In California, rice farmers traditionally would get rid of rice straw by burning it in the fields, but new air pollution regulations ban burning. Thanks to clean-air regulations, says Russ Miller, the company's chief operating officer, raw material abounds. In upstate New York, the raw material will be household garbage. Cities such as Middletown are discovering that it is increasingly expensive and difficult to find land for landfills. Ala. It has a contract with Middletown to produce ethanol out of sewage sludge and organic waste gleaned from the city's garbage.
Rice straw is used to make ethanol in California.
After plastics, glass and metals are removed, what remains will be shredded, dried and then bathed in acid to remove the sugars. People have done this since biblical times. Jungle Rot' One of the early pioneers in biomass research was an intrepid Army microbiologist named Elwyn T. Reese. Mr. Reese began his work in the 1950s by isolating the fungus from a rotting pup tent shipped from Bougaineville Island in the South Pacific at the end of the war. His bosses at the Army's Research and Development Command, in Natick, Mass., told him the fungus was a threat to the nation's security and to kill it.