In the rural part of Georgia, a man named Devon Dartnell is paving a way for world fuel economy. Devon Dartnell, Biomass program manager for the Georgia Forestry Commission is leading a construction of a plant that will work on converting forestry wastes to the car fuel, ethanol.
The facility will test the economic viability of lumber and agricultural by-products rather than corn or sugar cane to be used in ethanol production.
The plant will be financed by prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla and Range Fuels headed by a former Apple executive.
Dartnell is aspiring for a $76 million Department of Energy grant that will eventually lead to more plants and a new industry in the state.
"This gives us energy security and it keeps all the money in-state," said Dartnell, "Today, if we buy a tank of gasoline, a lot of money ends up with the oil reserve owners and refiners, and it's spread all around the world."
The plant to be built is about to generate cellulosic ethanol, a modern biofuel that the investors expect to meet the oil demands of the federal state and consequently lessen the reliance of oil exports.
On the other hand, like any advanced biofuel tested and introduced, there are also expected pitfalls of this biofuel like long-standing technology hurdles and other environmental concerns.
"Just because the technology can be done right doesn't mean we will use it right or develop it in a smart way; that's the real challenge," said Nathanael Greene, senior policy analyst at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
"Biofuels, in particular, can be anywhere from very good for the environment to very bad."
According to the cellulosic ethanol promoters, it will not undergo the same intensive farming and labor of corn ethanol. It also offers more advantage than the latter.
Cellulosic ethanol will be generated from the wood of the trees. Even the wood from natural disasters and fires can be used. The wood will undergo a multi-step thermochemical process.
The Range plant will be completed sometime next year and it claims the possibility of producing 20 million gallons of the cellulosic ethanol per year, intending to expand the production to 100 million gallons annually. According to Darnell, the United States has enough wood residues from milling and farming that they can even produce 2 billion gallons of ethanol each year.
What effect will this fuel bring to our internal combustion engines and emission control systems? We just have to wait and see. They have to test the compatibility of this fuel to engines of different car models and its parts, for example parts like Lincoln oxygen Sensor and converter.
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