Bug doo-doo.
Yup. Derived from bugs that fart, shit and piss hydrogen and ethanol. Sound far fetched? Think again.
You’ve probably been hearing news about new developing technologies for large-scale fermentation processes that produce biofuels from organic waste. No? Well there are, 18th century-corn cobb-house dweller.
The “bugs” are actually patented microbes that are genetically engineered to process an oatmeal-like bio-slurry, which produces a byproduct, more commonly known as “biodiesel”. The slurry is nothing more than carbohydrates derived from plant matter that feed the microbes.
Just think of the microbes as tiny little employees that do nothing but eat and shit all day long, yet are very productive. Odd, no?
In light of the novelty of this idea, I find it somewhat hard to understand why heavy hitter VC firms like Vinod Khosla, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Texas Pacific Group have plowed big money into this technology. Cheap labor, 24/7?
After the microbes have done their “business”, the whole mixture is taken out, spun in a giant centrifuge, and density separates out the individual components. The most important of these components is a chemical compound that is nearly identical to diesel fuel…. “bacterial fuel”, or biodiesel, if you will.
There is a strong economic case for bacterial fuel because the fuel that the microbes produce is virtually ready for the gas pump, requiring only a simple cleaning step to filter out impurities. Making the bacterial fuel uses about 65% less energy than making ethanol. Also, keep in mind that ethanol requires extensive chemical processing that drives up its price and damages the “Green initiative”. Ask Green Writer about this…I have no idea what those people are about.
The fuel also has about 50% more energy content, which means a gallon of the stuff would last about 50% longer in your car, than a gallon of ethanol. Aside from making environmentalists jump for joy, this fuel has a number of advantages to it including, low cost, ease of production and low impact on the environment.
To me this bug doo-doo thing does make some sense. We are already dependent on petroleum, so an alternative will take years and years to develop and adopt. Solar is for asshats (and really smart, but diminutive Chinese professors).
Now, here we have a way to make petroleum, without having to wait a couple of billion years. It is simply through exploiting an existing biotechnology that God has established. For years (i.e., way before you or I were born), bacteria have been naturally turning sugar they consume into fatty acids. These fatty acids are later converted to lipids for storage. Serendipitously, fatty acids are only several molecular linkages away from diesel fuel. How do I know this, you axks [sic]? I read it in a chemistry book, aiight?
What companies like Amyris Biotechnology have done is to tweak the existing chemical process to yield diesel fuel, by creating strains of bacteria that excrete what your Lexus of the future will be storing in its tank and running off of: bug doo-doo. This may give a new twist to the phrase, “your car is a piece of shit”.
But, before you get all excited and start bagging up your lawn clippings to take down to the local bug doo-doo producer, be aware that this technology is early stage. It will be three to five years before the finished fuel is market ready. Then they will have the challenge of producing and distributing it in mass quantities. And, don’t forget there’s government regulation and red tape to wade through. So, don’t get your panties all in a bunch over this just yet.
There are other companies in this space that are developing this as well; LS9 and Synthethic Genomics to name two others. You can probably expect the farmer to get involved with this too, since he is closest to plant waste material, and has bags of gold coins to invest from his sales of grain. His new found wealth will start to manifest itself in greed and avarice to bank more and more coin. His mindset is that since farmers already control the food production, it only follows that they will eventually rule the world. Pure greed.
However, none of these companies are public…yet, so no coin for you right now. It will be interesting to watch how all this develops in the next few years. Perhaps, instead of hawking Chinese Solar Burrito stocks, we will be buying American Bug Doo Doo stocks?
Who knows?
Some may find it hard to believe that high brow VC firms are investing in this technology, with the likes of people like this…..Will this guy be the next Bill Gates of the energy sector?
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2 comments:
Producing biodiesel through traditional "transestrification" processes OR using new bio-bugs eat biomass feedstocks and excrete the fuel as yeasts do in producing ethanol -- is not very efficient. Plus having to deal with the waste which remains going into the landfill.
I wonder how many of your readers have personally collected waste french-fry grease at restaurants and then actually produced a "bio" diesel liquid fuel product themselves? Lotsa voters get involved in discussions where they really have NO clue as to the techniques, efficiencies or EVEN the actual economics OR biodegradability of what new fuel is being produced.
Precious clean water is utilized to "clarify" and thus separate the bio-oils resembling diesel fuel from glycerine which remains via transestrification. There are two major no-no's associated with this process which the average citizen and voting blogger don't typically realize.
The first is the "batch" process which is terribly inefficient. And the second is water solubility characteristics - thus leading to biodegradability of the new biofuel. Any type of new biodiesel product whether produced by transestrification using lye and methanol and precious water to clarify OR new strains of biobugs -- produces an end product which still floats on this planet's water bodies just like the Exxon Valdez oil spill did and still does.
