Stuff You Should Know - How Biohydrocarbons Work

Episode Date: June 4, 2009

Hydrocarbons are simple compounds that help fuel the modern world, but they're not really a sustainable resource. Explore new energy solutions, starting with biohydrocarbons, in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast drying solution, especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. A day of travel brings a basket full of learning in Mississippi with family-friendly places like the Mississippi Aquarium, the Hattiesburg Zoo, and Tupelo Buffalo Park. Explore today at visitmississippi.org

slash family fun. Mississippi, Wanderers, welcome. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a.k.a. Compass Head. With me is Charles W. Chuck, Chuckers, Chuck E. Bryant. Yes. Yes. Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck. Bravo. We have Matt, too, guest producer Matt. Again. Handsome guest producer Matt. He's a dreamboat, isn't he? He is. Pay attention, Matt. He might learn a thing or two. So, uh, don't be mean to Matt, Chuck. I'm not supporting him. I guess you want to get to it? Yeah, I think there's no point in trying to be around the bush here. You look

like you're dragging a little bit today, okay? No, dude. I'm up like, I can never think of the analogies. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I'm up like a light switch. Up like a, um, hair club for men. Customer. Terrible. Let's move on. Okay. Chuck, do you know what one of the simplest organic compounds found on the planet are? School me. I'm about to, Chuck. We're going to call those hydrocarbons for the remainder of this podcast. Right. This is a little sciency, but hang with us. You might learn something. It is, but it's actually really exciting science. It is. I know I'm aroused. I am too. I can tell. All right. So, Chuck, um, hydrocarbons are, as I said, very simple. It's just a chain of hydrogen and carbon atoms. Pretty simple. Mixed together. But for

all their simplicity, they pack a heck of a punch. Indeed. They do. Actually, as a matter of fact, they're really ubiquitous as far as the stuff we use to fuel our global economy goes, meaning that hydrocarbons are actually active ingredients in petroleum, coal, natural gas. So basically, these are the things that give us the energy that we use to live our lives. Right. It's a good way to say it. Thanks, Chuck. Is that the end? That's it. All right. Well, thanks for joining us. So Chuck, uh, there's a couple of problems with what we're getting our hydrocarbons from these days. And the first one is? The first one is, is that eventually we're going to run out. Right. That's a pretty well-known fact and it's troublesome. It's not necessarily a fact, my friend. I don't

want you to get unnecessary, uh, listener mail. Okay. Sure. It's actually a hotly debated topic, peak oil theory, which frankly, I think we should do one on because it's actually really interesting. Right. You have a good article on that. Thank you. And thank you. I have to say, I just want to go ahead and say it now to Matt Baker, you know, Matt over in development. I do. He is actually a fanatic about energy and the future of energy use and exploring other ways. And he's actually huge skeptic. So he helped lend me a little bit of healthy skepticism for this one. Right. So it's good. He's fighting a good fight. So, but I, I'm of the opinion that we are running out if we haven't started to already. Right. Hit peak oil. Right. Sure. Um, so we're

going to run out, but we still need the stuff. And then the other problem is this, that the internal combustion engines that we currently have are not very efficient. No, they're not. We get, uh, on the average, from what I understand, according to the EPA, about 15% of the potential energy found in like the gas or the diesel or whatever we put into an engine, right, actually becomes usable energy or energy that makes your car go down the road or powers your air conditioner. Right. Right. The rest of it's lost to all sorts of different things, heat, whatever. But one of the, one of the ways that energy is lost is through unburnt, uh, or, or incompletely burnt hydrocarbons. Right. That comes right out of the old tailpipe. Yeah. And what happens, Chuckers? Well, I was

