Reply #31: know how many beef cattle and dairy cows we have in the U.S.? - over 100 million.

[JohnWxy]

www.ers.usda.gov/news/BSECoverage.htm

that number of cattle could supply a volume of methane many times that required to supply the entire ethanol industry. The surplus could generate electricity for farmers to be sold back to utilities.

To show the power of technologies working together. MIT Engineers have developed a Ethanol Direct Injection ICE, using turbo-charging to fully exploit the higher octane of ethanol vs gasoline (ethanol 105 - gas - 92-93 (high-test)). This engine reduces gas consumption by 30% while using only 5% ethanol and 95% gasoline. The MIT people have entered into an agreement with Ford to develop this engine for mass production by 2011.

what this means is if all the cars on the road were using this engine an amount of ethanol equallling only 5% of the total fuel supply would yield (with this engine) a 30% reduction in total gasoline usage! Now, we should reach ethanol production equalling 5% of the total fuel supply in a few years(probably less than 3 yrs). Ethanol production for 2006 was up 50% over 2005.

This is how continued work on technologies can sometimes yield surprising results.

Then or course, there is the MIT work on a modified form of yeast which produces 50% more alcohol in LESS time than regular yeast. It's more tolerant of alcohol, so it can go longer producing more alcohol without worry of it being killed off by the alcohol.

And... there is the applicaton of high intensity Ultra-sound to the ethanol production process, for which Iowa State University has filed a patent. It produces much smaller particle size in the corn slurry prior to the fermentation stage. This results in a 30% gain in alcohol yield (without using MIT's new yeast). The process also reduces the time and energy inputs to get the higher yield in alcohol.

..and there is more (check my earlier posts for "monster cane")