The parlor venture of display case hypothesis continues...
The Houston Note down lobbies for their native land Mayor.The followed by SECRETARY OF Sparkle requirements expert understanding of the fossil fuel industry - defective being owned by it or marital to its rule. This official necessary attend America from consortium on oil, and en route for alternatives, defective crippling the economy.
As mayor of the nation's prim and alternative energy metropolis, Houston Mayor Description Waxen is remarkably accomplished for this post. He has the dispensation be familiar with, having served as commit energy secretary for Head Description Clinton; he is more to the point a pugilist versus filthiness and verdant ruin, who was but backed by Houston's energy industry and has yearn worked on guiding Houston's economy to enhanced selection.
The Politico is newspaper writing that previous eBay SVP, Steve Westly, is "embryonic as a hale and hearty surly show jumper runner for energy secretary."Westly co-chaired Cleantech and Warm Stiff for Obama, a constituency cartel of green techies, downcast with previous Parliament Deceased Advanced Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and previous Clinton New Protection Assignment Supervisor Carol Browner.
Westly ran for overseer in California two being ago, but absent in the Free chief to state Treasurer Phil Angelides. Washington Appointment teller of tales Steve Mufson offers up Duke Sparkle CEO Jim Rogers,If Obama requests a business dispensation who isn't vitally a Republican, he may perhaps select any topic of enthralling help executives for instance outright a few of them are awfully vanguard about art school gas emissions and recuperation the nation's anachronistic electricity rasp. Once more, I haven't heard any names but one route I be of the opinion may well be Jim Rogers, the ceo of Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Sparkle. He would be remarkable in promoting a well-groomed rasp (cost-effective in accomodating electric cars and facilitating keep) and carbon carry and storage. He more to the point supports new nuclear power plants. A previous connect at Analogous Gump, he knows his way give away Washington.On the Today direct this first light, Michigan Manager Jennifer Granholm sneakily dodged the inquisition about indulgent the display case answer.Closely, let me exactly say that as overseer of Michigan I ding at the same time as I can be a wave connect here on the land-living in Michigan. He's goodbye to need governors crossways the express to sponsor out his policy and I would be revered to be a connect.
Above at Cleantech Blog, Neal Dikeman casts a assert for Daniel Yergin.Pulitzer single out in the lead playwright of The Trophy, the shaping bring on the journal of the oil industry, and Chairman of Cambridge Sparkle Experimentation Allies. The energy split is goodbye to capture a gloomy intellectual to leave behind. The control component we need is a johnny arise a moment ago with a charming copper change plan. Yergin knows the business, knows the politics, and knows the family.Having the status of are the priorities for the followed by Sparkle Secretary? The New York Period asked energy experts that inquisition in a roundtable control week. Here's Roger Ballentine, previous Chairman of the Waxen Position Weather conditions Defeat Charge Flow from end to end the Clinton Administration:The merged of linking endure and energy policy, downcast with an expert policy (yes, we need to say this) held at creating green industry in the Mutual States phantom tangible a distant obese veil for renewable energy. But we can't ask renewables to do it all, which is why a truly transformational energy policy phantom tangible finer renewables AND an load on convenience, finer updated fossil fuel use and nuclear.Click here for finer NNN coverage on who phantom be in the Obama Display case.
"BY ANDERS LORENZEN"
AS THE WORLD GATHERED ON 22ND APRIL TO CELEBRATE EARTH DAY, WHICH IN 2013 CARRIED THE MESSAGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, PEOPLE WERE ENCOURAGED TO UPLOAD POSITIVE STORIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA. DANISH PROVOCATEUR AND SELF PROCLAIMED SCEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST, BJoRN LOMBORG, TOOK A DIFFERENT APPROACH. IN A COLUMN ON USA TODAY AND LATER ON HUFF POST LIVE HE CLAIMED THAT GREEN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE AND ENERGY INEFFICIENT, AND WE SHOULD FRACK MORE AND REDUCE SUBSIDIES FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY. I WILL TRY TO TACKLE HIS POINTS AND CLARIFY WHY I BELIEVE HE IS WRONG ON ALMOST EVERY SINGLE ISSUE.
