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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."
Sugar cane is even MORE vital. It's a major potable alcohol source (rum). Definitely not something we need to waste in cars.
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.
don't blame the environmental movement. corn ethanol gas was a republican corporate welfare program for the farm corporations.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Did you happen to miss how in the early 80's or so several popular products switched to using corn syrup as a sweetener?
That's because of our sugar tariffs keeping cheap foreign sugar out, not because Brazil burning sugar made it that much more expensive.
http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php/2006/01/24/tariffs_and_subsidies_the_literal_cost_o
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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...
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.
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