Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Ethanol, Natural Gas
New "corncob sponge" may be a breakthrough in methane, natural gas storage
The merits of ethanol can be debated all day, with opposing viewpoints ranging from "at least it's better than dino-juice" to "it's barely better than hydrogen" to "it's our only viable option". While the truth probably lies somewhere in between the extremes, most agree that corn is not the best source for a starting biomass. But, if corn is not good enough for ethanol, how about we save the corncobs for "sponges" that can store 180 times their own volume of natural gas or methane gas and at one seventh the pressure of conventional natural gas tanks?
One exciting prospect of this technology is that the tanks made from corncobs bricks could be shaped into a flat "gas tank" style, eliminating the bulky storage tanks currently in use for natural gas storage. The current testbed is a pickup used by the Kansas City Office of Environmental Quality. This holds hope for a biomethane powered automobile. Will we ever be running our cars on cow manure?
[Source: The Sietch Blog via Hugg]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John L Nevans 2:30PM (3/21/2007)
Wehave more natural gas in US from quite a few different avenues. I would estimate that we have enough NG fdrom our septic tanks to heat our homes and fuel are autoes.
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Chris M 6:09PM (3/21/2007)
Nah, the average household septic tank doesn't produce enough methane to heat the house, not even enough to bother with. On the other hand, a dairy farm could produce enough methane from manure to heat the farmhouse, and more.
In California, PG&E is making arrangements with local livestock farmers to buy methane for resale. Happy cows making homes toasty warm!
Natural gas (methane) is the only "fossil fuel" with a renewable source.
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JOHN 12:54PM (4/10/2008)
I drive 120 miles/day in a 3/4 ton chevy pickup powered by non upgraded bio-converted methane from cows. I am very interested in the new storage ideas concerning methane. As I can only go 160 miles on a 12 gallon natural gas pressure vessel.
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