talking to Emily about this last night, trying to break this down in my research. And, um, basically the easiest way to say it is these petroleum based fuels, um, burn less efficiently because they're more complex. Right. And that's really all there is to it. Right. Uh, things like ethanol, if you, if you looked at the, uh, what's it called? Not the helix, but the little, the bond. Yeah. The bond, it's actually just, when you look at the two compared to each other, they're very much more simpler. Sure. So that, that's really all there is to it. It burns cleaner because more of it gets burnt initially. There's none left over. Right. So we burn these, these, uh, these hydrocarbons. And when we separate the bonds, it creates this, uh, this reaction where we get

energy. Right. Right. Uh, but if all the bonds aren't broken, then you have some that, like you said, come out the tailpipe and let's say you have a, uh, carbon atom that interacts with the air and gets an oxygen molecule attached to it. All of a sudden you have carbon monoxide, exactly, which is bad. Uh, ozone, ozone's another one. Right. Which is not to be confused with the ozone in the stratosphere, the ozone layer. Right. It's actually a good thing. It is. Ozone close to the ground. Not good. Yeah. No. And it actually is the same thing. It just depends on where it is. Yeah, exactly. Right. Um, and then of course you, uh, you also have, um, carbon atoms attached to one another, make soot. So there's a, there's a lot of problems with, uh,

hydrocarbons the way we're using them right now, but there are solutions to this problem. Exciting solutions. Yeah. Again, I'm around by these. Yeah. I was talking the same thing to Emily last night about this, that there are actually a lot of different ways that we can make fuel. Uh, it's just that the system we have in place has been there for so long. It's kind of, uh, with the politics and everything, it's just well entrenched. So all these new methods are, you know, it's kind of an efficient system because it's been in place for so long. Sure. And all the systems are in place. So starting up these new, uh, methods is, uh, kind of expensive and time consuming. It's extremely expensive, time consuming. Plus, you know, we've gotten,

like you said, we've gotten really good at extracting oil from the ground. Yeah. Even from the sea floor. Remember when we did the who owns the oceans podcast? We've gotten really good at getting oil out of the earth, right? Right. Because we've been doing it for so long. Now, all of a sudden it's becoming painfully clear that we need to come up with another solution and fast or else if we have hit peak oil already, we're, our global economy is going to come to a screeching halt and then hopefully we'll have enough momentum to pick it up with minimal, um, stoppage. Right. But probably not. We're probably going to be in big trouble because we, we, I think we waited a little too long. Yeah. Hopefully not. I'm not much of an alarmist really. Sure. I don't,

I don't think the world's going to end in 2012. I don't think so either. It's been said that a day of traveling will bring a basket full of learning. Fill your basket to the brim in Mississippi with family friendly experiences like the new Mississippi aquarium, the recently expanded Hattiesburg zoo, the Tupelo Buffalo park and zoo and sports and literary attractions too. Expand your sense of wander today at visit Mississippi dot org slash family fun Mississippi. Wanderers. Welcome. I heart radio and Grim and mild present bridge water season two. A lot of people now actually believe that there is some kind of mystical force in this region that attracts monsters and paranormal

activity, the bridge water triangle. And that sounds about right. You're still denying that there's something beyond our understanding going on here. Starring Supernatural's Misha Collins, The Walking Dead's Melissa Ponzi and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk written by Lauren Shippen and created by me, Aaron Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello. Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger problem. What is that? Olivia, run. Listen to bridge water now on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and learn more over at grim and mild dot com slash bridge water. But okay, so what's what's leading the pack? Chuck, could it possibly be bio hydro

carbons? Yes, Josh. And what are the Well, you tell me genius. All right, jerk. I'll tell you what a bio hydrocarbon is. It's hydrocarbons derived from plant life. Right. Converting plant sugars, essentially. Yeah, which is not necessarily just sugars either. We'll get into that later. Oh, is this one of the many? Yeah. See, this is where I started to get confused. I know. Let's just let's just put it out there. Chuck, come on. Lay it on everybody. Lay it on me. Well, I mean, like, there's the Chuck was frustrated earlier because we're researching this and he was like, what is going on? Like, is it are we looking at ethanol or are we looking at Camelina like sure, what are we what which catalyst works best? And we both figured out

