America's First Cellulosic Ethanol Plant

hankmt writes "The state of Georgia just granted Range Fuels a permit to create the first cellulosic ethanol plant in America. Cellulosic ethanol produces ethanol from cellulose, which all plants have, instead of from sugar, which is only abundant in food crops. Corn ethanol only produces 1.3 units of energy for every unit of energy that goes into growing the crop and converting the sugar to ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol can produce as much as 16 units of energy for every one unit of energy put into the process. The new plant will be online in 2008 and aims to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol a year."

Cellulosic?

[Icarus1919]

What the hell kind of adjective is that? It's bullshity.

Re:Still harder to make than corn

[Spookticus]

if you used hemp, you would then have all these people getting upset over people smoking it instead of using it for fuel.

Re:Still harder to make than corn

[Dunbal]

you would then have all these people getting upset over people smoking it instead of using it for fuel.

      But like, chill out, man. I mean, who needs to drive to work after smoking one of these, man? I use less fuel by staying at home. Hemp is a win.... god I am hungry

Re:USA's first plan, not America's First

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what do you call people from the USA?

Gringos.

Re:Cellulosic?

[martin_henry]

Don't get so criticalistic!

Nip / tuck

[Zombie]

Hmm? America making fuel from cellulite? What a good idea. There's certainly plenty of it.

Ethanol from Kudzu?

[Soong]

just sayin, that'd be awesome.

Re:USA's first plan, not America's First

[Zzzoom]

> America is one huge continent. The USA is the only country that splits it.

If by "splitting" you mean having shores on both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, then by "only" you mean Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Chile.

Can we feed it junk mail?

[J.R. Random]

That is by far our most perpetually renewable resource.

Re:USA's first plan, not America's First

[hmccabe]

You forgot Poland

Re:Where do these numbers keep coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now now.
He was going to type "ethanol", began to mistype it as "wethanol", mentally inverted the "w" and typed "methanol". A simple and completely accidental chain of events that led to a largely irrelevant side issue.

Anyhow, back to the topic. Why is the government subsidising gyllenhaal production, how is producing fuel from cellulite so much more efficient, and what impact will all this have on the price of Korn?

The public has a right to know!

Corn?!

[Mark_MF-WN]

Where is all of this gibberish about corn coming from?! The article is about cellulosic ethanol -- it's right there in the title. No corn is required. You can make cellulosic ethanol from grass clippings, from tree branches, from discarded copies of Atlas Shrugged, etc. I'm pretty sure those things don't require fertilizer... except maybe the grass, and even then it's only to satisfy the needs of people with so little to entertain them that their sole joy in life comes from getting grass to grow as fast as possible so that they can mow it a little more often.

Re:Ethanol is carbon-neutral.

[Anonymous Coward]

anal fisting?