TOBACCO -- source for Ethanol Feedstock
Sounds like a better way than using corn!!!
only with all the bans on smoking it will probably go the way of Canabis and be removed from cultavation before it can be appreciated for its other uses.
Tobacco also has uses as a natural insect repelent/cide
While almost every plant on earth has been investigated as an alternative energy resource, for some odd reason tobacco has been entirely overlooked. I call this odd because the high sugar & starch composition of tobacco is well-known, as is the very low lignin encasement of its cellulosic materials. With this data alone it should be clear to science, agriculture, and industry worldwide that the tobacco plant has a nearly ideal composition for direct digestion to ethanol, and is also an ideal candidate for biomethanation or gasification. Tobacco-based ethanol can be produced for far less cost per gallon, with far more economically valuable sidestreams, than corn-based ethanol ( see below for full details). Further, it is known that tobacco is a heavily coppicing plant, enabling it to produce very high biomass tonnage, and it is also known that tobacco thrives on poor soils in a wide range of environments.
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of tobacco-based biomass fuel is that not only would tobacco fuel not take away from food crop production, as corn-based ethanol does, it would actually add immense tonnage of food-grade protein that can be extracted from the sludge remaining after ethanol is produced. Fraction-1 protein is an odorless, tasteless crystalline substance that can be extracted from tobacco, and it is a complete protein - as efficient a source of human food value as beef. It would be totally 'paid for' by the ethanol produced from the tobacco biomass, and so it would be, in effect, free food. It can be added to flour of all kinds and used to produce baked goods like bread and tortillas, adding enough high quality at no cost to these basic foods to practically eliminate protein deficiencies in even the poorest countries.
addtional information on the same site
In summary, Tobacco biomass can be produced at well over a hundred tons per acre, using either hand labor or simple machinery, on land that is unsuitable for food crops, and that biomass material can not only provide low cost bioenergy, extracted as biogas or ethanol or both, but also after that energy has been produced, pure unadulterated food grade protein, along with medical grade protein and other economically valuable byproducts, can be extracted from the fermentation tank or digester sludge. Then that sludge, which is very high in available nitrogen, and other nutrients and trace elements, can be returned to the soil.
http://home.ktc.com/bdrake/tbe3.html
A second article http://www.newsline.umd.edu/business/specialreports/tobacco/tobaccob030201.htm
only with all the bans on smoking it will probably go the way of Canabis and be removed from cultavation before it can be appreciated for its other uses.
Tobacco also has uses as a natural insect repelent/cide
While almost every plant on earth has been investigated as an alternative energy resource, for some odd reason tobacco has been entirely overlooked. I call this odd because the high sugar & starch composition of tobacco is well-known, as is the very low lignin encasement of its cellulosic materials. With this data alone it should be clear to science, agriculture, and industry worldwide that the tobacco plant has a nearly ideal composition for direct digestion to ethanol, and is also an ideal candidate for biomethanation or gasification. Tobacco-based ethanol can be produced for far less cost per gallon, with far more economically valuable sidestreams, than corn-based ethanol ( see below for full details). Further, it is known that tobacco is a heavily coppicing plant, enabling it to produce very high biomass tonnage, and it is also known that tobacco thrives on poor soils in a wide range of environments.
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of tobacco-based biomass fuel is that not only would tobacco fuel not take away from food crop production, as corn-based ethanol does, it would actually add immense tonnage of food-grade protein that can be extracted from the sludge remaining after ethanol is produced. Fraction-1 protein is an odorless, tasteless crystalline substance that can be extracted from tobacco, and it is a complete protein - as efficient a source of human food value as beef. It would be totally 'paid for' by the ethanol produced from the tobacco biomass, and so it would be, in effect, free food. It can be added to flour of all kinds and used to produce baked goods like bread and tortillas, adding enough high quality at no cost to these basic foods to practically eliminate protein deficiencies in even the poorest countries.
addtional information on the same site
In summary, Tobacco biomass can be produced at well over a hundred tons per acre, using either hand labor or simple machinery, on land that is unsuitable for food crops, and that biomass material can not only provide low cost bioenergy, extracted as biogas or ethanol or both, but also after that energy has been produced, pure unadulterated food grade protein, along with medical grade protein and other economically valuable byproducts, can be extracted from the fermentation tank or digester sludge. Then that sludge, which is very high in available nitrogen, and other nutrients and trace elements, can be returned to the soil.
http://home.ktc.com/bdrake/tbe3.html
A second article http://www.newsline.umd.edu/business/specialreports/tobacco/tobaccob030201.htm
