Lowering the Cost of Biofuel Production

sciencehabit writes: 2014 was a banner year for making automotive fuel from nonfood crops, with a series of major new production plants opening in the United States. However, producing this so-called cellulosic ethanol remains considerably more expensive than gasoline. So researchers are always on the lookout for new ways to trim costs. Now they have a new lead: a microbe that can use abundant nitrogen gas as the fertilizer it needs to produce ethanol from plants. The discovery (abstract) is "a major commercial accomplishment for biofuel production," says microbiologist Steven Ricke.

Comments

Re:not in my tank!

[drinkypoo]

There's only one rationale I can think of for ethanol - that we produce more food than is needed so that if there were a problem with food production we'd still have enough.

A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation suggests that even if we threw away 90% of our food, it still wouldn't be enough to fuel our cars. Actually, I lied. I didn't use a napkin.

But growing corn explicitly for ethanol seems pretty retarded.

Virtually all fuel feedstock corn is grown continuously, meaning without crop rotation or even letting fields lie fallow. It is beyond retarded.