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Fossil fuels and alternative sources of energy
Fossil fuel impacts on the environment
Fossil fuel impacts on the environment
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Introduction:
People need energy, it’s a fact. We need it for our cars, for our televisions and for our iPods. We need it all the time, every day. The simple fact is though, we are running out. Carbon based fuels are being used at an alarming rate every day. And every day our demand increases as our society becomes more and more reliant on technology.
There is only so much oil in the world though and when that is gone we need to look for alternative sources of energy. Sources like ethanol produced from Switchgrass.
In 2004 an article was published on the creation of ethanol from gases made from switchgrass. The article was titled, “Fermentation of Biomass-Generated Producer Gas to Ethanol.”
This article held produced several interesting results. First it demonstrated that producer gas could be generated from biomass (Switchgrass) and that the producer gas could be fermented to produce ethanol. Second the cells stopped growing but did not die. During this period of non-growth ethanol was produced. Third H2 utilization ceased and fourth “cells began growing again if ‘clean’ bottled gases were introduced following exposure to the producer gas” (Datar, Shenkman, Cateni, Huhnke and Lewis 2004, p. 1.)
Switchgrass
– Panicum virgatum
Why switchgrass? Thats the question of the hour. And to tell there truth there are a lot of reasons. Firstly and foremost is the fact that there are millions of dollars in government funding available. Secondly switchgrass is grown across the entire center of the united states in a variety of environments.
Switchgrass is hardy and adaptable, it grows large and fast, sometime reaching slightly over ten feet in height. As a bonus switchgrass also processes water very efficie...
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...ide, 4.4% Hydrogen Gas, and 4.2% Methane gas. The actual gasified switch grass however, did not have this composition and had some unknown molecule or molecules that was damaging to the cells.
This unknown molecule or molecules could be oxygen, nitric oxide, or ammonia, all of which are known to negatively affect cells. This article was published in 2004 and, the follow up experiment that addresses these impurities was conducted by the same people in 2005. In this experiment they found that the gas did in fact have many impurities and an extensive gas cleaning procedure needed to be implemented in order to effectively harvest ethanol from the bacteria P7. The molecule that was mostly responsible for disrupting the cell was nitric oxide. All in all it seems entirely viable to use this biological process in order to manufacture ethanol for wide spread use.
...e has become misleading, for it is used oil to justify subsidies for pork-barrel projects or mere sops to the industry, such as drilling for oil in the Alaskan wilderness. Given that America consumes a quarter of the world's oil but has barely three percent of its proven reserves, it will never be energy-independent until the day it stops using oil altogether.
Almost every single nation in our world today, the United States included, is extremely reliant on oil and how much of it we can obtain. Wars have been started between countries vying for control of this valuable natural resource. The United States as a whole has been trying to reduce its reliance on foreign oil and has had some success, especially with the discovery of the Bakken formation and projects like the Keystone Pipeline.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day, oil is not a renewable source and we will all stand aside and wonder what is next for the state of
Cellulosic ethanol will not be able to meet its mandated output because in the past four years since demonstration and pilot sites started popping up it has only just started t...
Ethanol production was developed in hopes of severing our ties with fossil fuels in favor of alternative energy, such as biofuels. Although, VOCs emissions are released during production of ethanol in a factory, the quality of air is greatly improved when burning ethanol versus fossil fuels. Burning ethanol instead of fossil fuels reduces the amount of cancer-causing greenhouse gases that go into the atmosphere. Ethanol production ranks at the bottom of industrial water usage, but is still not out of the woods with the abundance of water usage needed in corn feedstock and ethanol manufacturing and processing facilities. Many acres of land are needed to grow corn crops, however, many corn farmers are successful in growing more corn on less acreage.
Tyner, Wallace. “The U.S. Ethanol and Biofuels Boom: Its Origins, Current Status, and Future Prospects.” BioScience. August 2008. Vol 58 (7):646
In summary, it has been proven that it is possible or the world to run out of oil. This would be followed by several negative effects, especially on the economy of the world. The oil-dependent nations would experience an economic crisis while the globe would realize adverse environmental effects from the alternative energy sources. Inefficiency and unreliability within some of the major sectors such as the transportation industry would also be evident.
