Branson announced a 25 million dollar prize for the invention of a process that would remove GHG from the atmosphere.  Since then I have tried several ideas.  No check yet.  Maybe he doesn't read my blog?  Hehey. I put it up on Grist. 

Anyway, since the media has turned on ethanol in a big way and fuel farming in general, and  rightly so.  I offered this reality check and substitue farm based energy process in response.  Farm biogas that actually cancels out GHG from other sources..

Bill Maher is sending out the anti-ethanol message, that it increases GHG and it is responsible for starvation around the world, causing food riots.

So now the rest of the comedy oriented progressive news cycle will pick it up.

Leaving ethanol advocates looking quite lame.  Like shills for agribizz pork barrel government/industry corruption.

I think they have lost the battle, based on several studies featuring the doubling of GHG from substituting ethanol for gasoline, and more information indicating that corn tortilla prices have tripled because of corn/ethanol demand.  This has caused widespread hardship and starvation in areas where grain products, like corn meal are a necessary dietary staple.

Maher said the only reason candidates had to support ethanol, was because the primaries started in Iowa.  Where agribizz corn/ethanol propaganda holds sway.

I am really starting to like the prospect of farm biogas as a fuel.  A fairly small, low pressure tank of methane, consumed in a very efficient solid oxide fuel cell/microturbine generator would take a plugin hybrid hypercar (ultralight/very strong carbon fiber body/frame) a few hundred miles after the initial 60 miles on the plugin battery pack.

This same system, in larger sizes could power trucks, tractors, construction equipment,  buses, and trains with actual carbon sequestration as the result.  How?

Well for every kwh worth of electric power generated (for cars, trucks, and trains in this case) and CO2 emitted, the biogas digestion process removes 20 times the effective GHG from the atmosphere. 

  When high nitrogen manure combines with cellulose, like dead weeds in wetlands, at only one part of nitrogen (manure) to 30 parts carbon (contained in the cellulose), huge amounts of methane are released.   And methane is 20 times worse as a GHG than CO2.

Remember Branson's prize for an invention that would remove GHG?  Well this gets rid of 25 times the amount coming from your tailpipe.  In conjunction with organic agriculture made possible with the biodigestor byproduct of organic fertilizer, extra GHG is offest.   

Biogas will even run in Branson's planes.  So I say once again.  Branson pay up!  Where's my 25 million?  

ps.  Since I did not in anyway actually invent any of this, please donate the 25 million to farm biogas efforts, I will be glad to administer the whole thing and blog about it for a nominal percentage,  Hehey. 

We can have farmers happily tractoring on biogas, eliminating GHG in a very short time!  That saves them the huge cost of diesel for their tractors and trucks.