A century ago, farmers relied on these big, steampunk-y contraptions called threshing machines to bring in the harvest. The machines were portable, and expensive--they were usually owned by a third party, or by a cooperative of farmers. The threshers traveled from farm to farm, region to region, separating grain from stalk and turning crops into commodities.
Pictured: This threshing machine's body lies a mouldering in a barn, but its spirit is marching on. From Flickr user exfordy, via CC.
Now, researchers from the University of Minnesota are hoping to repeat history with a portable machine that could turn prairie grasses, small trees and corn stalks into liquid biofuel. It's a nifty idea that could be great for both the environment and rural economies...provided the boys in the back room can work out a few bugs.
Portable microwave pyrolysis could be the future's answer to the threshing machine. Obviously, what's being made is different, but the basic idea is the same: Take this big machine around from farm to farm and use it to help farmers turn plants into a higher-profit product.
Pictured: A higher-profit product.
Pyrolysis is all about using heat to break down organic materials into a form better suited to usable, commercial energy. To get things cooking, the University's system relies on microwaves, stronger versions of the same technology you use to make popcorn and heat up leftover pizza. It's a handy, and somewhat outside-the-box, approach. Typically, before any material is put into a pyrolysis system, it has to be ground into tiny pieces to improve the transfer of heat through the mass. But as you may have noticed, microwaves heat up the center of a solid object just fine. If you're cooking on the stove, it saves time to break a chicken breast into smaller chunks. But microwave that breast whole, and the center cooks at about the same rate as the outside. Same principal applies here. Using a well-established technology like microwaves also means the University's pyrolysis set-up could, potentially, produce fuel for less upfront cost compared to typical pyrolysis systems, and some of the other biofuel-making methods.
The main product of the University's system is a liquid fuel. It does produce enough combustible syngas that, once started, it can power itself. But, in general, liquid is what comes out. On one hand, this is a bit limiting. Other methods of breaking down organic material focus on producing just the syngas, a veritable chemistry Christmas present of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Syngas can be burned like natural gas. You can use it to make certain chemicals that normally have to be derived from fossil fuels, like the ones used in agricultural fertilizers. Or you can turn it into a liquid fuel. Whatever you want. If alternative fuel production were baking, syngas would be the water and flour.
The liquid fuel produced by pyrolysis, on the other hand, is more like ending up with cupcake batter. Still nice, but you'll only be making dessert. On the other hand, if you really want cake, microwave pyrolysis gets you to that endpoint in fewer steps.
But biogas also needs some cleaning up. An engine will run on fresh biogas, but over time the acidic fuel will tear it apart. Paul Chen, senior research associate in the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, is one of the researchers working on the University of Minnesota microwave pyrolysis system. He says his team is working with chemical catalysts that can make biogas more engine-friendly, but they're still trying to figure out the best way to tackle the problem.
Another kink that still needs to be worked out in the portable pyrolysis plan: The whole "portable" part.
Pictured: Not a portable system.
Right now, the University's machine is a Rube Goldberg-like mass of conveyors and pipes that stands almost two stories tall with a floorplate that would fill a three-car garage. It is innovative, but it's not quite ready to load on a truck. Chen and company say they're close to working out a design for a smaller pyrolysis system they could take on the road. Armed with a $500,000 grant, they hope to have the pilot version built by early next year. If it works, the system could give farmers a relatively easy way to produce fuel for use on their own farms or, if it traveled with a tanker truck, that they could sell through local farming cooperatives, which already have a license to sell and ship fuel.
RSS Feed
Nifty old machine! It might be good for the rural economy but great for environment? Probably not. Anything that makes more liquid fuel for cars is a hard sell to me as an environmental boon. Better if they figured out how to use the technology to sequester carbon instead of making all that biocarbon even easier to put into the atmosphere. Maybe farmers could earn their bucks by racking up sequestered carbon credits instead of just making the old manure pile more efficient.
Saw an article on this idea (or a similar one, at least) a month or so ago, based on the idea of using excess watermelon crop as a biofuel feedstock.
Lovely idea, aside from the horrible, horrible conversion rate of feedstock to fuel - something like 26 litres of ethanol per metric ton of feedstock.
I had to give the researchers kudos, however, for deciding to taste their 95% alcohol product (citation: primary author commenting in an interview, not the main paper).
You've really got to admire the kind of scientist who, at the end of the day, goes "well, we've basically made a big still - who's got a shot glass?"
Link to journal article for the above;
http://www.biotechnologyforbiofuels.com/content/2/1/18
A company in ontario dairylane systems is right into biogas.....look them up
Um, there already is a modern analog to the thresher. They're called combines, big diesel punk-y machines that cut and seperate grain from field crops. They are huge, technically marvelous, expensive and often run by contractors who trailer them around at harvest time, or owned by co-ops.
To Barrie @ #1: IIRC, what's leftover from this kind of process is basically char, that can then be plowed into the soil as a soil amendment. The carbon is sequestered there for decades, versus cycling back into the atmosphere in two years or so if the crop material is directly plowed into the ground to decompose. Google biochar, char, terra preta.
