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[Bobby Isosceles]

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[Arachno-capitalist]

There is a device about the size of a refrigerator, costs under 3k, and it will make ethanol from any alcohol or straight up from sugar and yeast or whatever. I saw it in Wired. Its a self contained unit with a pump and all. It exists, but I am a man who never has alcohol to throw away.

[Bobby Isosceles]

There is a device about the size of a refrigerator, costs under 3k, and it will make ethanol from any alcohol or straight up from sugar and yeast or whatever. I saw it in Wired. Its a self contained unit with a pump and all. It exists, but I am a man who never has alcohol to throw away.

There is the device the size of a bucket that makes ethanol from straight up sugar and yeast. It is called "a bucket." That is how you make beer, wine, cider, inter alia.

There is a device the size of a bucket inside of a freezer that makes ethanol from any alcoho. It is called "a bucket inside of a freezer." It is called freeze or fractional distillation.

[Doc]

There is a device the size of a bucket inside of a freezer that makes ethanol from any alcoho. It is called "a bucket inside of a freezer." It is called freeze or fractional distillation.

Damnit I wanted say that.
Except I probably would have gone with a heating bath and some copper or glass tubing.

I read about this yesterday and really liked the idea, but it would be cooler if he had a distillation system in line in the car so he could literally pour in bottles of wine. I wonder how much energy it takes to run this thing in if the energy required to distill the ethanol out of wine is taken into account.

Conversation about this at my work quickly descended into another car powered by the violence inherent in the system. We named it the internal repression engine.

[smick]

"There is the device the size of a bucket that makes ethanol from straight up sugar and yeast. It is called "a bucket." That is how you make beer, wine, cider, inter alia.  There is a device the size of a bucket inside of a freezer that makes ethanol from any alcoho. It is called "a bucket inside of a freezer." It is called freeze or fractional distillation.", said Bobby to the Brewer.

[Bobby Isosceles]

GM is investing in a company called Mascoma which is working on a way to mass-produce ethanol from cellulose from fast-growing wood (poplar) ... and presumably recycled paper? I wonder how it will compete with Brazil's ethanol production from sugarcane: sugarcane grows faster, but the yield is less and I imagine post-consumer recycled sugar doesn't exist.

[Arachno-capitalist]

. . . said Bobby to the Brewer.

Seriously. Thank you. Not only do I work at a brewery, I homebrew, I know where alcohol comes from.

[Bobby Isosceles]

Seriously. Thank you. Not only do I work at a brewery, I homebrew, I know where alcohol comes from.

Fair enough. So, here's a question: how rat-ass nasty will beer or wine made with 'turbo yeast' taste? My understanding is that turbo was bred (if that's the proper word) for industrial ethanol production.

[Arachno-capitalist]

GM is investing in a company called Mascoma which is working on a way to mass-produce ethanol from cellulose from fast-growing wood (poplar) ... and presumably recycled paper? I wonder how it will compete with Brazil's ethanol production from sugarcane: sugarcane grows faster, but the yield is less and I imagine post-consumer recycled sugar doesn't exist.

And here you've stumbled on the one question that I want to ask a national political candidate. Everyone is for alternative energy on both sides, John McCain is for free trade, Obama is for corn subsidies, and everyone wants to lower the price of gasoline. SO WHY IN THE HELL DO WE BLOCK CHEAP SUGAR FROM ENTERING THE COUNTRY AND INSIST ON USING CORN. The answer is special interest sugar farm groups and the importance of corn-growing states in the electoral process. I want them to admit that they know how we can make cheap ethanol without messing with food prices, but choose not to in order to get support from corn farmer states and domestic sugar producers.

[Bobby Isosceles]

And here you've stumbled on the one question that I want to ask a national political candidate. Everyone is for alternative energy on both sides, John McCain is for free trade, Obama is for corn subsidies, and everyone wants to lower the price of gasoline. SO WHY IN THE HELL DO WE BLOCK CHEAP SUGAR FROM ENTERING THE COUNTRY AND INSIST ON USING CORN. The answer is special interest sugar farm groups and the importance of corn-growing states in the electoral process. I want them to admit that they know how we can make cheap ethanol without messing with food prices, but choose not to in order to get support from corn farmer states and domestic sugar producers.

Have you read "The Omnivore's Dilemma"? It doesn't really answer the question (although it touches upon it), but it does show the bizarre, vicious cycle that our siding with corn has caused. Moreover, people are now blaming ethanol for the food prices -- a problem that, as you say, can happen if you don't pander to corn and sugar producers.

