The problem is that while everyone is mulling over what is best, nothing is being done right now. If all growers would do something small RIGHT NOW to start, we would be so much further ahead. Details can be ironed out while progress is being made.

Why stop with agricultural feedstocks?

Forest feedstocks have accounted for the greatest amount of renewable energy generation in the U.S. for years - roughly 44%. That’s higher than hydroelectric. With the slow demise of most forestry industries, a fresh look is being taken at converting wood waste and wood energy crops into ethanol - Range Fuels was just awarded a hefty DOE grant for building a demonstration plant of their pilot system in Georgia.

Perhaps the most demonstrably significant potential will come from converting municipal solid waste (MSW) into biofuels, including ethanol. Los Angeles has adopted a 20-year program (RENEW L.A.) to do just that. That will mitigate their landfill problem, reduce trucking emissions, while producing biofuels with co-generated electricity.

The headline says “more than just ethanol”, but the article seems pretty much centered around ethanol with a slight not towards biodiesel. The reality is that ethanol really isn’t a very good fuel for a number of reasons, compared to either gasoline or diesel. And the auto industry is still shipping cars with engines invented a century ago, engines that are hopelessly complex, heavy, and very inefficient. Another odd item in the article is the claim that the use of switchgrass reduces emissions by 115%. Someone would have to explain to me how that is possible - does it actually suck nitrogen emissions out of the air?

But regardless of my carping, I am encouraged that some progress is being made in some areas, both on reducing dependence on foreign oil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The work being done in NZ on synthetic dyes for electric generation is very interesting indeed.

But does it make sense to produce biofuels that are subsidised like most of your food production…? to quote an ex MP here in NZ “One has only to turn to the United States today, where biofuels have become the object of one of the most spectacular bonfires of public money ever conceived.

More than seven billion gallons (26.5 billion litres) of new ethanol capacity is currently under construction, entailing capital investments worth more than US$10 billion (NZ$13.8 billion). Government subsidies to biofuels are around the US$7 billion mark and rising fast as a result of purchase mandates, farm subsidies and tax breaks. All in the name of energy security – and any other cause the cat can drag in.

I visited recently the website of one prominent corn belt senator and found a fulsome eulogy to biofuels which claimed they were “good for the environment, good for national security, good for job creation, good for economic development, good for the US taxpayer and good for rural America”.

There has to be something suspicious about advocacy that feels the need to cobble together such a wide array of arguments to bolster itself. Leaving aside whether a rising tide of subsidies is positive for the American taxpayer, what substance is there to back up the senator’s other claims? ” read on: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4021393a1861.html

The best solution I’ve seen is to process the ethanol into butanol (ethanol has two carbons and butanol has four). Work is being done to find enzymes and such to do this. The advantage is that it has higher energy density. In a auto you can increase the compression (it is a great octane booster) and get even more energy out. Maybe 30% more!