Try thinking FIRST about water solubility characteristics of the new biofuel. Why? If the fuel dilutes in water -it can dilute itself far enough and quickly to become basic food for microbes, natural bacteria and even phytoplankton as well as any green living plant or tree. When you are dealing with an "oil-base" fuel such as biodiesel which floats on water bodies - it doesn't dilute and become bug food. Think water solubility as biodegradability.
Does crude oil or refined gasoline, jet fuel or street diesel dilute in water? Of course not. Does the emissions of coal-fired power plants dilute or phase separate from the earth's water-laden atmosphere? Can you start to "see" what I'm talking about here?
The biggest "eco-difference" between biodiesel and grain ethanol is that ethanol will dilute in water and provide a free lunch to mother nature's plants and animals.
Biodiesel - whether produced by bugs or transestrification processes will still float on water. And biodiesel's combustion emissions stream of unburned hydrocarbons will still phase separate in the planet's atmosphere of water vapor and join with other uncombusted oils and become brown urban smog - the real precurser to global warming and climatic changes.
The answer might be a paradigm-shift of changing chemistry sets to A) produce a water soluble new biofuel and B) accomplish this on a 24x7 continuous process using superheated steam as the front-end process driver which accomplishes the isolation of basic carbon atoms to be re-arranged into a new biofuel molecule.
All fuels, whether petrolem-derived hydrocarbon fuels or even biodiesel or synthetic diesel made from coal or sugar-based ethanol or methanol typically synthesized from methane natural gas - are all made up of carbon. The big difference chemically is that methanol and ethanol are anchored by an oxygen atom which is isolated from H2O water when boiled into steam.
This oxygen atom is responsible for the change in the fuel's magnetism - thus having a new fuel either float on water bodies or dilute into water bodies. When oxygen is added to hydrocarbons via catalysis the result is an oxycarbon fuel. Oxycarbon is the chemist's definition for fuel-grade alcohols.
Can you add either water or ice cubes to beer, wine, whiskey, gin or tequila? Sure. Can you add water to edible extra virgin olive oil or gasoline? Nope. The water and oils phase separate. Capiche? Here is the basic earth chemistry difference to understand. And it is all driven by a new "oxygen" solution. If oxygen were bonded to refined petroleum products - they'd all become alcohols bearing names like you've not heard of before.
The same greasy goo like waste french-fry grease only contains so many carbon atoms in it per unit volume. This biodiesel feedstock can be compared by unit volume with other sources of waste carbon like municipal garbage, sewer sludge, ground tires, or coal or petroleum coke waste or agri-biomass of any kind. How much carbon is contained therein?
Understand that one lb. of Wyoming coal contains about 8,500 BTU's of carbon. Thus it would take 1.4 shovels of municipal sewer sludge or 2 to 3 shovels of garbage to equal the basic carbon content of just one shovel of coal. It would take approximately 1.6 shovels of forestry bark & tree waste to equal the carbon content of 1 shovel of coal. On the other hand, ground tires or petroleum coke waste are more carbon rich. Only 1/2 shovel of these wastes will equal the carbon content of 1 shovel of Wyoming coal. Following me? What I'm saying here is that bushel of municipal sewer sludge contains more carbon building blocks than one bushel of $4.50 corn kernals. Now - how to efficiently and profitably isolate that carbon building block?
The next step is to change chemistry sets and go to 24x7 synthesis techniques. The front-ends here are 120-yr. old steam reformation in which CH4 methane gas AND CO2 greenhouse gas can be separated into their individual carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms as biofuel building blocks. When solids like sewer sludge, garbage, coal or tires or even corn stover are used - a 90 yr. old gasifier device is used instead.
Look at corn stover (ligno-cellulosic??? gov't buzzword) for how much carbon those cornstalks contains which isn't very much when compared to the same weight of coal or ground tires. Then switch front-end processing systems from acidic enzymes over to super-heated steam in order to isolate that basic carbon building block and re-arrange it plus associated hydrogen ions PLUS oxygen derived from steam through catalysis.
This way, the basic atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen to form a new and stronger BTU fuel alcohol blend than ethanol. And this process can be continuous - not batch.
Things like this are coming now - yet totally misunderstood by the general public and investors alike. If your new biofuel prospect involves "batch processing, biobugs or fermentation" techniques - than this is NOT what I'm talking about.
Think along some new lines called GTL for gas-to-liquids synthesis. A term being thrown about called Fischer-Tropsch is a GTL process which will produce very expensive but clean synthetic diesel, jet fuel (kerosene) and gasoline. Yet all of these new synfuels still float on this planet's water bodies and do not biodegrade - even if their GTL manufacture process eliminates all the sulfur traditionally found in petroleum products.
If a oxygen atom were bonded to these same synthetic fuels - then all of them would become the new biofuel which I'm referencing here.
I hope this gives you some food for thought instead of furthering the confusing debates on biofuels these daze.
Cliff Gardner
Cliff,
Thanks for educating me on efficiency (of lack thereof) of biodiesel. Your comments are worthy of more research on my part.
Thanks for taking the time to post!
I would welcome more information that you would care to share on this topic.
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