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Looking Beyond Corn and Sugarcane For Cost-Effective Biofuels

Posted by samzenpus on from the get-it-growing dept.

carmendrahl writes "The abundance of shale gas in the U.S. is expected to lower the cost of petrochemicals for fuel and other applications, making it harder for plant-based, renewable feedstocks to compete in terms of price. In the search for cost-competitive crops, companies are testing plants other than traditional biofuel sources such as corn and sugarcane. In this video, you can see how a company is test-growing a relative of sugarcane, which is expected to yield 5 times the ethanol per acre compared to corn."

5 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Video link in summary by noh8rz10 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I hate video. Too real-time. Like TV news, I can read the majority of nyt.com in the space of the evening news. I assume the video is about switchgrass, can anybody confirm?

    1. Re:Video link in summary by noh8rz10 · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not that my attention span is short, it's that I can absorb info like a fire hose, while real time video is a trickle. I can type faster than conversation speed as well. Given the mods on my original comment, I think many people agree with me!

  2. Re:Nature's solar panel by iotaborg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually it isn't that terrible on cloudy/rainy days. We have a solar panel installed on our house in the pacific northwest of the US, which is 100% cloud/rain in the winter months. Energy generated is 100-300 kWh per month in the winter, 500-700 kWh per month in the sunny summers. Obviously nothing in the nights. Excess production in the summer pays for the shortfall in the winter (paid by utility company), so it works out.

  3. immediately if cost was not a factor by peter303 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The best plants are convert 1.5% of incoming sunlight when factoring length of growing cycle and planting density. Cheap solar panels are five times more efficient. More expensive solar technologies and/or concentrators gets into double digits.

    However when you include the costs of the entire system- the startup capital, intermediate fuel type and distribution- the current cost-efficiency of both become more comparable.

  4. Re:Sugar Beet by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

    Corn and sugarcane got nothing on the sugar beet.

    Acre for acre, sugar beets get more subsidies than corn, if you include the protective tariffs on sugar imports. There is no way that beets can compete with cane in a free market.