Crazy Idea #2 - Biofuel X Challenge or VC Challenge

Unfortunately I don't have the money to back this up myself but looking at some of the items yesterday in the VC's post I got to thinking about a twist on an idea I have been toying with for a bit.

Develop a remotely automated "production plant" that is sized to fit within a standard sized shipping container.

The plant would have to be able to receive farm waste (It must receive any bio farm waste) and process it into three outputs. BioDiesel, Ethanol and unprocessable waste. A farmer would order it and after processing their normal crops would feed their waste into it. The useful outputs would go to appropriate external tanks. Periodically someone would pick them up (or more properly their contents) for delivery to refineries.

The keys are:

Entire thing sized to fit in (or as part of) a standard shipping container.
Remotely operated and monitored. Perhaps even to the extent of optimization software being remote.
Requires nothing more than the dumping of farm waste and removal of unprocessable waste by the farm hands.

Economics:

Most of the cost would be development costs. Once the basic design is set it should be relatively inexpensive to make. Viability would be dependant on how much Bio diesel and Ethanol can be produced per time unit and relative work requirements for the farmers. Economy of scale would certainly apply.

A few models of use
Direct sale to the farms and agriculture groups.

Purchase by Oil/Energy Companies (any BP guys reading you guys are into green)and disperse to farms for free. The farmers get steeply discounted diesel oil for their work or might even produce enough for free oil and cash payments.

Governmental support in terms of augment of subsidies based on participation with goal to supplant "Foreign Oil" and reduce cumulative CO2 emissions.

This weeks crazy idea. Spread the Meme

Last weeks at the end of this post

SO VC's and DARPA step up.