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Len Rosen's picture
Principal Author and Editor, 21st Century Tech Blog

Futurist, Writer and Researcher, now retired, former freelance writer for new technology ventures. Former President & CEO of Len Rosen Marketing Inc., a marketing consulting firm focused on...

  • Member since 2018
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  • Dec 1, 2022
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A new, private company, Rainforest Energy Corporation, plans to build biorefinery processing facilities in multiple sites to convert forest and agriculture waste into “clean fuels.”

 

Rainforest hopes to produce fuel substitutes not derived from extracting oil or gas, but rather from the waste products of forestry (burn slash) and agriculture, the latter not to be confused with crops like corn purposely grown to produce ethanol. These synfuel-derived alternates would include gasoline, diesel, and propane substitutes.

The company intends to capture the carbon dioxide (CO2) as well from its biorefineries and through partnerships sequester it underground, use it in other industrial processes, or be source material for carbon composites and other high-value products like carbon-infused cement.

Discussions
Rick Engebretson's picture
Rick Engebretson on Dec 2, 2022

The referenced corporate overview is quite good. Your review is rather flawed. For example, your statement "corn purposely grown to produce ethanol" ignores the vital food nutrients produced by the yeast growing from corn sugar.

The corporate plan, IMHO, is a great improvement over other similar efforts to produce syngas from CO2 + H2O reactant feedstock that requires removal of the O2 from the product stream. Biomass carbohydrate does not have this problem. And given the global need for soil carbon sequestration fertility enhancement, the proposal is very green indeed.

There seems to be a lot of activity picking up using syngas. Shell Oil is mentioned with kerosene aviation fuel, this group mentions gasoline and propane. Corn C4 photosynthesis is a focus for CO2 atmospheric extraction.

So good science is now happening in big industry. If anyone looks at the web site "solarpaces.org" one might ask what China intends to do with all that new Concentrated Solar. Maybe big oil doesn't want to get caught napping?

Len Rosen's picture
Len Rosen on Dec 2, 2022

In a world where there is food insecurity, the notion of growing corn to produce ethanol biofuels seems absurd. 

Rick Engebretson's picture
Rick Engebretson on Dec 3, 2022

The world can no longer grow crop proteins and other very complex biochemical nutrients to feed the population. Clover, alfalfa, soybeans, legumes can't do it anymore. Some now encourage eating insects. Yeast grown from corn sugar and simple nutrients now produce significant livestock feeds eventually for human diets. The ethanol is a waste product with marginal energy value, but very successful pollution control. Not absurd, just less simple.

Len Rosen's picture
Thank Len for the Post!
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