Cellulosic Biofuel Finally Ready For the Road

wdebruij writes "After years of research, promises, and plenty of discussion here, biofuel from inedible greens such as switchgrass — and even from corn cobs — may finally be getting economically viable. Two enzyme producers, Novozyme and Genencor, have both announced that they can now produce fuel at prices competitive with current corn and petrol-based methods. This is particularly good news in the wake of another report that food-based biofuels could cause hunger."

Comments

Biofuels

[Chris Lawrence]

The main issue with biofuels isn't really food or cost. It's about land use, energy efficiency and sustainability. Brazil is usually given as a great example, but they have only 8 million cars, which use a maximum of 25 percent biofuel, the rest is still gasoline or diesel. And Brazil is one of the countries that is deforesting the fastest in the world. The US has 250 million cars. There's not enough land left in the world to clear to make enough biofuels for that.

http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2010/01/biofuels.html

Re:Biofuels

[Amorymeltzer]

When a study shows that switchgrass produces 540% more renewable than nonrenewable energy consumed, yeah, I'd say it's a little about efficiency.

Re:Late to the party?

[budgenator]

The Problem is that the majority of Brazil's soil is actually quite poor and loses it's sustainability as arable soil after 2-3 seasons (which is why they keep burning more and more forest).

Well the answer there is "terra preta do indios", or "black earth of the Indians"

The black earth areas, about twice the size of Great Britain, possibly as large as France together had supported as many as three million people - more than had been believed to have ever inhabited the entire Western Hemisphere at any one time. They had realized that the black earth was fertile, but had never imagined that the Amazon basin could be so hugely productive. Saving The Planet While Saving The Farm

Terra petra is fantastically fertile, the Brazilians actually mine this earth for use as potting soil, which is amazing considering most of it's age is measured in millennia not years! Also growing sugarcane doesn't necessarily deplete the soil if the cane field is burned and the char left on the ground, some varieties are even nitrogen fixing.
Additionally converting biomass to char produces distillates that are useful as fuel creating a win-win situation.

Re:First (cheap gas?)

[mangu]

This is so that I can actually own a house and not bring up my kids in some silly apartment (which is all we could afford if we lived right by work).

If you aren't satisfied with the current setup, then your children have something in common with crack babies: they were born of parents who couldn't afford parenthood.

The writing was on the wall long ago, much before anyone who is a child today was born. Oil will end. If you bet that oil prices wouldn't start rising until after your children were grown up, you bet wrong.

Not having adequate living conditions in locations served by mass transit and not having mass transit in places with adequate living conditions only means too many people like you chose to disregard the inevitable future.