Talk:Second-generation biofuels

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Misleading

A number of biofuels are processed into biodiesel with transesterification not fermentation into ethanol as the article claims. Nil Einne (talk) 16:15, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Straw ethanol

add straw ethanol text (see biofuel article) ^[1]^[2]

References

this might be useful to somebody

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/biofuels-and-land-grabs-in-poor-nations/

"Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, warned on Thursday that biofuels remain an important driver behind big land acquisitions and land leases in poor countries that jeopardize local inhabitants’ food security.

...

Next-generation biofuels made from plants that would reduce competition with food crops were still in development and so the existing incentives for biofuels in the United States and European Union remained a cause for grave concern, he said.

These newer fuels “were too distant for the moment to say that we can continue to insist on the use of agrofuels for transport.”

He also underlined that second-generation agrofuels “will be hugely water consuming.” " (more) 01:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

"Is anyone accounting the energy used to produce some of these new fuels in the carbon equation?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.12.26.235 (talk) 13:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Areas of improvement

I don't wish to appear negative, but this is a not a good article.

First there should be a logical sequence between the subsections, e.g.: 1. Feedstocks (or primary energy) 2. Intermediate products 3. Conversion technologies 3a. The biochemical route (grinding, pretreatment, hydrolysis etc. up to a sugar solution that would be the same as for first generation technologies) 3b. The thermochemical route (alternative 1: size reduction or drying, gasification, gas cleaning and shift up to syngas that would be the same as for other technologies. alternative 2: pyrolysis and upgrading to liquid biofuels))

Second, listing a wide array of end products is not really the correct scope of this article. For example, many second generation conversion technologies produce syngas as an intermediary. Syngas can then be post treated to produce a number of end products. However, these post treatment procedures and end products are exactly the same for first and second generation biofuels technologies (and gasification of coal or crude oil for that matter), and the subject is and should be treated elsewhere, for example in the syngas article under the section "Post treatment".

Third, the article mentions ethanol a dozen times, which is a strange focus. Although I suppose most of us can agree that ethanol would be an interesting end product we must also realize that no such technologies are as yet commercially feasible, and that the syngas route is at least as feasible and probably in a more advanced stage of development.

Fourth, some of the most promising conversion technologies are not even mentioned, such as pyrolysis and torrefaction.

Fifth, by the sound of it Fischer-Tropsch is very important to second generation biofuels. It is not. Fischer-Tropsch does not enter the biochemical route at all, and the thermochemical route only after gasification, gas cleaning and shift to syngas. Many products can be produced from syngas, with Fischer-Tropsch being one of the technologies but by no means the most efficient, neither from a cost perspective nor from an energy preservation perspective.

The European Biofuels Technology Platform (www.biofuels.tp) offers a good overview of the subject although the focus is not only on second generation biofuels.
--Andersneld (talk) 11:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Having received no reacion to my previous post I went ahead and started some housekeeping. Please do comment and add content under section 'Technologies'.

The most important pending improvement is now section 'Types of biofuel'.

The heading is not appropriate; I suggest 'Off-take'.
The list could be structured more logically. One idea is to use subsections, e.g. 'Biofuels via syngas' and 'Biofuels via other processes'

--Andersneld (talk) 12:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just went ahead and made the proposed changes in section'Types of biofuel'
--213.115.111.142 (talk) 18:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2nd generation biofuels with extra benefits

At List_of_biofuel_companies_and_researchers, 3rd and 4th generation biofuels are mentioned. How about we use the term 2+ generation-biofuels and 2++ generation-biofuels to distinguish them from regular 2nd generation biofuels. They should be subdivision as first and second-gen biofuels have a much more pronounced difference than the second-gen and so-called third/fourth-gen biofuels. As I see it, the extra differences are

3rd gen biofuels: no use of arable land at all for energy production
4th gen biofuels: no use of arable land at all for energy production + no air pollution (this still occurs with the other biofuels, although there are no carbon emissions)

If we use the unofficial 3rd and 4th gen biofuels term, we would give undue weight of them, and promote these fuels too much.

Besides mentioning the 2+ and 2++ gen biofuels differentiation at the mentioned article, we can mention them here aswell. 91.182.28.17 (talk) 17:54, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Second-generation biofuels/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

A recent press release by Japan Airline announces an upcoming flight test using a second-generation biofuel in a 747. The release indicates that the fuel chosen will be exponentially more efficient than first-generation biofuels. Any information on this efficiency increase will be of great interest when added to the existing Wikipedia page. 65.117.229.25 (talk) 23:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Substituted at 21:58, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

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Wiki Education assignment: Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2024

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2024 and 20 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Myosotisx13 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Warmedforbs (talk) 01:26, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Jack Pronk's elephant yeast

[2] Straw to ethanol plant in Sas van Gent

[1]

[2]