Page 58 -

Green Project Terminology: The Language of the Green Wave • 33

burned is taken out of the atmosphere by the next crop of green gaso-
line plants. With non-renewable sources of fuel, the source carbon had
been isolated within the Earth, but adds to total atmospheric carbon
when it burns.”

Green gasoline is another product derived from sustainable biomass. The
National Science Foundation (NSF) tells us the following.
There are three main catalytic mechanisms to convert plants into
gasoline:

1. Gasification is one of the oldest mechanisms to make gasoline from
non-petroleum sources, but since it had primarily been used to
convert coal or natural gas into gasoline, but it is only now finding
applications as a green gasoline process. In gasification, extreme heat
breaks the plants down to the fundamental components of carbon
monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H ). The gasses are passed over cata-
2
lysts which grab the CO and H , and depending on which catalysts
2
are used, recombines them into gasoline. The process is well-estab-
lished but is currently only feasible at large scales. It is expensive and
not efficient when plants are the feedstock.
2. Pyrolysis is also a mechanism that uses heat, but it uses less than gasifi-
cation, and like all of the catalytic approaches (including the method
used in George Huber’s laboratory at the University of Massachusetts–
Amherst) it is so efficient that it does not require any external energy
source. Researchers even hope to eventually use the heat produced
by the pyrolysis process to generate electricity. While new for green
gasoline applications, the process has a number of advantages in that
it can use any plant starting material, including waste paper and grass
clippings, and is efficient. So far, the process can produce components
of gasoline, but not yet the full suite of components found in trans-
portation fuels.
3. Aqueous phase processing starts with sugar, but sugar is somewhat
easily derived from plants. At room temperature, the sugar is mixed
with water and passed over specialized catalysts. If the catalysts are
properly selected, the end result can be a wide range of substances,
from gasoline (all 300-plus chemical components) to diesel to jet
fuel to the precursors for pharmaceuticals and plastics. The pro-
cess, under development at Virent Energy Systems, Inc. in Madison,