Researchers Working To Avoid Next Gas Crisis

ATLANTA -- We are promised that, despite the pain we've endured during this gasoline shortage, supplies will soon return to normal.

But every crisis leaves a scar -- and the concern over when the next crisis is due. Researchers are working hard to ward off that next crisis. To paraphrase -- nothing focuses the mind on alternatives, like a good gasoline crisis.

"We're dancing as fast as we can," said Georgia Tech researcher Dr. Bill Koros.

In laboratories all over America, including one at Georgia Tech, researchers are looking for ways to avoid the next gasoline crisis.

"It's already helping to relieve some of the pressure we're feeling," said Koros.

Dr. Koros and his team at Georgia Tech are leading the country in developing a technology that will refine the fuel refining process.

"Every BTU that I don't burn up making the fuel,? Koros said. "I get to use to do something like driving down the road."

The traditional means of refining fuel, whether it's ethanol from wood chips or petroleum from the ground, uses heat -- lots of it. It takes 15 to 20 gallons of fuel to make 100 gallons.

"What we're trying to do,? Koros said, "is continue to tighten that efficiency so instead of getting 80 percent of it, we want to get 90 or 100 percent of the efficiency."

Dr. Koros is using membrane technology to separate the impurities from ethanol and other biofuels -- a technology that needs mechanical force, not heat.

Getting purer alternative fuels through membrane technology is a lot like getting a nice cup of coffee through a drip filter system. The coffee grounds remain in the filter, while what's left is the pure coffee.

Dr. Koros says gas shortages are both good and bad for researchers -- they make research funding more available, but also create a flood of snake oil salesmen.

He predicts that in ten years or so, membrane technology will be widespread enough to have a major impact on producing fuels of all types. Then maybe he can go to work on the coffee machine.