GEVO Breakthrough RETROFIT Ethanol to Biobutanol,
Stafford Williamson
October 04, 2009
ETHANOL PRODUCER MAGAZINE has an article that is also quoted on the GEVO.com website. Obviously the fact that the article appears in the Ethanol Producers Magazine they are seeking to communicate with people already producing ethanol and are looking to find other facilities to either acquire or to provide with their conversion package. The modifications were done to a plant built by ICM, whom the article calls one of the largest companies engineering ethanol plants in the US. GEVO Vice President Richard Lund touts that one of the advantages of the "conversion" is that it is really adding the few extra pieces that give the factory dual fuel capabilities. By "turning off" the additional bits, producers can return to making ethanol if/when it might be more profitable. The heart of the GEVO system is a modified yeast that produces isobutanol instead of alcohol. They have also made the organism more resistant to self-poisoning in relatively low concentrations of isobutanol, and have added a mechanism (gas-stripping?) to separate the modified yeast from its excretions to allow for more or less continuous production.
Butanol – Hurrah!
The article indicates that GEVO chose ICM as a partner for retrofitting, in part, because they are one of the largest builders of methanol production facilities, and thus they have a distinct advantage in entering into an exclusive retro-fitting deal for all ICM plants. Isobutanol, in addition to being a "blendstock" like ethanol which can go straight into gasoline powered vehicles, is also more compatible with distribution infrastructure because it is not soluble in water so can be "shipped" via conventional train, truck or pipeline methods. Isobutanol (or more specifically "bio-isobutanol")can also be a feedstock for the production of "green" gasoline or biodiesel or biojet fuel.
Life (in October in particular)
Do you know that old adage? "Life is what happens to you when you are on your way to where you think you wanted to go." In my case it sometimes feels like my life is a daily performance of the "Short Attention Span Improv Theatre". That is not a complaint, just an observation. I have become a good deal more satisfied with my life since I really began to realize that whether or not I am in the "driver´s seat" it is more enjoyable to watch the scenery and "smell the neighbors" along the way.
That wasn´t an insult to my rather lovely neighbors, nor was it an attempt to confuse you, my readers. I just found that "stop and smell the roses" was wearing thin from over-use, so "smell the neighbors" is my own personal version of a similar sentiment. Indeed I have been trying to get back to a routine of a frequent, if not daily, evening walk with my lovely wife, and it rarely fails to evoke fond memories and good feelings as I inhale the bouquet of the blossoms on the fruit trees, or the smell of freshly mown grass (especially in xeriscape dominated Arizona)! I may never make it back to the younger folks territory of "morning jog", but having read the actual hospital notes from my recent encounter there, I discovered that at least 2 of the doctors noted a "partial collapse" of the lower portions of my lungs, which, more recently was reported as "sparkly" sounds by my family physician in a follow up visit. The annoying part about these reports were that they were contained in the "official" reports the doctors filed with the hospital, but no one ever told me that I had "partially collapsed" lungs. It was only because some of the doctors I have been seeing and/or am going to be seeing over the next couple of weeks had not received (or not read) the hospital reports that caused me to pick up a copy for myself. I had to look up the term "basilar atelectasis" to find out that it meant, "collapsed or partially collapsed lung(s)". I do resent the fact that none of the doctors ever mentioned any words that would indicate such a condition, even though some admitted it "might" have been "some fluid" in the lungs that could be called either pneumonia or bronchitis. Admittedly you don´t want to send patients into near apoplectic fits as they panic over a technical term or a definition they might misunderstand, but at least they could have used words like, "under-inflated" or "not completely filling with air". It is undoubtedly hard to be a doctor these days, but it is no picnic being a patient either.
Blood pressure – a quick note
Also among the hospital records I discovered what medicine they gave me that almost instantly reduced my blood pressure from unacceptably high to a very moderate and "near normal" (at least) range when my standard blood pressure pills (the one´s I had been prescribed to take at home) were not doing the job. Now, this is not intended to be medical advice to anyone, just an "anecdotal report" but although the drug lisinopril (40 mg/daily) was not keeping my blood pressure in check (hospital readings were in the range of 195/105) an IV shot of hydralazine** (10mg) and a 0.1mg transdermal patch of clonidine (intended for a single 24 hour dose) dropped pressure readings to 127/79 within an hour or less.