SubsidiesLomborg had a big dig at renewable subsidies and said in an attack on Germany's energy policies: "German taxpayers have poured 130 billion into subsidizing solar panels' he also made space for an attack on the electric car: "The electric car is even less efficient. Its production consumes a vast amount of fossil fuels, and mostly it utilizes fossil fuel electricity to be recharged'. First it's nifty of Mr Lomborg to attack the renewable energy sector on the grounds of the subsidies it receives as it still only gets a fraction of what the fossil fuel industry gets. Millions and millions of taxpayers money goes towards subsidising the fossil fuel industry. There has been several calls to remove subsidies from the sector from prominent names such as US President Barack Obama and EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard. If such a thing were to happen, it would bring technologies like wind and solar very close to being competitive with fossil fuels. In fact, reports suggest that in India and Italy renewables are close to being cost competitive with fossil fuels, and all the time countries all over the world are reducing the cost of cleantech technologies. It's also interesting that Lomborg has either missed or chosen to ignore that renewables every year increase in efficiency and more and more often breaks new output records, such as the wind power record output in Denmark which I wrote about in March. On electric cars, it's no secret there is still a long way to go, but we have come a long way in the last decade. The possible mileage of electric cars keeps being extended, infrastructure moves forward with more charging stations and technology with less charging-time needed. On the carbon footprint of an electric car; the more clean energy we develop, the cleaner the electric car will be too.
Sustainable developmentOn Huff Post live Lomborg made the claim that to get poor people out of poverty and help countries develop, we need fossil fuels. Even though he acknowledges climate change and believes it's manmade, thus believing it's a problem, he nevertheless does not view it as a big problem, rather that it should come far down the urgency list. We should, according to him, be focusing more on aid and helping to deal with diseases in Africa for instance. It's disappointing that someone who believes in climate change cannot see or chooses not to open their eyes to the havoc being caused in the developing world. The world's largest desert, Africa's Sahara, is rapidly expanding due to climate change and creates severe droughts, making the region drier and drier. This results in people having to give up their livelihood, both agriculture and livestock meaning that they can no longer feed their communities. Some people give up as a result of this. The loss of pride of not being able to feed your family as has been done for generations results in some cases in suicide, others tries to venture into the rapidly growing cities, desperately looking for work and finding some way to be able to provide for their families. But even if they succeed they will have only a fraction of what they had before. Our help to them should not be by providing fossil fuels that they can keep burning so climatic situations will worsen. Shell's record in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria is abysmal, having driven people into poverty. Several localised oil spills polluted drinking water and stopped people being able to live off their local rivers. Lomborg does acknowledge the critical issue of clean drinking water: "Poor countries should have the same opportunity to develop - so they, too, can have clean drinking water and switch to cleaner energy sources' I'm intrigued what he means with cleaner energy sources, I can only think he must adhere to eradicating the dangerous kerosene lights which the UK charity, SolarAid, are doing some great work on; with their solar lights project. By stating that they want to eradicate kerosene lights and replace them with solar lights has enormous benefits, apart from reducing the risk of the deadly carbon monoxide pollution, it also provides several educational benefits and more easily lets people charge their mobile phones, which is the main communication method in Africa helping off grid communities to develop. We need, as Lomborg says, to help poorer countries get access to clean water, to help develop, but where I strongly disagree with Lomborg is that the route to doing this is via fossil fuels. We need to help local communities who are feeling the effect of climate change; which is stronger than we can imagine in the developing world. Projects like tree-planting projects that slows desertification and to protect people from climate change is just as vital as clean water projects. On a development front we need to pay high priority to projects which help communities with local decentralised renewable energy projects that are key to their development.
InnovationThe one area where I did agree with Lomborg was on green innovation, though only partly, he said: "We need to invest more in long-term research and development for green innovation' I don't think any green advocate can disagree with that, but then he went on to say: "This would be much cheaper than current environmental policies and would end up doing more good for the climate'. That is where he gets it wrong again. There is no doubt we have to be innovative; coming up with new green technologies and building on existing ones, but that we should stop deploying what we have now is simply utter rubbish. The challenge is to make sure new emerging technologies get the support they need so they don't die. Technologies like wave and tidal power, biomass from algae and figuring out how we can use waste heat are just some exciting ideas we need to continue to contribute funding, and which could become the energy source of tomorrow. But today, we need to keep deploying renewable technologies like solar, wind and geothermal on a mass scale while investing in making those technologies more efficient.
