<p dir="ltr">I never see corn cobs any more. I'm not sure but I think the modern combine spits them out on the ground.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Jeff</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Feb 20, 2015 2:56 PM, "Kermit Schlansker" <<a href="mailto:kssustain@gmail.com">kssustain@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span> </span></font></font></font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span> </span>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?<span> </span>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. </font></font></font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span> </span>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.<span> </span></font></font></font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span> </span>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.</font></font></font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span> </span>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. </font></font></font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><span>
</span>K Schlansker<span>
</span></font></font></font></p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div>
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