HYDRALAZINE: an antihypertensive drug C8H8N4used in the form of its hydrochloride and acting to produce peripheral arteriolar dilation by relaxing vascular smooth muscle Dictionary.com. Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hydralazine (accessed: October 03, 2009).
The Pressure ISN´T All in the Blood
As annoyed as I am about the snail pace of energy legislation, even I am painfully aware that the most important issue facing the USA today is the Healthcare Insurance reform act(s) now pending in the Congress. As a recent hospital patient, I am also somewhat intimately acquainted with both wasteful and expensive procedures. Oddly enough, few if any, of the procedures done to me (or for me) seemed to me to be "wasteful" or inefficient, with one major and contrarian opinion. I think that the CAT scan (with contrast dye) was highly effective, while the several x-rays (pre-op and post-op) were of very little value. I will include here an example of my own x-rays for your consideration.
Now, admittedly, the radiologist (who is "required") to "read" this has an image that is fairly typically about 11" by 15" (or larger) or these days, it is as likely to be a high resolution computer screen that can be zoomed even larger to examine details in a close up view (my copy of this is on disk and I have "zoomed" it in places myself). However, it is so blurry and because it is a completely "translucent" THROUGH the body view that anyone but the most skilled of practitioners of the radiologists "art" are unlikely to make out anything very meaningful from this kind of fuzzy image with no particular focal plane. That is especially true because there is no ability to screen out the other layers overlain all at once. I use the word "art" in quotes because it seems to me that "interpreting" an x-ray image is indeed an interpretive art not all that distantly related to the divining of meaning from chicken entrails in the time of Caesar Augustus in ancient Rome.
Three dimensional slices of CT scans or MRI scans are far more useful, and a far cry from the interpretive witchcraft that is involved in ´guess and goof´ of conventional x-rays. That is not meant to be an indictment of the abilities of radiologists everywhere, but rather that "reading" an x-ray requires extraordinary skills beyond those of most doctors (despite what you see on TV), especially if the diagnosis is for something small or subtle because of the limitations of the x-ray technology itself. It may not be as outmoded as blood-letting, but it should fast find its way to that shelf of historical curiosities.
The "answer" to the "wasteful" spending is NOT to reduce the number of "unnecessary" CT or MRI scans, but rather to bring down the cost of CT and MRI scans by reducing the cost of the equipment (by increasing the volume of sales for one thing) and "getting it right the first time" by having useful results of clear 3D images not blurry divinations from ghostly blobs.
Happy Thought
I often forget the details of this brief story, so I present it here because today I can remember it.
It seems that a big city patient came to the small country doctor´s office to see about a rather nasty infection on his leg where he had scratched it a few days earlier. The doctor took a look, drained the pus from the wound, poured some peroxide on it, covered it in a large bandage and wrote a prescription for anti-biotic medicine which he handed to the patient with his bill for $24.50. The patient was stunned at the tiny bill. He said to the doctor, "Thanks, Doc, but don´t you have some other tests you can do? I mean, I don´t mind your bill being so small, but I´m just not used to this kind of medicine. Back home I´d pay at least $300 for this kind of visit. Shouldn´t you do some other tests or something?"
The doctor, being the sort who got into medicine to be able to help people, not to get rich and invest in apartment buildings, stroked his chin contemplatively for a moment, "I s´pose you´re right," he said. He then went into the next room and returned with a big yellow cat that he placed on the counter and left the room. The cat looked at the stranger, arched his back, hissed and scrambled out the door as the doctor returned with a big yellow dog. "Say ´hello´ Goldie," was all he said to the dog, who held up here paw to "shake", which the patient obligingly took in his hand and smiled as he "shook." Goldie licked the stranger´s hand then turned and trotted out of the room. "That should fix you up," the doctor said, handing the stranger his revised bill with a big smile. It now read … "Cat scan and lab results $300, Doctor´s services $24.50, Total $324.50." The stranger smiled the whole way back to the big city.
Love and warm wishes,
Sincerely,
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
http://daochienergy.com
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