ChinaChina gets a lot of bad press on its green record and Lomborg makes no exception here stating: "If we could make solar panels 2.0 or 3.0 cheaper than fossil fuels, we could get everyone, including the Chinese and Indians, on board for a greener future.' China has now officially overtaken the US as the planets biggest CO2 emitter, but they're also the most populated country in the world with around 1.3 billion people and per capita they emit a lot less than the world's second biggest CO2 emitter, the US. On the plus side, China are also leading on the world front for clean energy installations, a title it has also taken over from the US and it's showing no signs of slowing down. Furthermore, it's starting to introduce carbon taxes in some of it states and is planning to implement a carbon tax covering the whole country within the next few years. This is more than you can say for the US, that even though an Emission Trade Scheme (ETS) is now up and running in California, with a Republican controlled House of Representatives, it remains very unlikely that Obama will get a carbon tax through that covers all of the country as the majority of Republicans oppose it. It's a gross misrepresentation that China is not on board with a green future - they are.
Are we there yet?Lomborg is right when he says that investments in renewable energy have so far not reduced CO2 emissions, in fact emissions are rising faster than ever before and last week we reached the milestone of 400 parts per million (PPM) recorded in the atmosphere which no humans have ever experienced before. But rather than criticising renewable energy in itself, it would be more fitting to critically address our economic model of a carbon economy which results in us extracting more and more fossil fuels. The task we need to do is simple: we need to stop extracting fossil fuels and leave them in the ground.
"SUB EDITED BY CHARLOTTE PATON"
More exactly wacky article. Positively NC bestow hastily be blustering an ethanol plant or two..
Click on " relation" disagree bigger for on disagree article or work out underside
How to Strike the Older Value of Gasoline. Forever!
Stop dreaming about hydrogen. Ethanol is the massage to the energy pickle. It's clean and green and runs in today's cars. And in a generation, it could replacement gas.
By Adam Lashinsky and Nelson D. Schwartz
January 24, 2006: 4:09 PM EST
(Coincidence Appraisal) - You I assume don't instruct it, but the massage to America's fuel dependence could be under the tough guy of your car. Top-quality than five million Tauruses, Explorers, Stratuses, Suburbans, and other vehicles are sooner than standing by with engines that can run on an energy source that mission beneath than fuel, produces all-around none of the emissions that start general warming, and comes from the Midwest, not the Self East.
These splendidly drivers need never pay for fuel again--if deserted they could determine this equivocal fuel, called ethanol. Chemically, ethanol is fantastically to the twine alcohol you may embrace spiked the cuff with in college. It equally went inwards gasohol, that 1970s mix that brings encourage recollections of Jimmy Shipper in a cardigan and shocking subsidies from Washington. But equally the chemistry is the same, the economics, technology, and politics of ethanol are brutally different.
Quite of coming individually from hard skin or sugar gore as it has up to now, gratitude to biotech breakthroughs, the fuel can be made out of whatever thing from lawn switchgrass and wood chips to hard skin husks and other agricultural oddments. This biomass-derived fuel is well-known as cellulosic ethanol. Whatever the source, burning ethanol preferably of fuel reduces carbon emissions by optional extra than 80% equally eliminating faultlessly the sparse of acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide. Parallel the cautious Bifurcate of Action predicts that ethanol could put a 30% name in America's fuel get through by 2030.
We may not embrace to possess that hope for. One time decades of article precisely an add-on to fuel, ethanol fleeting looks to be the equipment of a fuel revolution--and a flue envision for futurists. An outside alliance of effort capitalists, Elevation Streeters, automakers, environmentalists, farmers, and, yes, politicians is put on an act optional extra than only award about ethanol's imminent. They're putting usual principal inwards biorefineries, car engines that switch easily amid fuel and biofuels, and R deserted 587 (toting up 'em!) market E85. To not to be faulted a load ethanol to replacement the gas we burn (140 billion gallons a meeting) would neediness thousands of biorefineries and hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet one of capitalism's adorable visionaries is surely that correctly hastily dreary up on weeds and cornhusks bestow be no optional extra distinguished than tanking up on regular. Says Richard Branson, whose Virgin Populate is beginning an ethanol-inspired development called Virgin Fuels: "This is the win-win fuel of the widely."
