The Potential of Potato Power

[Elok]

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000456

Hopefully that link will work; if not, just google "Zhang hydrogen starch" (sans quotes) and you should get a bundle of links. A team of scientists have come up with a way to extract hydrogen from starch using a chain of enzymes. They mix starch, water, and thirteen enzymes from various sources in a reactor at thirty degrees celsius, and out comes hydrogen and carbon dioxide. It's crude and takes a while, but they think they can improve it by finding better enzymes that work at higher temperatures, and so on. Plus they're working on a longer chain that could convert common, inedible cellulose instead of refined starches which we use for food. This seems to have a lot of promise to me as a means to free us from OPEC...which means someone is now going to point out some fatal flaw in the scheme. I just know it. Comments?

[Provost Harrison]

The Irish have sworn by it for years

[Ecthy]

If it produces carbon dioxide then there's no benefit from an environmental point of view.

[Provost Harrison]

Carbon hydroxide?

[Provost Harrison]

If you mean carbon dioxide, well, that is where you are wrong, because it is linked into the carbon cycle...the same applies with fuels derived from other such sources. However the problem tends to be finding the land to grow these huge quantities of crops rather than the environmental concerns of burning the fuels derived from them.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Carbon hydroxide?

What have you been smoking

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Carbon hydroxide?

Uhh....

Doesn't C(OH)4 devolve into CO2 and 2(H2O) within a fraction of a second?

[b etor]

potatoes are so yummy

[Elok]

Originally posted by Ecthy
If it produces carbon dioxide then there's no benefit from an environmental point of view.

If that really bothers you, we can capture the CO2 as it comes out of the reactor and use it to make lots and lots of fizzy drinks. Whatever. The exciting things about this are:

1. It produces hydrogen far more efficiently than previous methods, and promises still greater effectiveness if they can coax it out of cellulose.
2. It's far more efficient than ethanol in terms of energy gained per pound of organic glop used.
3. We're no longer held hostage by the $%#@! Arabs.

Whether those three are enough remains to be seen.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Elok
If that really bothers you, we can capture the CO2 as it comes out of the reactor and use it to make lots and lots of fizzy drinks.

And that would help with the environmental balance how?

[Elok]

That way it's not in the atmosphere, it's in our guts. Or in tightly sealed cans of soda. Or, if you insist, we can put it in barrels and bury it in Yucca Mountain. Make giant vats of algae to digest it back into oxygen, whatever. My point is that this way we at least have some control over the gas by producing it in reactors rather than spewing it indiscriminately from our exhaust pipes.

TBH, though, I'm not terribly bothered by CO2 one way or the other. Sure, they say it'll cause global warming, hurricanes, floods, locusts and the smiting of our firstborn, but reducing our CO2 production enough to prevent all that is essentially impossible AFAICT. Driving hybrids and eating locally grown foods ain't gonna cut it, and China's not about to wreck its own industrial growth for any reason. We need to get energy from somewhere, and there are no free rides. And while we can adapt to screwy weather, flooding, and just about anything else, we're not going to do it without plenty of power.

I'm worried more about running out of fuel. From that perspective, renewable energy sources are essential, and enzyme-extracted hydrogen is much more renewable than fossil fuel.

[snoopy369]

Dump iron into the oceans

[Ecthy]

Elok, yoi're stupid. Sorry but that's the way it is. by adding the CO2 to the digestive process you're not helping nature a bit because sooner or later it'll be in the atmosphere, be it by farts or whatever. Impressive you didn't think of this when you replied to my post.

[snoopy369]

Farts are CH4...

[Ecthy]

If you drink stuff with CO2, don't tell me it leaves your body any other way than that. Be it burps or beer farts, Not every fart is the same you know. Us historians have done a great deal of fart research.