that what's going on is no one has this magic bullet yet, right, Chuck, right, which actually makes the whole thing that much more exciting. It's kind of like watching a horse race. Like, yeah, have has the technology been developed yet? We just need to make it more efficient. Is there a plan out there we didn't we haven't even heard of that's actually going to rescue the world? Well, maybe a little hint for the I know, I'd like that one. The Patagonian one. Yeah, but there's research on all kinds of fronts, which is the which is the good part. So like you said, it's kind of a race to see who can do it the cheapest and most efficiently, right, and the quickest. There's there's one that's already pretty well established. That's cellulosic ethanol.

And Chris Palette and I actually did a podcast many, many moons ago on that. But I want to give a quick refresher. And also, I think bio hydrocarbons is pretty much interchangeable with the word biofuels from what we can tell right. But with cellulosic ethanol, all it is is it's it's ethanol, which you can use to power an engine, especially when it's been modified to be powered by ethanol. And it's just created by fermenting extracted sugars from cellulose and lignin, which provides structure and shape and form to sell walls right of plants like the plant stands up. Thanks to that. Exactly. And basically, what they do is they throw a bunch of this and it's called biomass feedstock when it's used to make ethanol, right? Right. They throw it in this

vat, throw some microbes in there. The microbes go to town, eat this stuff, make these byproducts, waste products, and then they're catalyzed with other enzymes. And they go through this process and process and out the end comes the two final products, which are water and ethanol, right. And actually, there's a real advantage to this, because we're already throwing away 430 million tons of plant waste every year. We're just thrown it away. Sawdust, wood chips, stalks, that kind of thing. Yeah, but stuff we just can't use. Or can we? We can if we make cellulosic ethanol out of it, right? It's just garbage before, but then, you know, once we're using it, like I said, it becomes biomass feedstock. Here's the problem. You were saying earlier that it's it's a very

expensive process. I said it's not very efficient. These are all extremely accurate. And the reason why is like those microbes I mentioned that are changing the cellulose into sugars to be fermented, those die after a very short period of time, and they have to be replaced. So that's an added cost, right? Indeed. Okay, indeed. Microbe replacement is actually that's a very expensive process. Microbe replacement, it's a killer. It kills you every time. And plus also remember, I mentioned that the two end products are water and ethanol. They mix together really easily. Which is good. No, it's not. No, because then you have to extract the ethanol from the water, which is costly and time consuming, right? So it's an added step, right? Yeah, what they're

trying to do with some of these processes is limit these steps, right, which makes it obviously cheaper. Plus also, even once you do extract the ethanol from the water, and you are transporting ethanol, say to your local gas station via pipeline, the way we do it with oil now, we shoot it through pipes, refine gas, we shoot it through pipes, and it's separated by columns of water. It'll be like gas, water, gas, water, gas, water. You can't do that with ethanol. We have to come up with a completely new technology for it because it'll just mix with the water. And the stuff that comes out at the end would have to be extracted again, right? Right. So there's a bunch of challenges to cellulosic ethanol. Really, what it comes down to is it's

just too expensive to replace oil right now. Yeah. Okay. So again, what's the solution? Well, which one? Let's start wrapping. What do you want to talk about, Camelina or? Yeah. Okay. Camelina is like the wonder plant, right? Well, perhaps. Camelina is, if you want Camelina, you should go to Montana. Yeah. First of all. Or Idaho. Or Oregon. Big grower. But yeah, Montana seemed to kind of stand out above the rest as like the big potential producer for Camelina, right? Right. One of the cool things about Camelina is it can be grown in a rotation with wheat crops. Yeah. We grow a lot of wheat. Right. Actually, it's been shown, and it's fallow. You use it on the fallow land,

right? Right. And right now, they just let weeds grow in a huge tract of wheat crop land. But if they replace it with Camelina, actually, when they plant wheat the next season, it has about 15% more increased yield than when they just use weeds the season before. You want to talk yields? Please. Camelina yields roughly double what soy yields. And soy, you know, is the wonder plant. Everyone knows. Sure. And the oil that Camelina produces is more cold resistant than your average biodiesel. And drought resistant. Very much drought resistant. Since it grows in marginal lands as well, it requires very little fertilizer or insecticide. So that's huge, too. Well, it sounds like this is the answer. Wait, it gets even better, Chuck. More?