Semi-rhetorical:

There are only two kinds of organisms I know that break down cellulose into sugars: the bacteria that live inside of termites, and certain types of fungus. And of course there's only the yeasts that turn sugars into ethanol. A question: why aren't there mass-produced, synthetic batches of the various enzymes that break cellulose into starch, starch into sugar (big bag o'amylase/diastase), and sugar into ethanol? Is the process cost-prohibitive or does it have to take place on a micro level? Will nanotechnology impact this, assuming it can get off the ground with our current power crisis?

[Doc]

And here you've stumbled on the one question that I want to ask a national political candidate. Everyone is for alternative energy on both sides, John McCain is for free trade, Obama is for corn subsidies, and everyone wants to lower the price of gasoline. SO WHY IN THE HELL DO WE BLOCK CHEAP SUGAR FROM ENTERING THE COUNTRY AND INSIST ON USING CORN. The answer is special interest sugar farm groups and the importance of corn-growing states in the electoral process. I want them to admit that they know how we can make cheap ethanol without messing with food prices, but choose not to in order to get support from corn farmer states and domestic sugar producers.

Yeah coming from a state with a lot of sugar cane it took me a while to understand why you guys kept talking about making ethanol from corn.

There are only two kinds of organisms I know that break down cellulose into sugars: the bacteria that live inside of termites, and certain types of fungus. And of course there's only the yeasts that turn sugars into ethanol. A question: why aren't there mass-produced, synthetic batches of the various enzymes that break cellulose into starch, starch into sugar (big bag o'amylase/diastase), and sugar into ethanol? Is the process cost-prohibitive or does it have to take place on a micro level? Will nanotechnology impact this, assuming it can get off the ground with our current power crisis?

Without knowing as much about this as I could: Enzymes are just proteins that can catalyse a chemical reaction, in general proteins are a pain to synthesize in vitro as soon as you get above a certain size. It's like threading beads, you have to add one amino acid at a time and since you're doing it in bulk for each reaction, for each bead added to the string if you like, there'll be a small percentage that simply don't add the bead or get it wrong in some other way. Since you're repeating this over and over again a few hundred or thousand times it doesn't take too long for these incorrectly strung proteins to become a significant impurity, this isn't even addressing making sure the protein folds correctly since an enzyme's shape is normally directly linked to it's function. Overall (last time I had to study the area anyway) it's much easier to just insert the corresponding string of DNA into a bacteria or plant and let them produce it for you and then collect and purify after the fact. So my guess is since it's easier to just let the bacteria make the enzymes we may as well let them do the whole job.

Nothing is rhetorical in.... TOUAMB-land!

[Bobby Isosceles]

Yeah coming from a state with a lot of sugar cane it took me a while to understand why you guys kept talking about making ethanol from corn.

Without knowing as much about this as I could: Enzymes are just proteins that can catalyse a chemical reaction, in general proteins are a pain to synthesize in vitro as soon as you get above a certain size. It's like threading beads, you have to add one amino acid at a time and since you're doing it in bulk for each reaction, for each bead added to the string if you like, there'll be a small percentage that simply don't add the bead or get it wrong in some other way. Since you're repeating this over and over again a few hundred or thousand times it doesn't take too long for these incorrectly strung proteins to become a significant impurity, this isn't even addressing making sure the protein folds correctly since an enzyme's shape is normally directly linked to it's function. Overall (last time I had to study the area anyway) it's much easier to just insert the corresponding string of DNA into a bacteria or plant and let them produce it for you and then collect and purify after the fact. So my guess is since it's easier to just let the bacteria make the enzymes we may as well let them do the whole job.

Nothing is rhetorical in.... TOUAMB-land!

That's pretty much the answer that I came up with. So what the hell is Mascoma going to do? BACTERIA VATS? YEAST PITS? We have yet to see. I'd invest in them, though. I have no affiliation with them, so I'm not astroturfing or shilling.

[jaydub]

The wine used for the bioethanol comes from current vintage that remains after English wine producers reach the EU limit for annual wine production...

The hell?  The EU is a wine cartel?  Sorry old chap, you can't sell that wonderful Beaujolais because French farmers will complain about low prices.  Don't worry though, Prince Charlie's chariot can burn it all up. 

[Doc]

That's pretty much the answer that I came up with. So what the hell is Mascoma going to do? BACTERIA VATS? YEAST PITS? We have yet to see.

Probably, look up 'bioreactor'. It's a more common technique than you might think.

In fact the wiki page has an image of a "Bioreactor for cellulosic ethanol research".

[jaydub]

Probably, look up 'bioreactor'. It's a more common technique than you might think.

See also: Human Large Intestine