STORM2K

Local scientists going 'orange'
Sunday, February 3, 2008


AUBURNDALE (Bay News 9) -- With all the talk of going green heating up of late, the state of Florida is trying something different - going orange.

The state is assisting private companies produce alternative energy sources with a $25 million "Farm to Fuel" grant. Some of that funding will be spent on technology that turns citrus peels into ethanol.

Construction is scheduled to begin in a few months on a brand new plant in Auburndale that will produce ethanol from citrus peels. It is a process scientists with the USDA have been working on for years at a lab just outside of Winter Haven.

Scientists at the USDA Agriculture Research Service have been working with citrus peels for more than a decade. They have found a way to turn citrus peels into ethanol, which can be used an an alternative to fuel. USDA officials estimate using citrus peel technology could produce between 30 to 50 million gallons of ethanol each year.

The process starts with sterilizing the peels, then pressurizing them to extract limonene, which is used as a cleaning product. And that mushy substance eventually becomes the ethanol. Scientists add enzymes and yeast to the mush and then ferment it for two days.

After being distilled, the end result is ethanol.

"The Florida citrus industry produces 3.5 and 5 million tons of wet waste per year,' said Bill Widmer, a Ph.D and USDA research chemist. and there is no way you can landfill that."

In January, the state awarded Southeast Biofuels $500,000 to help build the plant. In addition to the plant being built in Auburndale, Florida Light and Power is planning another citrus peel to ethanol plant in Hendry County.

http://baynews9.com/content/36/2008/2/3/322125.html

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I personally like the idea. Iowa can have corn, and we have oranges. Maybe with oranges, we can get the state to speed up its ethanol plans. Florida is full or orange peels. Mos of my orange peels go in the garbage disposal, but Id be happy to donate them for fuel.

I love how people are trying to come up with new sources of fuel. Great news!

It would be better if the US just struck a deal with Brazil, but any way to find extra free ethanol is just fine by me.

There are reactions that can convert citric acid into ethanol, so using citrus peels to generate ethanol definitely has the potential to prove practical. However, it's not as easy to ferment citrus peels as it is to ferment things like corn or barley.

But on the other hand, corn and barley are not things that are generally thrown away like citrus peels.

Squarethecircle wrote::uarrow: But on the other hand, corn and barley are not things that are generally thrown away like citrus peels.

Very true. There's more than enough to experiment with.

I think ultimately we will have to look up in the middle of the day and get the alternate fuel, the Sun.

The problem with using solar power to fuel cars is that most research has found that much of the surface area of the car would need to be covered in photovoltaic cells, which would limit potential designs for cars (the leading design for a solar-powered car has a top speed of 40 mph, seats one lying down, and has no air conditioning or opening windows). Solar cells aren't very flexible, unfortunately.

I'd say keep solar panels to fields and houses. If there's going to be any use for it in cars it should help provide some sort of charge-up system, but that's not direct anyway.

I'd think, at least for now, bio-fuels are good and efficient.

I understand that, but we can't have a fuel alternative that depends on harvests and will decrease the food supply.

That's why we need a deal with Brazil for sugar cane.

It will be a slow change until we figure out the true alternative.. Bring on the orange gas. Maybe it will smell better.

HURAKAN wrote::uarrow: I understand that, but we can't have a fuel alternative that depends on harvests and will decrease the food supply.

Well, it might not necessarily decrease the food supply. Using a harvested fuel alternative would boost the ailing farm industry, and farms will become more profitable. It would provide an incentive for families to start new farms to support the industry; new farms wouldn't deplete the food supply.

HURAKAN wrote::uarrow: I understand that, but we can't have a fuel alternative that depends on harvests and will decrease the food supply.

It wont decrease the food supply. It takes the peels, the things we throw away anyway to make the fuel.

fact789 wrote:

HURAKAN wrote::uarrow: I understand that, but we can't have a fuel alternative that depends on harvests and will decrease the food supply.

It wont decrease the food supply. It takes the peels, the things we throw away anyway to make the fuel.

HURAKAN was referring to grain ethanol, not the orange peels.

Exactly. When you have a global population that continues to increase at a very rapid pace, and cultivation areas continue to decrease, how a solution could be taking our food to burn it and propel our future. I still believe that bio-fuels are not the solution to our energy needs.

The Sun will continue there for the next 4 to 5 billion years, rising in the east, setting in the west. Solar energy is being wated everyday. I have always imagined what will be the impact if we could change all the street lights in the US from consuming electrical power to solar power. How much would we save? Of course, there would be a lot of money that will have to be spent doing the transformation, but at the end it's worthed. And that's just a minor change of what we can do to not depend on oil.

Using waste from agricultural processing, like this particular program, is good. Using food-quality products is not.

The only viable long-term solution is nuclear power supplemented where possible by other clean sources like wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal power.

gtalum wrote:Using waste from agricultural processing, like this particular program, is good. Using food-quality products is not.

The only viable long-term solution is nuclear power supplemented where possible by other clean sources like wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal power.

Aha! There we are, nuclear power, hopefully fusion. I was wondering when someone would mention that. Of course, it's hardly any good for cars, but most of the disadvantages (there's only the one, really) with nuclear power are expected to be gone with new developments in the field.

Of course, that leaves the question of how to power cars. One way is to replace large road systems with fantastic mass transport. Of course, there are some viable options in bio-fuel for the time being, but there are some amazing ways to power cars with just water (and if the lack of it becomes a problem, then there's always normal power for the reverse).

The only problem is instituting this kind of change in more than a few nations. Of course it will take decades in our countries as well, but there must also be an aggressive international campaign.

And, of course, as a benefit to the side, the pollution level would be low to bubkuss (that's a regional spelling), but that's arguably less important.

Squarethecircle wrote:Aha! There we are, nuclear power, hopefully fusion. I was wondering when someone would mention that. Of course, it's hardly any good for cars, but most of the disadvantages (there's only the one, really) with nuclear power are expected to be gone with new developments in the field.

Of course, that leaves the question of how to power cars.

That's easy. Improve battery technology (both speed of charging and ultimate capacity) and then use the massive amounts of new electricity generated by many new nuclear plants to power them.

The problem is, it's going to be very hard to come up with fuel cells that can take a car thousands of miles without a recharge. Cars are supposed to be designed to do everything (although they really don't nowadays). Electric motors, yes, but I'm saying there needs to be an additional power source.