Talk:Cellulosic ethanol

message: --Alex 08:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: hi sorry no idea how to make new headers and whatnot so I'll just shove this in here right quick [works for a lot of things in life you'd be amazed] but #1 citation 49 leads to 404 citation not found, and "The study found that there could be 1.3 billion dry tons of biomass available for ethanol use, by making little changes in agricultural and forestry practices and meeting the demands for forestry products, food, and fiber."-- can someone calculate how much fuel this would produce and include it there?71.236.2.96 (talk) 00:06, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  ethanol plants 

message: Actually, cellulosic ethanol produces 26.4% of the energy of gasoline and 25% of the Carbon Dioxide.  So, if you extrapolate to a cost per absolute energy, cellulosic ethanol produces 94.5% of the greenhouse gas of gasoline.  Perhaps someone can find a source to substantiate this.  Swakeman (talk) 23:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I had the understanding that ethanol contains about 26% LESS energy than gasoline, meaning it has 74% of the energy density of gasoline. Also of note is the possible sale of vehicles designed specifically for ethanol which would use turbochargers or high compression ratios to exploit ethanol's higher octane rating. Such ethanol engines could get equal performance and fuel economy to gasoline engines but would have lower displacements, which would of course produce considerably less net CO2 than gasoline engines.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.170.86.213 (talk) 15:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That whole paragraph and subsequent references (dead links, citations 1 and 2) should probably be removed, rewritten, and/or re-cited. IMHO. 74.178.138.186 (talk) 04:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  80% less greenhouse gas? 

message: I'd also note that "cellanol" smells like someone's proprietary name to me.  A Google search yields 154 references, many on the top page in French.  I've been involved in alternative fuels for at least 30 years and never heard the term before.  The word "cellanol" needs to go, unless, of course, the goal of wiki is to coin terms and create new usages...
4.246.237.161 05:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I googled it and I concur, it's uncommon at best, and may be a trademarked term, or used more in a non-English speaking country. Many of those 154 references were copies or foreign translations of the same few passages of text. -Agyle 07:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cellanol is not a common term 

message: I did some search on Google recently and the term celunol/cellunol begin to be a bit more common --Sd-100 (talk) 19:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Celunol/Cellunol

message: In the following paragraph:
"BlueFire Ethanol Fuels utilizes post-sorted MSW, rice and wheat straws, wood waste and other agricultural residues and implements significant proprietary improvements to concentrated acid hydrolysis. The Technology is unique in that, for the first time, it enables widely available cellulosic materials, or more commonly, biomass, to be converted into sugar in an economically viable manner, thereby providing an inexpensive raw material for fermentation or chemical conversion into any of a hundred different specialty and/or commodity chemicals. In February of 2007, BlueFire Ethanol was among 6 companies that received a grant from the US Department of Energy for $40M to promote development of cellulosic ethanol refineries"
This sounds like self-promotion. There are no references cited to support this claim of uniqueness or economic viability.  
69.250.53.6 05:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unfounded claim? 

message: I don't understand why production of cellulosic ethanol should produce any greenhouse gases, since all of the carbon released by burning it was taken out of the atmosphere by the initial plant growth.  There must be some assumptions that production equipment will be using energy from non-ethanol sources?  These kinds of assumptions should be explained.  The reference given is to an environmental advocacy group, which does not seem terribly reliable, and the details of and sources for this claim are not explained.
The section about the 2006 U.S. Senate hearing is currently referenced to a blog, which does not seem like a reliable source. -- Beland 16:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: GHG's aren't only emitted from burning carbon-based fuels, the farming itself releases amounts of CO2 that are non-negligible and is otherwise stored in the ground.  The question of whether it produces GHG (aka whether it is CN) seems to be a matter of C-accounting.
216.99.185.50 (talk) 16:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sourcing 

message: This work by George Huber at UMass/Amherst -- this looks like "destructive distillation", that produces METHANOL, not ethanol. Methanol has a higher boiling-point and does not burn as efficiently as ethanol. It is also much more toxic than ethanol. Further, the residue from the distillation is quite toxic, as opposed to ethanol-fermentation residue which can be used as fertilizer or perhaps cattle feed. Carl Ponder (talk) 05:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethanol not Methanol 

message: Wow.  I had no idea so many companies were lining up to tout their companies and technologies here on wikipedia...this is unacceptable.  The article is about bio-fuel creation, not bio-fuel-creating-companies. Please clean up this article to cut out the corporate shill (or more like sh**) factor here. Twunchy (talk) 06:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree.  Do you feel that only the government or universities will develope biofuel?  I think the attempt to censor the section about entrepreneural efforts to produce biofuel is also a very biased POV. DonPMitchell (talk) 20:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corporate shill article? 