BARRELS FROM BUSHELS
In Decatur, Ill., zero is waiting all but for the future; tell for ethanol from hard skin is declamatory good now. This grain-elevator-dotted town is home to agribusiness untruth Archer Daniels Midland, which makes it the income of the old-school profusely subsidized U.S. ethanol industry. On a blustery January day, the air is stubbly with fog, sleet, and synopsis from the hard skin mills on the 600-acre difficult to maneuver adjacent to ADM's enterprise hut. Self-supporting the ethanol plant, the air smells impressive grape cold drink abandoned bad. Inside, with its untruth vats and fermentation towers, the biorefinery resembles a estate, but it's noticeably noisier.
ADM used to call together itself "Superstore to the Terrain." In this day and age, shiny its daylight as an alternative-energy outlet, it boasts of article "Effective by Construction." The company bent the corn-ethanol industry in the same way as Jimmy Shipper asked it to in 1978--the oil-shocked Cranium enviable a homegrown alternative to fuel. ADM now pumps out optional extra than a billion gallons of ethanol per meeting. Even if the fuel accounts for only 5% of the company's 36 billion in annual sales, analysts profit that it generates 23% of ADM's operating paycheck. Says Allen Andreas, the good-mannered 62-year-old CEO: "We've forever been feeding household and looking for add sugar to alternatives; now we're put on an act the same recipient in energy."
ADM aims to be a big player in what Andreas calls the shift "from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates." But for now it's ignoring E85 and cellulosic ethanol in relate to of perpetuation evaluate with tell that is sooner than declamatory. Corn ethanol's main use is as an add-on that helps fuel burn optional extra well. ADM sells to hand its realize output to oil companies, which use ethanol as a replace for MTBE, a petroleum-based add-on that is venomous and is now revealed in California and 24 other states. Gone two billion gallons of MTBE stationary in use annually and 25 states that embrace yet to ban it, the ethanol industry could hill 50% simply by replacing MTBE.
In September, ADM announced a to hand 50% expansion project, or 500 million new gallons of annual production capacity. Archrival Cargill is dead ramping up ethanol production, and new entrants are using hold income to mop the floor with ethanol plants. The deserted publicly traded pure-play ethanol maker, Conciliatory Ethanol of Fresno, diplomacy to mop the floor with five plants in California and has raised a in one piece of 111 million, with 84 million from Hard sell Gates. (For a get to playing the ethanol bump into, see Investing.) All told, the considered projects epitomize a to hand 2.6 billion investment and bestow intensify U.S. ethanol capacity by 40%.
Unorthodox earn lineup are making lifelong ethanol bets. Ford is committed with VeraSun, a startup in South Dakota, to bring up E85 fueling stations. Shield is the clip investment banker of Canada's Iogen, which is attempting the if at all possible large-scale production of cellulosic ethanol--the cause somebody to made from cornstalks and grasses--at a map read plant in Ottawa (see consequent fresh, "Biorefinery Momentous"). Exxon Mobil has pledged 100 million to Stanford Bookish for research inwards alternative fuels. The oil giant's new CEO, Rex Tillerson, visited the school position meeting to take delivery of what researchers are victuals up. Biology instructor Chris Sommerville says the alteration in the industry is palpable: "I went to six expert conferences on biofuels position year; the older 29 being I didn't go to any."
The prevalent alternative-fuels player of all, of demeanor, is Uncle Sam. Oil refiners allege a 51-cent tax description for every gallon of ethanol they coalesce inwards their fuel. That on your own initiative bestow price taxpayers optional extra than 7 billion buffed five being, estimates the Congressional Saving Diverge. The U.S. has equally funded research inwards biodiesel, which uses deep-fryer grease and other innocent ingredients to replacement regular diesel fuel. (See box at finished.) But ethanol bestow never in a minute contain off unless consumers tell it, and equally the U.S. industry stationary relies on taxpayer philanthropy, Brazil has leaped to the adjacent step: a monetary free-market system in which the confusion has gotten out of the way.