@Barrie: I disagree: it COULD be good for the environment, so long as too muych fuel isn't required to produce this fuel.
Carbon released by burning 1-year-old grass is many many leagues better than carbon released by burning million-year-old coal. If all oil and coal burning were suddenly replaced by burning this kind of ethanol, CO2 levels would stop increasing. Simply stop. Because the ecosystem would simply keep recycling the same carbon year after year, and no new CO2 would be introduced.
(Of course, it's a thought experiment. It would be remotely possible to replace all oil-based fuel with this instantly, or even in 10 years, even if the biosystem could support it at all.)
Of course you're right that carbon sequestration is still important. Most scientists model that even if we stopped adding any new CO2 today, temperatures would continue rising as the existing CO2 continues to trap in more heat.
Sweden burns dead bunnies for fuel. It's a fact!
Ah, I seem to have had a problematic sampling bias, then. The farmers I know own their own combines. I didn't realize that was a itinerant piece of equipment.
If they want it portable, they should hook up with Dean Kamen and his people. I'm sure they could get it down to shipping container size.
And Maggie, if "the boys in the back room" can't work out the bugs, maybe some of the women in the back room can. ;)
Or they could gear it up to a capstan with four horses pushing it round.
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Pyrolysis.
Another significant aspect of bichar is removal of BC aerosols by low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria.
http://terrapretapot.org/ and village level systems http://biocharfund.org/
The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.
The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/viewBlog/sw_viewBlog.php?idTheme=14&idContribution=3011
http://www.carboncommentary.com/2009/10/01/761/comment-page-1#comment-2558
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=75
Mark my words;
Given the potential for Laurens Rademaker's programs to grow exponentially, only a short time lies between This man's nomination for a Noble Prize.
This authoritative PNAS article should cause the recent Royal Society Report to rethink their criticism of Biochar systems of Soil carbon sequestration;
Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/09/0902568106.full.pdf+html
There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html
Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act! It focuses on promoting biochar technology to address invasive species and forest biomass. It includes grants and loans for biochar market research and development, biochar characterization and environmental analyses. It directs USDI and USDA to provide loan guarantees for biochar technologies and on-the-ground production with an emphasis on biomass from public lands. And the USGS is to do biomas availability assessments.
WashingtonWatch.com - S. 1713, The Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act of 2009
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_SN_1713.html#commentform
Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .
United Nations Environment Programme, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/PDF/Ch5_compendium2009.pdf
Endorsements;
Bill Clinton said Biochar;
Mantria Industries inducted in Clinton Global Intuitive
http://www.mantria.com/eg_presidential_video.shtml
About time Al Gore got on the Biochar Bus, now if he will stick at it, waving out the windows;
Al Gore praised in Brazil the indigenous practice of "terra preta"
http://www1.voanews.com/spanish/news/latin-america/Al-Gore-Brasil-terra-preta-indigenas-amazonicos-64318922.html
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Cheers,
Erich
Yeah, it's a big deal on the great plains. Check this for a little glimpse into the itinerant harvester subculture:
http://www.uschi.com/blog.php
There's even been a corny (sorry) movie or two made about the life.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080364/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039994/
I have read that we are likely in a race between running out of petroleum (at least the kind that is energy positive, unlike tar sands, for instance) and atmosphere to burn. No liquid fuel seems to me to represent anything more than a stopgap using a similar distribution model to the existing petro-pipeline. But in this stopgap mode, this biofuel can offset the food crop pinch that many people now find themselves in with corn and soy prices reflecting the competition between food and biofuel use of a finite resource.
cute...here's to you...
well, the use of microwaves to break down organic masses into different fuels is not new. Global Resource has a patent pending machine that uses microwaves to break down tires into diesel and other fuels. the by products are valueable carbon black and recyclable steel. They just sold a machine for over a $mill(?) for use in breaking down shale. The possibilities are endless as far as converting garbage, biomasses ect into usable fuel.
SamSam, you're in for a treat. Liquid biofuel is a byproduct, not the main product of pyrolysis. This method will not produce enough liquid fuel to fuel the entire process and have more left over; that's not possible. But the main show is much better.
The solids that generate the liquid biofuel become biochar. When returned to the soil, biochar sequesters C02 for long periods of time (thousands of years), where plants can use it for food, thus permanently improving the fertility of the soil. It does not produce toxic runoff as our current fertilizers do; instead, it filters water that passes through it. This would help clean up our waterways and oceans.
In short, if around 30% of farmers used biochar, we would not only clear our air and water, we would stop global warming. We still need to do more; we need to clean the plastics from the sea and figure out a way to quickly de-acidify the oceans, we need to reverse our global population explosion and over-consumption without crashing our economies, we need to move away from fossil fuels, and we need to find a way to reduce poverty and protect needed "green spaces" so we will have a stable environment.
No small feat, given the political hysteria. However, this is doable with a small group of people, less than a quarter of what we spent on the Wall Street bailout, and some world leaders willing to cooperate.
I'd say it's worth it.