message: I think I have a reasonably working antenna for corporate bullsh*t - but this page doesnt seem to me to push any particular company...
Obviously working farmers and gardeners need to compost all their own waste - what is missing is the link to taske energy from domestic and commercial waste - pretty well everything that is junked (re-cycling metals, of course, being something different)
Tom fordo (talk) 21:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: what?

message: Error from the article: distillation does not provide 99.5% pure ethanol.  The best you can do is 95.5% pure ethanol because ethanol and water form an azeotrope.
Error from the discussion: methanol is not higher boiling than ethanol.  MeOH boils at 65 C, pure EtOH at 79 C, and the 95.5% EtOH/water azeotrope at 78.1 C.
Chrishami (talk) 22:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two fundamental errors 

message: The lead cites a huge PDF file as the source for the definition of cellulosic ethanol. I can find two mentions of the term in it, and neither looks like a definition. Can editors suggest a reliable source that defines the term? --Jtir (talk) 20:52, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  citation for definition of ''cellulosic ethanol'' 

message: Placed up the merge notice from Treethanol - seems exactly redundant. Minnecologies (talk) 19:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge proposal

message: There is some question as to whether the use of switchgrass as opposed to corn is an improvement. I have read claims from the University of Illinois that biomass production for the two is approximately the same. This is in sharp contrast to the biomass produced by Miscanthus Gigantum, which produces far more biomass (five times, I believe I read), and when harvested in winter, the majority of the non-cellulose planet matter has retreated underground, to the rhizome (main part of the root system), conserving these nutrients for next year's chutes. Miscanthus and Switchgrass both have the advantage of extensive root systems, which sequester carbon and provide protection from erosion. I am a bit premature in editing the article, because I don't have the studies and references lined up in front of me, but I will carefully review them and prepare changes to be made, and discuss them at length here. I would hate to be someone who makes edits which don't add to the accuracy or completeness of the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.55.175 (talk) 08:06, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Switchgrass efficiency 

message: It might be worth including other alcohols which can be produced from cellulose by renaming the article to 'Cellulosic Alcohols'. If one reads up on the advantages of using butanol instead of ethanol as a fuel, and why there are efforts underway to make cellulosic butanol economically viable, then one may see that ethanol is not alone. I suppose there are some advantages to cellulosic methanol or propanol as well. This all relates to the point of engineered fuels - perhaps, it's best for the chemists to consult the fuel users (engines, powerplants, jets, etc) to see what these people might consider the ideal fuel - both in its characteristics and some final formula for it, and pass this wishlist back to the biofuels industry to see what is possible. I have a hunch that better fuels can be obtained which are a mixture composed of various chemicals. We may not realize what each component chemical is at this point. An article on the chemical engineering of fuels may be premature, but expansion of the cellulosic alcohols is timely, I believe.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.55.175 (talk) 08:21, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cellulosic ''Butanol'' 

message: :However, in 2010, a genetically engineered yeast strain has been developed that produces its own cellulose-digesting enzymes.[14] Assuming this technology can be scaled to industrial levels, it would eliminate one or more steps of cellulolysis, reducing both the time required and costs of production.
Question:  What happens when these genetically modified, cellulose-digesting yeast escape into the natural environment, as they certainly will from an industrial-scale process?  What, for instance, happens to a wetland when its submerged grasses and reeds are broken down and alcohol is produced?  Even if they, at present, were to require some specific conditions for optimal growth, it seems to me that mutation and selection could quickly adapt them to the outside environment, where they would find essentially unlimited food resources (much to our detriment).  I'm not saying that this is a certain danger, but I'm very surprised to see no consideration of it in any of the literature I've come across.  Natural ecosystems are enormously complex, and even small changes can lead to large-scale disruption.  And anyone who says he can predict all effects of a newly-introduced factor on such a complex system is simply not being honest and duly diligent in his science.
Heavenlyblue (talk) 00:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting question. In my personal experience, genetically modified microorganisms like this tend to compete very poorly with native species and need to be protected so they can survive without competition even in a lab setting (let alone in the wild). However, I could not point you towards a reliable source that discusses the subject in any real detail. VQuakr (talk) 18:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Environmental Safety? 

