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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."
This is particularly good news in the wake of another report that food-based biofuels could cause hunger."
They JUST figured this out!!!????
This is the problem with the green lords... they don't think ahead of the unintended consequences!
I've HATED Corn based ethanol for YEARS... Everyone would point to some country in South America (Brazil?) about how good Ethanol was and the amount of fuel created etc... But that was end of process SUGAR CANE! NOT a major food source!
Glad someone is finally waking up.
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
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
I see speculation on the cost of the fuel, but nothing whatsoever on the performance of it. This makes my suspicion meter go into alarm mode...
Though, to be fair, ethanol suffers from the same issue.
Looking at the 2010 Town and Country (a similar vehicle to my own Flex-Fuel van), I see these ratings:
E85 - 17mpg
Gas - 24mpg
Adjusted into dollars-per-hundred-miles, using these prices, that's something like:
E85 - $14.13 ($2.403/g)
Gas - $10.87 ($2.610/g)
So even though the price at the pump is less, I'd be a fool to run E85 in even a new vehicle of this class.
Unless this new fuel is better than E85, I can't see how getting it down to a comparable price at the pump is doing us any favors. Now if it is somehow better than E85, then that would be some good news. Alas, the story is mute on this topic.
What the heck are you smoking? Transit system? Transit system? Where the hell is that? I (and MANY others) that live in California but NOT in San Francisco - commute a long way where no transit system exists. I drive 38 miles each way. 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). There is something close to a transit system. I can drive my car about 7 miles to the "park and rob" (no doubt: cars are always vandalized and burglarized there), catch a bus from there (it is the first stop, so it stops all over the damn city), then it goes to a train, which stops all over, then to a bus which gets within 2 miles of work (which I admit is indeed walking distance). Total time on this "transit system" is just over 2 hours (yes, I have done it) whereas driving is about 45 minutes. Transit System... The price of gas would have to triple to get me to consider wasting that much more time per day getting to and from work.
Better prices for biofuel stock might drive up prices short term, but will lead to greater investment and supply long term.
Ah yes, the inevitable claim that magic market pixies will fix everything.
The fact is that world food production -- never mind potential production -- is already more than adequate to feed everyone. Market economics alone, however, is inadequate to distribute the food. People aren't starving because there isn't enough food, they're starving because they can't afford to buy food. There's no profit to be had in giving food to people who can't pay for it, so they go without.
I wish free market ideologues would figure out that the market is very good at doing things that are profitable, but not everything worth doing is profitable. The market is amoral and devoid of compassion. That's not necessarily a bad thing by itself, but it becomes so when we surrender every ethical obligation to the test of profitability.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
your gas price IS quite reasonable!
here in italy you currently pay about 1.3 euros/liter
considering 1 euros about 1.33 dollar and 1 liter about 1/3.8 gallon
so its about 2 dollar for 1/3.8 gallon or about than 7.5 dollar/gallon
and it has gone higher...
Having used the mass transit in the Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York/Newark areas, I dare say that you either got very luck with where you were going in the LA area, or you never left the downtown area. In a week in Chicago, I was able to get almost everywhere except for the Navy Pier and the Museum of Science & Technology via mass transit, and over a week in New York/Newark, I only rode in a car when going out to rural areas not reached by New Jersey's trains. Even when reaching a relatively rural area on Long Island, it took only about 30 minutes from Penn Station. Compare this to the local bus for me (closest train station is several miles and runs perpendicular to the route I would need to take): In the center of the main population mass of Orange County, the path from the closest bus stop to work runs just under eight miles, and takes just over an hour. This is one bus going straight down one street, no turns.
All of the rail systems in the LA/Orange County area combine for just under 600 miles of track to provide for around 5000 square miles of land. Chicago has 600 miles of track providing for around a thousand square miles, and New York has more than 900 miles of track for only a few hundred square miles of land. It's going to take a lot of billions to get anywhere close to those.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
First post!
And since this stuff is finally going to be hitting the road, when will my gas prices become reasonable (for the US) again? I'm tired of $2.96 a gallon and only getting 300 miles out of it.
Poor bastard ! Here in Australia on cheap petrol day we can get ours for $1.22/lt which works out to over $4.60 per Gallon.
Check out this page to see how good you have it.
Americans have always been incredibly spoiled by their gas prices, which are still far below what pretty much every other country has to pay to fill up (as much as half the price). I say deal with it and count yourself lucky that it's not higher. Cheaper prices are just going to encourage more waste at this point; the casual driving era is becoming a relic of the past, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing (especially for the fattest nation on earth).
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
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.