[Gasification] questions

[Kermit Schlansker]

         One major question that I have about gasification is why corn cobs
are not mentioned more as a major fuel source. There must be a lot of them
and as combined heat and power they could keep farm houses, schools, and
apartments warm. I know that some of them are returned to the soil and some
are probably used to distill ethanol. Wouldn’t it be better to distill the
ethanol with solar energy or with combined heat and manufacturing
(comanufacturing)? Is cellulosic ethanol likely to become important?
Another question is, can we gasify the cobs and then return the ashes to
the soil or must we put carbon back to the soil to fertilize it?  Would
powdered coal stay indefinitely in the soil and do the same thing? On this
list I have seen opinions on both side of this but I hope someone knows the
truth.

          Since fertilizer is all important to gasification and it will be
scarce, we should consider the use of sewage for fertilizer. One of the
reasons that sewage is said to be unfit is that medicines and other
impurities would poison us. Wouldn’t gasification destroy many of these
organic compounds and thus purify the ashes so they could be used as
fertilizer for food crops? Inorganic compounds probably would not be
destroyed and in recycling fertilizer, salt might be the ultimate pollutant.


          Tom Reed’s gasification driven tractor seemed to me to be one of
the best gasification projects. I did think that the sheet metal would rust
pretty quickly and that it needed cast iron. I wonder if it ever worked
enough to plow with. I believe that some farm made ethanol used as a
starting and power increasing fuel might make it more practical. Making
farming self supporting in terms of energy seems like a good idea.

       There are many corn fields surrounding Ann Arbor yet the best energy
project the city has came up with is a large array of solar panels. Why not
use those corn cobs? Where is the propaganda machine for biomass energy? I
believe that available biomass energy is greater than either solar or wind
but the environmentalists ignore and deplore it. One way to advertise the
virtue of biomass energy would be to create a large farm with an apartment
on it. Gasification, can combine heat and power for the building and also
create enough fuel for plowing from farm biomass. This would create a huge
advertising of the need for gasification.



                                                     K Schlansker
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