To get the Camelina oil that's used to produce biohydrocarbon fuel, right? You actually have to crush the plant matter and then you extract the oil. The stuff that's left over actually makes an excellent livestock feed. Okay. So you've got all that extra income right there. Right. Yeah. Well, they've done some studies on the emissions from, let's say, jet fuel made by Camelina. Yeah. They call it green jet fuel. Sure. And there is an 84.4% savings compared to regular petroleum jet fuel. In greenhouse gas emissions, right? Yeah. That's huge. That's way huge. And if you're talking biodiesel, it exhibits savings of 78.5%. Over regular diesel, over petroleum-based diesel. Yes, sir. And even more, you said that they were doing tests with

it, right? They're actually conducting real flights with it. So 50% jet fuel, like petroleum-based jet fuel, and 50% bio jet fuel, green jet fuel. Oh, that's awesome. And so it's actually keeping the plane aloft. And I believe it's more energy efficient. Yeah. Well, ultimately, yeah. Nobody wants to use, you know, no matter how environmentally friendly a fuel is, everybody's going to hate it if planes crash when you fill it up with it, right? Sure. And we were talking about Montana. The state of Montana alone could support between two and three million acres of this stuff. Producing how many millions of barrels of oil? Well, 200 to 300 million gallons of oil a year. Here's the rub that farmers grow education. They don't know a lot about it at this point.

They don't. But even if every farmer in Montana were producing the maximum amount of camelina oil every year, right? 300 million gallons a year. Three to four, I think. See, the problem is, is here in the U.S., we use 21 million barrels of oil a day. So even if Montana produced the maximum yield of camelina oil, we use it up as a nation in just a few days. Yeah. A week tops. You know what I'm saying? So that's a huge problem with so much for that. Plus also, camelina goes through a much similar process or a similar process to cellulosic ethanol. We've got these extra expensive steps, right? So clearly, we've got the, we have the cleaner burning fuel part down, right? Because it's producing simpler biohydrocarbons. So they're

burning more efficiently. Right. And they're, they're burning up completely. Yeah. So there's fewer emissions, except there's a carbon dioxide emissions still. Right. And a truly perfect alternative fuel. The two waste products are going to be water and carbon dioxide. Right. The problem is, is we're still emitting carbon dioxide. Right. Actually, hydrogen would be the way to go. Sure. But yeah, please. Yeah. So that you just scoffed. So you do like that. Yeah. It was a pretty clear scoff, wasn't it? So we still have this, this hurdle. And one of them is the making a fewer step process, which would be inherently less expensive. Right. Right. Are you talking about the mystery fungus? No. Yes. Sure. Not a mystery fungus, but super fungus.

Well, that's, that's different. I mean, that's like just going to the source to find, you know, I don't know, maybe some sort of fungus that produces diesel on its own without any steps. Shall we talk about that? Is there such a thing? I think so, Josh. Crazy. They have found this in Patagonia. Is that right in the rainforest? Yeah. And it is called, help me out here, Glyocladdium rosium. I think that's probably pretty close, Chuck. Glyocladdium rosium. Or G-rosium. Yeah, let's just call it that. Okay. Or G-rose. Or just drose. Drose. Let's call it G-rosium. Okay. And they've discovered this fungus kind of by accident, or not kind of accident, very much by accident. Sure. Which is the best part.

