol working very well together in a broader Bio-industrial energy and food creation system.
Ethanol could be a perfect compliment to many of the ideas being talked about here.
I say yes to an ethanol group etc. here on Victory.

Comment by ben on July 1, 2009 at 6:04pm: The 700+ psi is where it gets tricky and expensive. If you know of a compressor that will work at a small scale please let me know. I may buy it.

Comment by Radam on July 1, 2009 at 4:16pm: Methanol sound easier to blend with gasification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_economy

CO + 2 H2 → CH3OH ; CO2 + 3 H2 → CH3OH + H2O and with some catalyst at 50 atmospheres and 250°C. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3971735.html

Comment by ben on July 1, 2009 at 12:48pm: I have plenty of wet spots here. About 20 acres worth. 2 acres would handle all of my fuel needs for the year. Lets hook the dog up to the plow and get planting.

All the stills I see are these tiny ones. I want to fab a big ass stainless steel monster for making hundreds of gallons per day. Just need the sugar or starch.

This seems alot cheaper and technically more simple than trying to make liquid fuels from gasification. Not that I won't try anyway.

The ATF is the three letter word.