Is trash the solution to tackling climate change? (cellulosic ethanol from landfill waste)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/w-itt092909.php

Public release date: 29-Sep-2009

Contact: Ben Norman
[e-mail]
44-012-437-70375
http://www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell">Wiley-Blackwell

Is trash the solution to tackling climate change?

Waste-based biofuel could cut global emissions by over 80 percent

SINGAPORE —September 2009 – Converting the trash that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%.

Biofuels produced from crops have proven controversial because they require an increase in crop production which has its own severe environmental costs. However, second-generation biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol derived from processed urban waste, may offer dramatic emissions savings without the environmental catch.

"Our results suggest that fuel from processed waste biomass, such as paper and cardboard, is a promising clean energy solution," said study author Associate Professor Hugh Tan of the National University of Singapore. "If developed fully this biofuel could simultaneously meet part of the world's energy needs, while also combating carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency."

The team used the United Nation's Human Development Index to estimate the generation of waste in 173 countries. This data was then coupled to the Earthtrends database to estimate the amount of gasoline consumed in those same countries.

The team found that 82.93 billion litres of cellulosic ethanol could be produced from the world's landfill waste and that by substituting gasoline with the resulting biofuel, global carbon emissions could be cut by figures ranging from 29.2% to 86.1% for every unit of energy produced.

"If this technology continues to improve and mature these numbers are certain to increase," concluded co-author Dr. Lian Pin Koh from ETH Zürich. "This could make cellulosic ethanol an important component of our renewable energy future."

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[NNadir]

1. As usual, this is missing a sense of scale.

There are many sources of information in the literature indicating that trash volumes in the world are in the hundreds of millions of tons per annum, whereas the dangerous fossil fuel waste dumped into the atmosphere dwarfs this and is now approaching 30 billion tons each year.

The "could statement" - what car CULTure fantasy is without the "could" statement - which has a rather amazing and unbelievable number of significant figures - making it very, very, very, very suspect at being hand waving, refers to 82.93 billion litres.

The density at 25 C of ethanol is 0.789 kg/l meaning that this 82.93 billion liters is actually just 65.4 million tons.

Ignoring the lower energy density with respect to gasoline just for demonstration purposes and making a pure volume to volume comparison, with a 82.93 liters amounting to just 0.5182 barrels of oil, and that the stated "could" quantity of ethanol is thus in volume equivalent to 0.5182 billion barrels and recognizing that the United States alone consumes 8,989,000 http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html">barrels of gasoline each day (as of July 2009) we see that all the world's "could be ethanol" as stated here would be enough to fuel US engines for a maximum of 58 days, plus or minus a few.

Note that there is ZERO infrastructure to accomplish this task, and given that the atmosphere is collapsing NOW, the whole argument consists entirely of wishful thinking and denial.

[kristopher]

2. WOW! What a piss-poor analysis.

You wrote: "There are many sources of information in the literature indicating that trash volumes in the world are in the hundreds of millions of tons per annum, whereas the dangerous fossil fuel waste dumped into the atmosphere dwarfs this and is now approaching 30 billion tons each year."

Using 30 billion tons of "wastes" from fossil fuel is the wrong benchmark. Burning fossil fuels lock their carbon content to free oxygen in the atmosphere. Let's use petroleum as our example and just quote the EPA:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Exit EPA disclaimer guidelines for calculating emissions inventories require that an oxidation factor be applied to the carbon content to account for a small portion of the fuel that is not oxidized into CO2. For all oil and oil products, the oxidation factor used is 0.99 (99 percent of the carbon in the fuel is eventually oxidized, while 1 percent remains un-oxidized.)<1.>

Finally, to calculate the CO2 emissions from a gallon of fuel, the carbon emissions are multiplied by the ratio of the molecular weight of CO2 (m.w. 44) to the molecular weight of carbon (m.w.12): 44/12.

CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline = 2,421 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 8,788 grams = 8.8 kg/gallon = 19.4 pounds/gallon

CO2 emissions from a gallon of diesel = 2,778 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 10,084 grams = 10.1 kg/gallon = 22.2 pounds/gallon
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm

That means that your entire exercise is worthless since you are comparing the weight of oxidized carbon to a raw biofuel, but let's go on anyway.


The "could statement" - what car CULTure fantasy is without the "could" statement - which has a rather amazing and unbelievable number of significant figures - making it very, very, very, very suspect at being hand waving, refers to 82.93 billion litres.

What is the actual goal that the 82B liters is related to? Actually it is only "5.36% of gasoline consumption". And if the substitution were made it could be expected to reduce CO2e emissions from the amount replaced by a varying amount - between 29.2% and 86.1% (due to wade range of technologies involved).

The biofuel potential of municipal solid waste
ALLEN ZIHAO SHI * , LIAN PIN KOH† and HUGH T. W. TAN *

ABSTRACT
The world in the 21st century is facing a dual crisis of increasing waste and global climate change. Substituting fossil fuels with waste biomass-derived cellulosic ethanol is a promising strategy to simultaneously meet part of our energy needs, mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and manage municipal solid waste (MSW). However, the global potential of MSW as an energy source is as yet unquantified. Here, we report increasing trends of MSW generation, and waste biomass-derived cellulosic ethanol potentials in relation to socio-economic development across 173 countries, and show that globally, up to 82.9 billion litres of waste paper-derived cellulosic ethanol can be produced worldwide, replacing 5.36% of gasoline consumption, with accompanying GHG emissions savings of between 29.2% and 86.1%.

Being uninformed is part of life; we all have gaps in our knowledge. But we are responsible to be aware of those gaps and must either withhold judgment on such topics or inform ourselves to the level that enables us evaluate the topic.

Of course that brings us to what happens if you have a puzzle in front of you and you can't put the pieces together. Your posts all suffer from two problems - you read something that you try to make sense of but the obvious vast gaps in your knowledge base prevents a coherent picture from emerging. You also have a problem with basic comprehension of the material you are exposed to. I mean it was obvious the press release failed to communicate the article properly - a common failing that anyone qualified to do an analysis such as you've attempted would know.

And that brings us to the biggest failure of your writings - you don't CARE about the truth. For some reason you are unable to apply basic reasoning skills to the problem of energy.

I don't know the source of your problem in this regard. At first I thought your motive was economic, but after years of observation I now think it is much deeper and more fundamental to your personal view of reality. Whatever it is, you have some sort of preset agenda you attempt to fit anything you read into. It doesn't matter that the pieces of the real life puzzle in front of you don't fit together to make the picture you want, because you just set out on a mission that has you tearing, ripping, shredding, bending and generally mutilating each and every piece of reality in order to get them to fit together in a manner that matches that opium dream in your mind.

I usually don't bother to delve into your bizarre views of reality, but this post offered such a succinct example of two of the most chronic problems that plague your writings that I decided to share my observations with others lest they be deceived by the certainty with which you present this garbage.


The rest of your brilliant treatise follows:
The density at 25 C of ethanol is 0.789 kg/l meaning that this 82.93 billion liters is actually just 65.4 million tons.

Ignoring the lower energy density with respect to gasoline just for demonstration purposes and making a pure volume to volume comparison, with a 82.93 liters amounting to just 0.5182 barrels of oil, and that the stated "could" quantity of ethanol is thus in volume equivalent to 0.5182 billion barrels and recognizing that the United States alone consumes 8,989,000 barrels of gasoline each day (as of July 2009) we see that all the world's "could be ethanol" as stated here would be enough to fuel US engines for a maximum of 58 days, plus or minus a few.

Note that there is ZERO infrastructure to accomplish this task, and given that the atmosphere is collapsing NOW, the whole argument consists entirely of wishful thinking and denial.