...ch is used to replace natural gas. He also stated that, among the equipment used to burn the biofuel, the suspension burner have the ability to exceed 99% efficiency and whole-tree burner can reduce the cost of harvesting and handling woody fuels by about 35% (Brown, 2003). Moreover, the usage of bio-energy in long term is to provide a degree of ecological balance and climate change, avoid acid rain, reduce soil erosion and minimize water pollution (Gevorkian, 2007). Therefore, biomass is environmental friendly like solar energy. Based on the research that has been carried out regarding the synthesis of gas from biomass, the gas gasifies in the internal combustion engine. The relative energy density of synthesis gas is higher than the fossil fuel under certain conditions. In addition, the relative flame speed of synthesis gas can reduce the time for spark ignition.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, over half of the oil used in the USA is imported. Most of this imported oil is located in the middle east and is controlled by OPEC members. Subsequent oil price shocks and price manipulation by OPEC have cost our economy dearly—about $1.9 trillion from 2004 to 2008—and each major shock was followed by a recession (Reduce). We may never be able to fully eliminate our need to import oil, but we can reduce cartel market control and the economic impact of price shocks by reducing our demand (Reduce). One way we can reduce our reliance on oil is through investing in renewable energy. Solar power, wind power, and hydro power are all forms of energy which come from renewable resources. Unlike oil, solar, wind and hydro electric power is abundant and can be obtained locally.
We depend on energy; nothing in our daily lives could be possible without it. Electricity primarily comes from burning fossil fuels or using nuclear reactors. But the plain truth is, we are running out of fossil fuels. Our known oil deposits will run out in approximately 35 years, and if we increase the use of natural gas and coal to make up for the energy loss, our natural gas will last for 45 years and coal deposits will deplete in 75 years.
We are using more fossil fuels and non-renewable energy sources at a rapid rate. They are dissipating so quickly that the fear is our society will come to a complete halt and will be in a period of darkness and cold. In order to prevent that future, it is essential that we take the necessary steps now, while we can still operate. Alternative resources are the only thing we can look to as a replacement for the energy building blocks that carry modern society. Non-renewable resources are obsolete and the only way we can ensure a safe and healthy future is by weaning ourselves off of them.
Gasification products can be divided in fuel gases and non-fuel gases. The fuel gas (mixture of Carbon monoxide, Hydrogen and traces of Methane) is called producer gas. In particular, section 2.2 focuses on the non-fuel gases such as Carbon dioxide, Nitrogen, some hydrocarbons and water steam which cannot be utilized for combustion. Table 1 shows that according to the gasifier system and the gasifier agent, the biogas composition
Life on earth is run by energy. We need energy in order to live and it is crucial to survival but the world in running out of the energy sources we have been taught to use for decades. We have been using energy sources that are harmful to the environment, unsustainable and destroy life on earth. In
Gramineae, the grass family, has provided civilization throughout history with a bounty of food and many other uses. The top three economically important plants of the world are grasses: wheat corn, and rice. Human kind probably would not have survived if not for the grasses.
The process of alcoholic fermentation begins with the use of enzymes. The enzymes begin to break down the long chains in starch molecules, a polysaccharide that consists of a large quantity of glucose molecules (C6H12O6) joined by glycosidic bonds as seen in figure 1, into single glucose molecules, a monosaccharide with six carbons and five hydroxyl groups. After the starch has become sugar, the enzymes are used once again, this time to convert the sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide, CO2, as seen in figure 2 (World of Scientific Discovery, 2007). The carbon dioxide produced is released into the atmosphere, leaving water and ethanol, the alcohol, behind. Ethanol is a colorless flammable liquid with a molecular formula of C2H6O, giving it a molar mass of 46.07 grams per mole. Ethanol is also characterized by a melting point of -114°C or 159 K.