Fuel of the Future
It seems as though we have been bombarded with new ideas and people finding ways to solve the fuel crisis that is affecting our world. These concerns have affected large car manufacturers as well as airlines. With the rising price of gasoline, people are trading in their luxury sport utility vehicles for smaller and more fuel-efficient cars. There are many people trying to fix this issue and encourage others to go green. Some individuals at Auburn University are making great strides alleviate our dependency on today’s gasoline.
Auburn University’s Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering and the Masada Resource Group LLC have entered into an $1 million per year deal to evaluate and even produce alternative sources of fuel.
Harry Cullinan, principle investigator and director for the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering, expressed the urgency of finding a new cost-effective source of energy because of the rise in costs for current fuels.
According to an Auburn University news release, Cullinan and his team feel that the most promising alternative source comes from biomass. Biomass is a broad term that includes many plants and waste materials. Biomass combined with the conventional production capabilities will allow many factories to produce a wider range of renewable energy products whether they are fuel or chemical.
The Masada Corporation has had great success in developing ways to safely process and dispose of sludge, and at the same time generates ethanol. Thanks to this process they call the CES OxyNol Process, about 90 percent of waste can be either recycled or converted so that it is not harmful. Now the biomass method will help to further the elimination of waste that is sent to landfills and incinerators.
To make this work they must first find a way to identify and validate the optimal pretreatment for the waste to be put through microbial conversion to prepare it for ethanol production.
There are also many more Auburn University chemical engineering faculty members involved in the project along with experts from the Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts.
Timothy Judge has already expressed how pleased he is with the Auburn team in regards to their research and development skills.
Many researchers are working diligently to find a cure for this current energy problem we all face, and it is soothing to know that two very skilled groups can come together to make a difference. This problem may not subside for a while, but there looks to be some light at the end of the tunnel.
Hopefully with research and development like this program, we will be able to decrease our dependency on fuel and produce the fuel of the future. Not only could these advances in alternative fuel cost us less, but it could also make our planet a better place to live.
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