Cheap. Green, Food Friendly Biofuel Produced In India

[RestoreGore]

http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3694&language=1

Cheap, green, food-friendly biofuel produced in India
Sweet sorghum makes a cheap and environmentally-friendly biofuelT. V. Padma

19 June 2007
Source: SciDev.Net

The first commercial batch of biofuel from the stalks of a new sweet sorghum hybrid has been produced this month (13 June) at a distillery in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.

Ethanol is produced from the sweet juice in the stalk of the sweet sorghum. The researchers responsible for the hybrid say by using sorghum, resource-poor farmers will still be able to use the sorghum grain and protect food security, while earning an additional income from selling the stalks.

This first batch marks a major success for the research consortium that developed the new hybrid, says Belum V. S. Reddy, principal sorghum breeder at the India-based International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Sweet sorghum is a cheap biofuel crop to grow, costing about a fifth of that of sugarcane. It also requires half the water needed to grow maize and about an eighth of that required for sugarcane.

It is also carbon neutral, according to the Latin American Thematic Network on Bioenergy — a project promoting the sustainable use of bioenergy. Sweet sorghum takes in the same of amount of carbon dioxide during its growth that it emits during growth and its later conversion to ethanol and the eventual ethanol combustion.

When sweet sorghum biofuel is blended with petrol it also emits less polluting sulphur and nitrous oxide compared to sugarcane biofuel, according to Reddy.

end of excerpt.

[NNadir]

1. I've been to India.

For God's sake, it's the last place that one would call a paradise.

When the Ganges river finishes dying - that shouldn't be much longer - they aren't going to be talking about biofuels.

[RestoreGore]

2. Yes, they should just build nuclear plants along the river to make it die even faster

I actually posted this based on the concept, not so much the location to show it can be done.

[NNadir]

3. They will build nuclear plants. Lots of them. They're trying to survive.

India is building 6 nuclear plants right now, four more are on order and 15 more are planned.

One would hope that India would build hundreds of reactors, since right now they are burning coal, unremarked by you. Oh, and if you take a lesson in physics by the way, coal plants are cooled by river water in many places, including India. In fact, I have personally choked on coal smoke in India. They don't build the smokestacks very high.

The water required for the coal plants that operate now - unremarked by you - and India's nuclear plants - is trivial compared to agricultural use in India, which is, by the way, killing of the nation of Bangladesh down stream on the Ganges.

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/freshwater/problems/river_decline/10_rivers_risk/ganges/index.cfm

Oh, and by the way, one of the big threats to the Ganges is renewable energy. They just can't stop building dams. The other threat is something called climate change, in the face of which you just issue platitudes.

[RestoreGore]

5. And the water required to toxify a nuclear plant is no different

So much for your assinine remarks about platitudes. It's obvious you hate the environment and visionary solutions by your posts. Anyone who wants a nuclear world does not truly believe in sustainability or looking beyond the past, only profit.

[Dead_Parrot]

7. Don't you think...

...it's a little late in the day to pissing around with "visionary solutions" and "believing in sustainability"? It's not like we have 20 years to fuck around looking for affordable, non-hydro TWh storage.

The planet is dying now, in case you hadn't noticed.

[RestoreGore]

8. And nuclear will just kill it faster

And people aren't "pissing around" with these solutions, they ARE BEING DONE NOW, only the lobbyists for the nuclear, OIL, and coal industries in this country won't let them come to market here. So those who have supported and continue to support the antiquated methods of the past for profit in lieu of those visionary solutions that ARE HERE NOW are the ones killing this planet.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Really? where?

Germany? Spain? Denmark? Japan?

Exactly what does the rest of the world have that can't "come to market" in the US?

[hankthecrank]

4. A lot of sorghum is grown here in the US also

Minnesota its grown with corn but can't be feed to cattle after it is frozen

Texas and places with less rainfall grow it because it does well on less water. It only grows knee high but still gets good head on it.

All cooling towers could use an update. If saving water was also a factor besides just heat transfer.

This sound good also

[RestoreGore]

6. It does sound good

But again, it wouldn't be used here because there is no profit in it for Archer Midland Daniels or other corporations that would rather back energy hogging time consuming wasteful power plants that only line their pockets.