Want more miles per gallon? Start planting some trees
It turns out that trees (or as researchers refer to them, woody biomass) can be refined to produce a carbon-rich wood alcohol that is excellent for use in high-octane fuel blends.
Lest one imagine a standoff between proponents of Dr. Seuss' Lorax and Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree, consider that in the United States, tree farming is a sustainable, renewable and thriving industry. Wood and wood-products are all around us, from your furniture and the studs in your walls, to artificial kidney membranes and sausage-casings!
The Department of Energy and Idaho National Laboratory are partners in the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines Consortium (Co-Optima) for research on enhancing fuel economy through high-octane fuel blends generated by combining biofuels with gasoline. Such fuel blends can enhance fuel economy for engines optimized for higher octane or for turbo-charged gasoline engines.
With an eye on the future of biofuels, INL researchers Patrick Lamers, Ruby Thuy Nguyen, Damon Hartley, Jason Hansen and Erin Searcy recently published the Woody Biomass Companion Markets Model (WOODCOM).
This highly detailed computer model simulates the probable impact of market dynamics and policy decisions on the growth of the biofuel sector for aromatic rich hydrocarbon or ARHC. WOODCOM can be used to aid policymakers, industrial concerns and tree farmers with the data-driven decision-making needed to foster sustainable growth in the biofuel industry.
"[WOODCOM] is trying to answer the question, Under which conditions can we accommodate the growth of the biofuels market?'" said Nguyen, the INL researcher who built the WOODCOM model during her postdoctoral training.
WOODCOM relies on four interrelated modules that simulate different factors impacting ARHC biofuel production capacity in the southeastern United States.
The forest sector module quantifies the amount of wood that will be available in the future from tree farming in the southeastern United States. To make these calculations, WOODCOM uses historical data about privately owned and managed loblolly pine forests from the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Inventory Analysis as the baseline. It also incorporates information about the harvesting practices typical of five different categories of landholders in the forest sector module.
Trees are a long-term investment. The prices and demand for timber and other wood products play a major role in farming decisions about when and how much to plant, when to harvest immature trees, or when to wait for mature trees to get the best return from timber.
