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Posts Tagged “

Cellulosic ethanol

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alternative energy

Coskata Breaks Ground On Ethanol Plant, Could Make Fuel For $1 Per Gallon

Kings of ethanol and new GM buddy, Coskata, has announced it has broken ground on an new cellulosic ethanol plant in Pennsylvania that could be churning out the alternative fuel as early as next year. Coskata claims it can produce the two carbon alcohol at a cost of $1 per gallon so unless they aren't interested in getting to step three, expect pricing on the more renewable fuel to be higher than that. Regardless, it will likely beat the hell out of that $5.40 gallon gas bullshit going on in California. More »

3:40 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Travis Hudson
1,604 views, 34 comments

Latest by tekdemon: Seriously, it might be time to just embrace nuclear powerplants and some sort of quick-charging electric cars. Actually, I more »

news

Termite Gut Microbe Study: Cheap Cellulosic Ethanol Soon?

Wouldn't it be great if we had a super-cheap way to make ethanol out of cellulosic materials such as switchgrass and wood chips? The problem is that you need to turn the cellulose into simple sugars before you can ferment it into ethanol... but termites have managed the trick for gadzillions of years, so why not figure out exactly what magic takes place in their guts and replicate it on an industrial scale? Some white coats at Caltech have taken a big step in that process, performing a vast genomic study of the microbes in Nasutitermes termites' guts and identifying more than a thousand potentially useful enzymes. Hooray, soon we'll all be running 16:1 compression alky-burners! [MIT]

10:30 AM on Tue Nov 27 2007
By Murilee Martin
824 views, 18 comments

Latest by Elhigh: I read about a guy/company that's exploring cellulosic ethanol from a fungal beginning - a fungus that destroyed Allied uniforms more »