utenzi

I saw an interesting press release from UM today. According to it: University of Maryland research that started with bacteria from the Chesapeake Bay has led to a process that may be able to convert large volumes of all kinds of plant products, from leftover brewer's mash to paper trash, into ethanol and other biofuel alternatives to gasoline. That's pretty exciting since, if commercially viable, it'll allow "cheap" plant materials to be used to produce ethanol. Using corn, as we do now, is silly since the energy you get out isn't much higher than what you put in to grow and process the corn. And then there's the really annoying side effect of raising prices to consumers on corn and all downstream products (farmland, cows, meat, soda, popcorn, and on and on and on---everything uses corn!). Making ethanol from switchgrass won't cause these economic difficulties. That process of making ethanol from cellulose was developed by University of Maryland profes...