Joby Jacob, Ph.D.

The fermentation of the natural sugars (and starches) in grains and grapes yields beer and wine, and this has remained essentially unchanged for almost 10,000 years.  Distilling these products yields pure ethanol. An E-85 (85% Ethanol Fuel Pump) By Mariordo Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz (Own work) [ CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons Recently, there's been much ado about Ethanol subsidies in Congress . Corn producers are very keen on keeping these subsidies intact,  of course. However, utilizing a good portion of our food grain for fuel production probably isn't a long term solution as it will serve to increase food prices. In the production of our food crops, we have several tons of secondary material - such as corn stalks, which essentially go to waste. This material, is indigestible by yeast because it mostly consists of lignin . Furthermore, plants like  switchgrass  cannot be used for large scale ethanol production because mos...

Recently, I read about two major scientific advancements in the field of alternative fuels. The first involved the production of hydrogen, and the other is a major breakthrough in the production of cellulosic Ethanol. In this post, I’ll talk about the hydrogen production breakthrough. Hydrogen Filling Station, Iceland. By Jóhann Heiðar Árnason (Own work) [ CC BY-SA 3.0  or  GFDL ], via Wikimedia Commons Others have already demonstrated “artificial photosynthesis” where light is used to cleave water into hydrogen from oxygen. A so called hydrogen economy would be ideal because its main byproduct would be the production of water vapor as opposed to carbon dioxide or particulate pollution. Artificial photosynthesis would allow for the cheap production of hydrogen and is one part of many missing parts in converting into a hydrogen based economy. (Other problems include how to store hydrogen effectively, how to transport it and how to retrofit the existing infrastructure,...