From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Madison

Pumpkins are the miracle biofuel crop we've been looking for. Get rich with pumpkins. Pumpkins are giant balls of carbohydrates plus fiber proteins plus fat. Everything is good to go! Each year round acre is a green energy oil well. Clean green controlled methane to make gasoline, jet fuel and gasoline. That giant ball of carbohydrates makes 14 gallons of methane by itself but... 50 percent of that mass is unused because micro organisms can't get at the starch. That's easy to fix with amylase just like making corn ethanol then that number doubles to 28 gallons per 1000 lbs. Those giant digest pots, about two 55 gallons drums are microbial fuel cells alive with hoppin' archeae. The fat is in the seeds, no boiling and scooping, just collect and squeeze. Ethanol... Maybe four gallons. You need a boil pot and still and lots of work. Definitely go methane plus gas to liquid catalytic reactor. Use hydroponics and recycle the water and nutrients l, use plant grading to make new plants and while you are at it, graft in a dozen roots. What's not to like?

7/16/2023 8:53:51 AM

Grittyville, WA

If under favorable conditions an AG pumpkin can produce, 3.66 lbs per square foot (my benchmark target), then thats 160,000 lbs per acre. Corn under favorable conditions would top out at 14,000 lbs per acre. But corn is dry weight, whereas pumpkins are wet. The wet part adds to the shipping cost to the refinery, and the dry weight of a pumpkin would be about 10% of the wet weight. So 16,000 dry lbs of pumpkin plus extra harvest expense and no storage capability vs 14,000 dry pounds of corn that can be stored for later use (refined all year long...). I think the old business model still favors corn... But the yield could indeed be similar??

7/17/2023 2:17:02 PM

Grittyville, WA

Algae is where its at. It has the highest potential and (with some sort of genius engineering) could be grown in places that wont compete with traditional crops.
When the energy industry competes within the realm of traditional cropping systems, it is using resources that should be very carefully exploited. For example, it would take a lot of resources away from producing basic food staples to fly John Kerry's jet from New York, to France, to Dubai to wherever, if he was to use biofuel.
Only algae could sidestep traditional cropping systems, (if cleverly imagined). We need an 'Elon Musk of algae.' Someone competent, who is up for the challenge.

7/17/2023 2:44:53 PM

Madison

Little Kins thank you for your reply. Your figures are good. My estimates came from one acre divided by a pallet of 4x4 divided by two to give walk way between the pallet rows. I say that's 1500 pumpkins per acre with solar track 4x12 trellis. The internet says 1000 sqare foot per giant pumpkin giving me 42 giant pumpkins per acre. That's a big difference. I guess I have to work on that. That 42 pumpkins per acre is pretty meager. I live in south Florida where I have year round growing at 3.5 harvests per year. You can increase the yield by that much. Im satisfied with what I saw with hydroponics. Kins are 90 percent water, corn is 18 percent water. You can make ethanol from both but you'll get 10X the number of gallons with methane if you treat with amylase. I would make methane immediately or you can dry the matter out, then ship to reconstitute elsewhere Methane is hard to ship. Energy prices are high in Hawaii they pay .15 per kilowatt Midwest pays .05. Why not grow in Hawaii. A 1000 sqft trellis that 4 feet wide is 250 feet tall. I have to work on that. P

7/17/2023 10:29:36 PM