Yeah. They were running around the Patagonian rainforest exposing tree fungus to antibiotics to see what happens. Right. Bunch of hippies. Yeah. And what they found out was this G-rosium grew in the presence of these gases when everything else was dying away. So they kind of went, hey, that could be a good thing. What is this stuff? Exactly. And then they looked a little closer and what? Well, are you saying the best part is that you can grow this in labs? Sure. That's one part. I think the best part is the fact that this thing naturally excretes diesel. Oh, well, sure. Diesel fuel. There's a fungus out there that excretes what we would just call diesel fuel. Yeah. Which is nuts. That's, well, you're going the obvious route. I thought.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Talk about cutting steps out. Yeah. Big time. I mean, you just exposed this stuff to antibiotics, right? Yeah. And it starts producing diesel. Directly from cellulose. Yeah. From eating on a tree. Yeah, I know. Right. And like you said, they've already managed to reproduce it in the lab, right? Right. And they call it mycodesil. Yeah. And yeah, they can create this stuff in the lab. It's crazy. Which, you know, this is one of the big exciting things about the G-rosium. Well, plus also G-rosium, as if it couldn't get any better, produces potent antibiotics as a byproduct as well. I didn't think any of that. It's producing diesel and antibiotics. Well, so why don't we just go this route? I think we should bow down to the G-rosium master,

which will clearly dominate the human race within the next 50 years. Right. And this is only like six months ago that they figured this stuff out. Yeah. It's like brand new. The dawning of a new age, maybe. Well, it was 12 months ago they found out, but it took them six months to get out of the forest. And they were running the whole time to tell everybody. Yeah, I'm sure they were. Yeah, they kept falling down. Yeah. Yeah. For people who love food, there's no place on earth quite like Mississippi, where a melting pot of culinary talent blends the flavors of yesterday and today. Sweet, savory, spicy, and smoky flavors that'll satisfy your spirits. Wherever you choose to wander, plan your next dining adventure and visit Mississippi.org slash dining, Mississippi. Wanderers

welcome. I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild present Bridgewater Season 2. A lot of people now actually believe that there is some kind of mystical force in this region that attracts monsters and paranormal activity. The Bridgewater Triangle. And that sounds about right. You're still denying that there's something beyond our understanding going on here? Starring Supernatural's Misha Collins, The Walking Dead's Melissa Ponziio, and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk, written by Lauren Shippen and created by me, Erin Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello? Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger problem. What is that? Olivia, run! Listen to Bridgewater now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. And learn more over at grimandmild.com slash Bridgewater. So what I want to know, well, the good part is that they can actually manufacture it because that's what I was worried about was, cool, they found this thing, but it's in the rainforest. So then I thought, well, that just means you're going to start raping the rainforest. Yeah, I thought the same thing too. And I have to say, I was happy to see that they synthesized it already, or figured out how to manipulate it. Go science. Exactly, precisely. Also, there's a movement of foot to cut out extra steps in the ethanol process, or, you know, converting camalina oil to usable diesel fuel. Right. And that's using different kinds of catalysts. There are these guys at MIT

that are using metals like platinum and copper, I believe, to catalyze these things. What happens is basically, from what I understand, and again, this is MIT, and I definitely did not attend MIT. You're a bunch of dummies. Yeah, what are you talking about? Yeah, I know. Basically, you take this cellulosic ethanol state, right, and you run it over these catalysts that are at very high heat. Right. You have ultra heated platinum. And what happens is when it goes over, it actually converts the chemical composition of the ethanol, or not the ethanol, the main ingredients used in ethanol. Right. The cellulos, let's say. And it converts it into biohydrocarbons right there. There's no other steps. Actually, there are two steps, but they're actually very

