Posted on 07/02/2010 6:05:50 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just issued a report detailing the outlook and challenges of next generation biofuels. I provided some input during the drafting of the report, which hopefully was of some use. Here I select five pessimistic projections and five optimistic projections from the report.
The report is: Next-Generation Biofuels: Near-Term Challenges and Implications for Agriculture
Here are five findings from the report that promise to strongly influence the country’s direction on next generation fuels.
(Excerpt) Read more at theoildrum.com ...
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A (PDF)National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap - May 2010 was also recently released from DOE. It appears that corn and cellulosic biomass programs are in the purview of Agriculture while the algal program is in Energy. This will perhaps spur some useful competition.
Good stuff. Thanks for the post.
I think the article accurately assess - the outlook on bio-fuels in the near future is “sobering.”
I believe one particular oil leak has already leaked more fuel than is projected to be produced annually by the entire industry through 2012.
Good information though, and no need to quit trying !
Algae is the only serious prospect we have right now. All others are minor league.
J.C. Bell, an agricultural researcher and CEO of Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., says he's isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally change plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks.
"What we're doing is taking the trash like corn stalks, corn husks, corn cobs – even grass from the yard that goes to the dump – that's what we can turn into oil," Bell told WND. "I'm not going to make asphalt, we're only going to make the things we need. We're going to make gasoline for driving, diesel for our big trucks."
Have you heard anything about this?
I seen some things within the last year about making gasoline and other chain hydrocarbons direct from bacteria. Not alot of detail but it intrigued me because I was not aware they had any organism that was capable of that. Apparently they do.
If that’s the case we might have bacteria gasoline before algae diesel.
Oh yes, let's deprive soil so that we can run cars without oil.
Uh...what? He specifically said he was using agricultural waste materials, up to and including grass clippings. They're not talking about raising acres of corn for fuel use.
The single biggest problem is ethanol is a poor fuel and gallon for gallon has far less energy than gasoline. Current means of producing ethanol from corn are energy intensive meaning that the energy produced when a quantity of ethanol is burned maybe equal or even less than the energy needed to produce that quantity of ethanol. Perhaps newer technologies will make ethanol production more efficient and be able to produce it from waste materials rather than food, but currently that is not the case. Ethanol produced with existing technology cannot replace even a significant part of our gasoline needs. Research should be done looking at producing higher alcohols like butanol which would be better fuels.
There's no such thing as "waste materials" when it comes to returning organic matter to soil. This is spending a fortune trucking the material to an expensive processing plant to return less fuel than the cost of transportation with the additional fuel cost to manufacture and transport soil amendments to produce those waste materials!
Great idea.
195 Californias or 74 Texases to Replace Offshore Oil--(with wind power)
I wonder what those trucks that drive up and down my city's streets collecting containers that say "yard waste" are doing? I'm pretty sure they're "spending a fortune trucking the material" to a landfill where the organic matter is...wait for it...wasted. I know for a fact that hundreds of tons of organic material are burned every year for lack of anything better to do with it.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that we are entirely dependent on "fossil fuels." If this method offers a way to generate energy and transport it to the end user using existing infrastructure, you're damn straight - Great Idea!
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