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The is Tifton?
A researcher has formed a new company and recently announced his discoveries after making a process work, and applying for patents. J.C. Bell has developed bacteria that directly creates fuel out of bio mass. This fuel is very clean after the process of not having sulfurs, paraffins, and other contaminates. All this without refineries too! One strain of bacteria creates only diesel for example.
I heard an interview today on the radio and found some info on the web. What I heard from the interview is that the numbers suggest that 75% of our fuel requirements in the USA can be created by the bio waste we already have.
Here's some info from an article;
Researcher: Discovery could end energy crisis:
A Tifton agricultural researcher says he has found the solution to the world’s energy crisis through genetic modification and cloning of bacterial organisms that can convert bio-mass into hydrocarbons on a grand scale. The local researcher believes his groundbreaking discovery could result in the production of 500 to 1,000 barrels of hydrocarbon fuel per day from the initial production facility. The hydrocarbon fuel — commonly known as oil or fossil fuel when drilled — will require no modification to automobiles, oil pipelines or refineries as they exist today and could forever end the United States’ dependence on foreign oil, he said.Now that his discoveries have been patented, his corporation formed — Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. — and his government communications established, Bell announced his discoveries to the local press on Friday morning.Bell said he never considered ethanol for his research. “He who burns his food goes hungry,” Bell said. “That’s an old Chinese proverb.” Instead he concentrated on bio-mass and hydrocarbons. “If it grows it’s bio-mass,” Bell said. Bio-mass is any living or recently dead biological material. Hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen and is naturally occurring in crude oil.
Sources for bio-mass to be converted to hydrocarbon fuel are the forestry industry, pulp plants, agriculture and waste derived from the construction and demolition industry.
“This is the ultimate recycling,” Bell said. “Environmentalists should rejoice. We are only using waste products.” Bell said his company would take all of the waste of the plants: The tree limbs and tree tops, husks and cob of the corn, wheat stubble and corn stover.
The is Tifton?
This technology was around 10 years ago.
We'll see if the VC guys back him.
Thanks, that was easy.
How come it was never used? Care to expand on your
comment. I am serious, I have never heard of the
concept.
I just wonder though, with all the new distilleries that have
been built and the farmers involved, will Congress let
the new process ever get into production.
The ability to turn biomass into working fuel has been around quite a while. I think this guy probably just managed to create a cost effective way of doing it.
Now all we need is the personal converter used for the Delorean in Back to the Future II.
Bingo.
There's a related technology turning biomass into plastics - again been around; but only recently made cost-effective.
Georgia apparently.
That would explain why the guy was working with peanut butter (GA grows a lot of peanuts).
http://bellbioenergy.com/
We'll see where this ends up.
So, is this a plausible solution to foreign dependancy?
Obviously this scientist is a pitchman now for his newfound company, so hes going to make this sound like the next big thing.
But is it really?
The article didn't say it was cost effective, merely that it was patented.
We have all sorts of green technology, but a lot of it isn't cost effective yet.
The idea is definitely intriguing, but I would remain skeptical until I saw a bit more data on the process.
Logically speaking, if the guys trying to turn it into a successful business using his new tech, it's at least more cost effective than technology that was already out there.
But yeah, we have a lot of green tech that is just horridly not cost effective.
In the article WC posted he said he had a way to
genetically alter and clone the bacteria. Maybe that is
his little secret thingy. Produce the bacteria in mass
at a reasonable cost......just a guess.
Actually that doesn't logically follow.
There are plenty of business ideas that don't make money. Just because somebody claims that they have a money making machine, doesn't make it so.
Logically, we should "trust but verify" and at least let him do a "proof of principle" run to see if the practical problems can be overcome.
That's true. He could be expecting people to pay up the wazzou for "green" fuel.
I should have phrased it as he believes it to be more cost effective, as well.
Yes and no. We have observed for a long time that cows, landfills, etc produce methane. Bell's technology takes that idea and improves upon it. He has designed bacteria to make specific fuels at a faster rate than natural.
He did say something about the cost. Part of it is that he controls the environment this is done in, and the bacteria is reusable.
The genetic manipulation part was primarily so it produced a specific hydrocarbon chain.
Imagine, being able to have a wort, and instead of fermenting alcohol with yeast, you ferment diesel with bacteria. Now when making ethanol, the best you can do is about 15% alcohol before the yeast dies. With Bell's process, you can produce 100% gasoline or diesel. The bacteria simply makes gas or diesel rather than alcohol. Unlike alcohol, which mixes with the water, making the yeast dormant or dead, these float on top of water! All you need is a separation process, and no energy intensive refining or distillation. The bacteria lives on to make more.