quick. And it's thousands of times faster, I understand, than microbial fermentation. Indeed. So you can produce this stuff constantly. And it can be recycled. Exactly. The catalyst can be reused because you're not using microbes, you're using metal. Right. And platinum stands up to heat pretty well, right? Even better, the stuff that comes out on the other end, the usable fuel, it actually separates from the other byproducts. So it's just sitting there on top, making extraction easy. And the stuff that remains on bottom is actually highly usable in the manufacture of plastics, too. So it seems to me like we're getting closer and closer and closer. The problem is, is I think we humans tend to rest on our laurels. We know how to get oil out of the

ground. I don't see any oil missing. What's the big problem? Until it all dries up. It's going to take someone of real prominence to come out and be like, you idiots, we're in big trouble. Right. For anybody to wise up and really start funding this stuff. Yeah. But if some great thinker needs to come along and demand it, who? Maybe you. I demand that everyone start funding this stuff. Right. And they'd say, and you are as you're being handcuffed. That's fine. Sure. I've been handcuffed before. I don't doubt it. So this bio hydrocarbons. Is that it? Sure. Well, I'm very impressed, dude. You know, chemistry and math stuff kind of flies over my head. I did my best to hang in there. But you did great, Chuck. You did great. Thanks, Chuck. So Chuck, we don't have

anything to plug. We're done with bio hydrocarbons. That can only be one thing, my friend. Listener mail. Exactly. So, Josh, I'm just going to call this Italian listener mail. Okay. Because it comes from an Italian. Can you maybe say it in an accent? Like Ponzi scheme? I might throw a word or two in there. Okay. He doesn't say anything about the Ponzi. So this is from Stefan in Italy. And this is in regards to our propaganda podcast. Okay. Which was just recently released. Yeah. He wants to point out that, first of all, I'm Italian, so sorry for the bad English. The Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi. He is apparently quite the propagandist, is what this Stefan says. And he says, here we can only dream about propaganda being illegal. I want to

argue, I don't want to argue through a reducio at Hitlerum. But the current situation in Italy is worse than Nazi Germany, is what he says. Wow. I didn't realize that. Chuck, you're going to get the Italians after us. Well, maybe. Okay. You don't want the Italians after us. No, you don't. The night is what they call him, evidently. With a K? Yes. The K and I, GHD, is what the Italian media calls the Prime Minister. And he owns all private free televisions and has shares, and I think he means TV stations. And he has shares in the pay-per-views. So being the Prime Minister, he can influence the public TV channels. He illegally became the owner of nearly every publisher or newspaper in the country. Wow. And he sues everyone who allows himself to criticize him.

What? A little Italian influence there on this speak. He says, there are plenty of cases of phone interceptions and or admissions that he influenced people, and some news and or journalists are being ridiculously one-sided. You never hear anything bad about the government or the Prime Minister. And protesters in opposition are always displayed as fools. So basically, it sounds like Italy is in some big trouble over there. Yeah. So he goes on for a while, but I'll just kind of skip down to the end. There are two free news sources and some radio stations that we have called Radical Radio and the Internet, but they're working on some laws to ban blogs and already have some in place to censor certain sites. So I just wanted you to know this is probably the best modern day

propaganda you will find. Stefan and Italy and Stefan, they're coming for you as we speak. Yeah. Sorry, Stefan, but I think that Chuck and I both say hats off to you for being the voice of, oh, I don't know, reason over there in Italy. Chuck, I feel like we're complicit in smuggling information out of Italy and broadcasting it around the world. I didn't realize Italy was like this. I've been to Italy and I thought it was a pretty cool place. I didn't get that sense. But did you also know, did you see that one email from a listener in China who said that our blog is outlawed there? Yeah, I like being banned. That is the coolest thing I've ever heard. We're like right there with the Dalai Lama. Sure. Yeah. All right. Well, if you want to compare Chuck and I to the Dalai

Lama, let us know what's going on in your country or just to say hi. You can send an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks.com. But don't get caught. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com home page. You can find us on our website at HowStuffWorks.com. Talk about walking into the devil's den. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.