Information Madness

People have been looking for a substitute for gasoline for ages now. Butanol can be an eco-friendly alternative to conventional fuel. Animal faeces can be an economically viable way to produce it. It was stated in a report by Professor Mullin from Tulane University in New Orleans. He has collected manure from many animals for his laboratory.

He has been looking for microbes capable of breaking down cellulose and converting it to bio-fuel. The droppings of many animals like giraffes and zebras contain TU-103, a bacterium that breaks down the cellulose. The microbes also thrive on cotton waste and pure cellulose composed of fibres, seeds and twigs. Bagasse can also be used as well as chopped up copies of newspapers.

Mullin is one of the many scientists involved in the competition with many companies to develop an economically viable bio-fuel substitute for gasoline. This is one of those situations where it is clear what needs to be done but doing it in a sensible way is proving to be difficult.

Refining cellulose means using corn husks instead of corn kernels, bagasse instead of sugar cane and agricultural waste of all kinds. Breaking down cellulose is the extra step and it is an expensive one. The ideal bio-fuel is one that can be made up with anything scooped off the ground or dumped directly into the fermenting vat from a trash bin.

Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans inspired Professor Mullin to look for diamonds in the dung. When the university lost power for three months, his experiments under refrigeration were destroyed. He started serious work on butanol, a compound with four carbon atoms and a higher energy kick than the two-carbon ethanol.

Butanol can power automobiles by itself. It does not absorb water when transported as ethanol does. So, it could use gasoline pipelines, tankers and other fossil-fuel infrastructure.