True, and I didn't hear a cost on the interview. My assumption is that it will be cost effective. The bacteria is reusable, the process proven, and this guy already formed a company to do pilot facilities.
This is the first high energy process and product I have hope for being a good one. It's a natural process enhanced.
Sure, so will I. As for data, just think of the natural decomposition process. It creates a large amount of methane gas. Some sewage facilities already capture and use this gas for making their own energy. It makes perfect sense to be able to improve the speed of the process and breed strains of bacteria to make specific hydrocarbon chains.
This is the first 'renewable fuels' that has my support. Ethanol, bio-diesel, etc. are not practical. This process if as advertised, it truly green, without increasing the burden on mother earth.
Very true, but I do have a certain belief this is going to pay off. He did say they were going to build plants in various pilot cities. Nothing large scale, but large enough to perfect the process for large scale usage. Not all aspects of things scale in a linear fashion.
Faster rate, perhaps. Fast enough to be practical, and economically enough remains to be seen.
spent the last four years, identifying the bacteria that produces hydrocarbon and then finding a way to genetically alter it so that it could produce hydrocarbon in greater volume.
At the pilot plants, the bio-mass will be tested to select bacterial strains, bacterial genetic modification will be tested, revision of production protocols will be established, and a determination will be made of the best method of bio-mass conversion.
I'm not pooh-pooh-ing it, don't get me wrong. As I don't have enough data to say either way, I will wait and see, but I am hopeful. Some kind of technology like this will come along somewhere.
I would think a main problem for Mr. Bell is that what he has done in 4 years mostly with small grants, can be done aciously quickly by many other players if it pans out well. With the kinds of profits that oil companies have been making, they can afford to reverse engineer him to death pretty quickly if they try.
Heh, I always find it funny when the real doom-sayers in the "peak oil" movement say that global civilization will just collapse when oil really starts to dry up. Things like this and many others will allow for technology and the free-market system to work their magic, and the end of civilization will have to wait for the next imagined "crisis".
Not quite on topic, but I was watching a show on History channel
the other night about the floating fish factories in Alaskan waters.
One of the things I found really interesting is the fact they take
all the waste, squeeze the fish oil out of it, mix with bunker oil
and burn it as fuel for the vessel. Hey they don't waste anything
on those ships. The remainder of the waste is converted into
fish meal. Another little thing was that quite a lot of the fish
goes to McDonalds for their fish sandwichs.
I agree, but the probablilty is very hgh in my opinion.
Well, I would be more skeptical normally except this makes perfect sense and is a simple process. Still, I could be wrong.
Maybe so. If I remember right, it should take about six months to build and start the facilities they plan. He has kept this all very quiet until the patent process was done. As for reverse engineering a patent? Good luck.
If this pans out, I'm sure he will have investors lining up! I don't have any disposable money right now, but if I did, I would see about getting in on this. I've had as much as $36,000 I could gamble with on stocks in the past.
Yep!
We are an innovative society. We tend to always step up to the plate one way or another.
Think of the possibilities! - people are bio mass too...
Chip manufacturers do it all the time with compe ors "patented" chips.
In this case the patent is simply on additions to freely available bacteria.
The bacterial genome that he used as his starting point cannot be patented, and THAT is the logical and easy place to start.
Mr. Bell did all this in 4 years mostly by himself, I would imagine, and with a budget of what? a million per year? (not sure about the exact figure, but if the start up is small, I doubt it took much)
Imagine, say Exxon Mobile, who spent 15 billion on capital investments last year, or any of the larger pharmecuticals who routinely spend billions and are usually partnered with various firms invovled in genetics can probably catch up pretty darn fast if they chose to dive in.
If there are really profits on a large scale to be had, you can bet yer bumpkin that somebody with some DEEP pockets will try and horn in on the action, with the result of the whole thing getting done in a big way.
Hooray capitalism.
RG, I don't think it's that simple. They would have to come up with a different bacteria that does the same thing, and sometimes, the process itself is patented. I'll bet in this case it is. In the case of CPU chips, they are not identical. The newer chips themselves have a patent but the process of logic they impliment has long ago lost patents. They simply implement the same logic with a different process. Notice AMD cannot call the Athalon a Pentium. Names are also parts of what a patents usage.
However... I could be wrong here. I just hope this process is real. They theory is sound and I hope I'm not placing udue faith in it.
WC the process will never be accepted by the folks on
the hill and environmental wacko's. His process would
still leave a carbon footprint. God forbid we use
carbon in any manner. I just surprised they don't
ban lead pencils.
they wont even let them drill for the oil we now
have and wont until the populace threatens to lynch
them.
ummm...
Diesel is composed primarily of parrafins (saturated hydrocarbon chains).
Any stock options???
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