Pose your questions about cellulosic ethanol to a Coskata executive
GM will be holding another in their series of on-line chats this week on the GMnext.com site. This time around they will have Wes Bolsen, VP of Coskata available to answer questions from participants. Coskata is the company that has developed a process for producing cellulosic ethanol at much lower cost and with a lot less water than it takes to make corn ethanol. In early January, GM announced that they had invested in Coskata. Our own Sebastian Blanco had a chat with Bolsen earlier this month at the Chicago Auto Show. To participate in the chat you'll need to register which you can do in advance by going to the GMnext.com site and clicking on Sign In. The live chat will take place Thursday Feb. 21 from 1-2pm EST.
[Source: General Motors]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karen Pease 3:29PM (2/19/2008)
Not going to be there, but I think an obvious question would be as to how they think they'll be able to economically thrive when Changing World Technologies' thermal depolymerization process, which similarly operated on trash, failed despite ending up with 85% of the input energy in the output product (petroleum).
I'd also like to know why they're feeding the syngas they make to bacteria rather than just making oil with it (that's how coal liquefaction works, after all). How could bacteria, which have to use energy to stay alive, possibly be more efficient at producing a fuel than direct chemical synthesis? And why would ethanol, which is less dense and less readily usable in modern vehicles, be chosen over producing petroleum? Just for the "cellulosic ethanol" label?
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bioburner 6:32PM (2/19/2008)
KAREN P
While it is true that Thermal Depolymerization has great potential it does have certin drawbacks. When TD ( steam or microwave) is used to convert cellulose material the yield in oil is only 8%. Most of the cellulose is converted to natural gas. Tires and plastics which are made from oil will yield 50 to70% oil. So for things like sewage sluge and paper (cellulose) the ethanol process is better. For things like plastics, tires and animal parts Thermal depolymerization is best.
And yes with oil at $100 per barrel it does seem like something could be done with all the trash in the american cities.
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