Open Source Project to Design Solar/Ground Ethanol Distallation Plants

08-08-05 on Ethanol, Updated 10-02-05

It takes approximately the same energy to produce ethanol, as you get out of using ethanol. There are quibbles about how much gain or loss, but the major use of energy, is from the distillation process to concentrate the ethanol enough to make it usable. The distillation process is a major loss of energy.

See: http://www.journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html on current ethanol energy efficiency.

So, what kind of engineering could solve this challenge? One way is to use bio residue, like sugar cane in Brasil, for the energy to distill the ethanol. Another is to use the bio residue to make even more ethanol, to distill.

The largest gain I can see now is to engineer the use of solar energy to evaporate the ethanol so that the ethanol can be condensed by the cooling available in the ground. This could worlk low scale but would not work in large scale because of the excessive heating of the ground. Using the ground to cool and or derive the cooling to condense is a low tech and low cost way that over time can become higher tech. The same is true of solar designs. Cost and energy effectivity needs to be our drivers for our designs.

Perhaps some people would love to design several alternative solar/ground ethanol distillation designs, through an open source process. This is a way for fsmall arms to become self sufficient throughout our our world and to sell us the excess ethanol for fuel, just like with food.

Perhaps some day we could use some of the genetics of the bacteria that makes hydrogen from organic waste to improve the genetics of the bacteria that converts biomass to alcohol. Perhaps we could convert biomass at a higher temperature and to a higher concentration of alcohol.

Do not get too excited about being able to make hydrogen, because you still have to be efficient enough to be able to use the hydrogen. Let's say that you could have a home unit that would convert your biowaste to hydrogen and could use the hydrogen for heat and electricity. The electricity would be better used to run your home and charge your biodiesel hybrid car battery, than to compress any hydrogen into liquid and run an expensive fool cell car.

E-Mail me at address on my card when you are interested in contributing any ideas and talents.