Tom McKinnon’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Cellulosic biofuels

  Rep. Peterson is making two serious errors in his dismissal of cellulosic biofuels.  First, he is assessing the state of biochemical conversion of cellulose.  While, in principle, this is a promising approach, reduction to practice has been problematic.  Thermochemical conversion of cellulosic feedstocks, on the other hand, is already moving ahead commercially  with the first 20 million gal/yr plant to come on line next year.  

  His second mistake is to assume that ethanol is the only biofuel option for cellulose, which brings along a host of infrastructure problems such as pipelines, etc.  When starting with cellulosic biomss we have a suite of biofuel options such as methanol, dimethyl ether, Fisher Tropsch diesel, synthetic gasoline, hydrogen, etc.  Ethanol is almost always the worst possible choice.  

  Professor of Chemical Engineering Colorado School of Mines

  On Thus spake Chairman Peterson of the House Ag Committee posted 1 year, 9 months ago 10 Responses