Its way too complex to make oil from alcohol but it is quite simple to directly transform anything containing carbon into just by applying good engineering so why is this process not being developed? It make no sense from a perspective of good engineering to make ethanol for use as fuel and very little sense to make methanol for this purpose.
2007-05-25 11:17:16 · 4 answers · asked by jim m 5 in Environment ➔ Global Warming
While biomass can be converted to hydrocarbons, it is not done directly. First, the biomass must be converted to syngas, a mixture of carbonm monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The syngas can then be recombined into various hydrocarbons. The process has been around for some time and has been used extensively in some areas to convert coal to gasoline. Biomass is somewhat more difficult because of its variable composition and moisture content, but it is certainly possible.
The production of syngas is, however, fairly energy intinsive so you must either use an outside source of energy or burn a portion of the biomass feed to produce the required heat. This greatly reduces the efficiency of the conversion and of course increases the overall cost of the fuels produced. As a result, the net cost of the fuel product is higher than the cost of similar fuels produced through refining of petroleum.
2007-05-26 02:07:53 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It has already been developed. The process is more expensive than ethanol in terms of money. The best known company with an operational plant is Changing World Technologies, http://www.changingworldtech.com/what/index.asp
You might want to look at fuels such as butanol and support them. Butanol is a much better option than crude or ethanol as it has most of the power of normal gasoline but isn't corrosive like ethanol is.
http://www.butanol.com/
2007-05-25 18:48:51 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I had a question along similar lines to this put before a parliamentary committee in the UK. The committee was convened from representatives of the oil and nuclear power industry, all others were excluded - guess what, they rejected the idea.
2007-05-25 18:33:19 · answer #3 · answered by Trevor 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
because big business for the most part run,s government so if someone has a idea that work,s you think it,s going to get out in to the market with big business so heavily invested in oil and natural gas \ pulse look at the fool in the white house you know he get kick back,s from oil and gas big time
2007-05-25 22:02:30 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