UL researching Alternative Fuels

[NewsCopy]

The University of Louisiana is researching ways to produce alternative fuels for cars and energy. Scientists have discovered that petroleum will eventually run out. Corn, sugar cane, and other crops are being researched to make replacement gas. Most crops contain Ethanol which is a clean burning, renewable type of fuel. The only problem is researchers are not yet able to extract large amounts of Ethanol out of plants...making a limited supply. "Down the road we hope they'll use the whole plant. And that will open up opportunities for trees, timber, wood waste, municipal waste, municipal sewage. One day we can possibly make ethanol from it," says Bioprocess Engineer Dr. Mark Zappi. Our country is not the only one using biofuels. "In Brazil they've been running their vehicles at about 85% Ethanol for a long time and they are making it primarily from fermented sugarcane. So we are sitting on sugarcane here which has got a lot of potential," says Dr. Zappi. Dr. Zappi tells me making our own fuel helps create economic independence and we won't have to depend on other countries. It is also environmentally friendly. The rest of the story

[BabbForHeisman]

Kinda weird that they failed to mention that Dr. Zappi is actually Dean Zappi, the dean of the college of engineering.

[locoguano]

Right now it still costs more to make e85 than it to produce gasoline... plus the nearest pumping stations are in houston and florida...

[Cajun Express]

Right now it still costs more to make e85 than it to produce gasoline... plus the nearest pumping stations are in houston and florida...

Don't forget congress cannot pass an excess profit tax on some poor schmuck farmer in Nabraska like he can on Exxon Mobile, Chevron and all the rest of the big boys. I can see it now, a still in every garage. 85% ethonal wow.

"Scientists have discovered that petroleum will eventually run out."

Darn good thing we have scientist, I thought God was just creating more as we needed it.

[NewsCopy]

  The potential and problems of converting forest and agricultural products into biofuels was the focus of the third Louisiana Natural Resources Symposium held this summer.

Mike Salassi, LSU AgCenter economist, said biodiesel production is expected to increase substantially during the next two years. Converting biomass to energy has the potential to offset petroleum use in the United States by 20 percent, he said.

Salassi said Exxon-Mobil recently has decided to invest heavily in making fuel from algae because it can be grown on a large scale to provide adequate feedstock.

Waste products from the forestry industry also have potential for being converted into fuel, said Richard Vlosky, director of the Louisiana Forest Products Development Center in the LSU AgCenter. Vlosky said Louisiana and the rest of the South have considerable potential for making fuels from wood biomass.

Chevron and Weyerhaeuser have formed a partnership to convert biomass into fuel. “I think we’ll see some interesting developments within the year,” Vlosky said.

Mark Zappi, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Louisiana, said the biofuels industry has huge potential, but it has yet to overcome challenges in supply, infrastructure, storage and distribution.

“We’re still a few breakthroughs from hitting a home run,” Zappi said.

The rest of the story

[CajunNation]

"Scientists have discovered that petroleum will eventually run out."

Yeah, it will........hundreds of years from now.