Comments on: Gas Extracted from Clover by Inexpensive Process

By: Toronto

Toronto — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:45:08 +0000

Cattle are pretty efficient at converting clover to gas. It’s the containment and recovery that are the issue.

By: Tracy B.

Tracy B. — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:46:04 +0000

Sounds like the typical anaerobic decay that produces methane at a typical landfill dump. Many dumps are set up to recover this gas. Aerobic process would produce compost.

This could be also similar to the producer gas generator, which was used during wwII in areas were petrol was expensive.

By: Blurgle

Blurgle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:04:02 +0000

Really? 3,000 acres is excessive? 3,000 acres is only four and three-quarters sections, the size of a medium-size farm in Alberta. There used to be a farm here that had 45,000 acres under tillage.

I suspect, though, that growing clover was at the time much more expensive than producing natural gas, especially given the fact that the prairies were in the middle of the greatest drought ever seen. By the time the war was over and the farmers came home, natural gas from Texas (and later from Canada) made biofuels uneconomical.

By: pryapart

pryapart — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:00:41 +0000

3000 acres isn’t all that much – less than 5 square miles. Plentiful in farmland USA. Clover – also plentiful in ‘anywhere’ USA. Grows like a weed in my yard…wait…it IS a weed!!!! I’ll ship some to Minnesota…

By: Czar

Czar — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:50:14 +0000

Well, this is yet a good news. At least, humans have already found a lot of alternative fuel sources!

But I think 3,000 acres of clover is way too big and not practical.

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:07:05 +0000

Are there even 3000 acres of clover in the entire world? Sounds pretty impractical to me. Which is why we don’t have that today, no doubt.