message: Appearantly bacteria from giant panda's and termites is being used to make cellulosic ethanol. 
See ie http://www.energydigital.com/green_technology/giant-pandas-may-be-key-to-cellulosic-biofuels 
I'm not sure which species of bacteria these are though, nor by which university it's done (appearantly by Ashli Brown and David Mullin, amongst others). Look into it and add in article.
91.182.205.137 (talk) 11:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Bacteria from giant panda's and termite's digestive system

message: The lead mentions "difficult production challenges," but gives little in the way of specifics about those challenges.  I'd wager that most people seeking information about cellulosic ethanol are specifically interested in why it is not yet being produced in large quantities, so the lead should contain more detail about this. 199.46.199.232 (talk) 21:50, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Production challenges" 

message: Modern corn hybrids have a very extensive root system and can tolerate drought conditions quite well. A display at the 2013 Minnesota State Fair showed root systems of various plants.  Corn was one of plants that had an extensive root system - like about 7 feet long.  Conversely your typical lawn grass had very shallow roots (6 inches, maybe).  Not sure where switchgrass would be. A citation is needed if the statement about corn not having an extensive root system is to remain in the article. --66.41.154.0 (talk) 03:20, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  About corn lacking an extensive root system 

message: This information appears to be taken from a single, biased source.  Some of what is claimed for cellulosic ethanol plants could just as easily be implemented for grain ethanol plants. For instance - you can burn biomass to supply heat for the distillation process regardless of whether a cellulosic or grain ethanol plant.  POET's facilities in Esterville, Iowa do just that.   Nonfermentable solids from corn ethanol production are used as cattle feed. --66.41.154.0 (talk) 03:29, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV tag on paragraph (section) 

message: Grassoline refers to the same thing as cellulosic ethanol (except it's probably more generally any fuel derived from plant chaff) so let's merge and redirect. 68.173.0.226 (talk) 20:14, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[Grassoline]] 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This article is bloated, relatively unsourced, dated and not neutral.  It is a good candidate for an extensive clean-up including substantial deletions.  Would the contributing editors prefer to start the process or should I? Sandcherry (talk) 03:28, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted a large amount of text and consolidated several overlapping sections. I was torn between keeping the "comparison with corn ethanol" and folding it into the advantages/disadvantages section, but decided for the latter approach - the section was extremely biased and I felt it was better to do away with it completely. Focusing on corn ethanol was also a little US-centric, since sugarcane dominates in some countries. I'm not against reorganizing the advantages-disadvantages sections into a new "comparison with __" section, though. I think the article is overall more digestible now, especially with much of the repetitive information reduced, but there is still a lot of potential for improvement, especially in readability. The lead might also be rewritten to reflect the boom-bust cycle in this technology that occurred in the 2010s. I also think article could use some pictures/illustrations. :) --Tserton (talk) 01:33, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Very good revisions.  Should Cellulosic ethanol and Cellulosic ethanol commercialization be merged after additional editing of both articles?  Sandcherry (talk) 18:38, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I assumed merging would be uncontroversial so I did it. If anyone disagrees feel free to undo. If it is undone I doubt I will be returning to this article. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:14, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed and thanks - I'd say the topic definitely isn't noteworthy on its own (except maybe as an example of the first three stages of the hype cycle .) But this means the article is now even bigger and more unwieldy. I think we can safely delete many of the specific commercialization instances wholesale, especially the now-defunct ones, and instead address the economic and technical issues that make commercialization so difficult. If any of the ventures mentioned are still around it'd be worth keeping a few in - who knows, maybe one of them will eventually crack the code. I'll start going through them and checking their current status. --Tserton (talk) 07:18, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article quality 

message: (copied from the talk page of former article which I just merged here) Chidgk1 (talk) 06:31, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality of commercialization section 

message: The content of second-generation biofuels is very similar to the content of this article. Even the parts of "second-generation biofuels" that aren't contained in "cellulosic ethanol" still seem to be about ethanol made from cellulosic sources, even if they're not explicitly called as such (biomass, lignin-containing tar, woodchips, etc.) Would these articles be worth merging? Or am I oversimplifying - is there a substantive difference between these terms? --Tserton (talk) 01:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content overlaps significantly with "Second-generation biofuels" article