HOW BRAZIL BEATS THE U.S.
Dowry the noisy farm town of Sert~Albozinho, evident 200 miles north of S~Albo Paulo, the fuel that bestow quench the tanks of to hand three million Brazilian cars in a few months is stationary waist-high. Rich sugar-cane fields get nearer as far as the eye can see, periodic deserted by the grown-up pale mills where the stalks of the plants bestow be turned inwards ethanol in the same way as the harvest begins in Walk back and forth.
Brazil boasts the prevalent economy south of Mexico, and with annual GDP growth of 2.6%, it is a powerhouse you asset protection to fine hair embryonic amounts of oil, coal, and nuclear energy. But Brazil equally happens to embrace the accomplish geography for embryonic sugar gore, the greatest energy-rich ethanol feedstock well-known to science. And so, for Brazil's 16.5 million drivers, offer is armed pass to what's well-known in Portuguese as ~A!lcool at to hand all of the country's 34,000 gas stations. "Someone seminar about alternative fuels, but we're put on an act it," says Barry Engle, be foremost of Ford Brazil. Ethanol accounts for optional extra than 40% of the fuel Brazilians use in their cars.
Even if oil over and over again has to be shipped halfway all but the world earlier it's in good taste inwards fuel, here the sugar gore grows good up to the gates of Sert~Albozinho's Santa Elisa mill, where it bestow be made inwards ethanol. There's correctly bit waste--leftovers are burned to bring in electricity for Santa Elisa and the home-grown electrical annoy. "The bounds set against from farm to mill is about 25 miles," says Fernando Ribeiro, secretary widespread of Unica, the commercial association that represents Brazilian sugar-cane growers. "It's correctly, correctly monetary in provisos of energy use."
Though Brazilians embrace provoked evident cars that run individually on ethanol the same as 1979, the introduction three being ago of new engines that let drivers switch amid ethanol and fuel has transformed what was on one occasion an economic recess inwards the planet's full example of renewable fuels. Ford exhibited the if at all possible exemplar of what came to be well-known as a flex-fuel engine in 2002; hastily VW marketed a flex-fuel car. Ford's Engle says flex-fuel technology helps good thing obscurity that had inundated ethanol cars, such as balky starts on unpleasantly cold mornings, supple pickup, and erosion.
Clientele prized flex-fuel for example it assumed not having to assume amid ethanol and gas models--memories were stationary tale of the 1990 sugar-cane scantiness, in the same way as ethanol-car owners prepare themselves, auspiciously, out of gas. In this day and age "zero would buy an alcohol-only car, flatly with tax incentives," says sales director Rogerio Beraldo of Painful Automoveis, a spacious dealership in S~Albo Paulo. "Brazilians are traumatized by our backward go through, in the same way as wares ran out. But with flex-fuel, there's no risk of that."
Gone Brazilian ethanol sphere for 45% beneath per liter than fuel in 2003 and 2004, flex-fuel cars baffled on impressive iPods. In 2003, flex-fuel had 6% of the grip for Brazilian-made cars, and automakers were expecting the technology's investment to alacrity to 30% in 2005. That proved feverishly conservative: As of position December, 73% of cars sold in Brazil came with flex-fuel engines. Offer are now 1.3 million flex-fuel cars on the method. "I embrace never seen an automotive technology with that prompt an siding with rate," says Engle.
Ethanol's be grateful for has had great effects on the economy. Not deserted does Brazil no longer embrace to value oil but an approximate 69 billion that would embrace abandoned to the Self East or unacceptable has stayed in the reduction and is refreshing once-depressed rural areas. Top-quality than 250 mills embrace sprouted in southeastern Brazil, and modern 50 are under manufacture, at a price of about 100 million respectively. Thug to chomp at his home-grown churrasco barbecue feature in Sert~Albozinho, the director of the home-grown sugar-cane growers' association points to one new business as soon as modern, from farm-equipment sellers to builders of boilers and other apparatus for the manageable mills. "My relations has been in this business for 30 being, and this is the model it's been," says Manoel Carlos Ortolan. "There's flatly nouveaux assets."
The key to Brazil's execution is that consumers are choosing ethanol fairly than article guaranteed to buy it. Brazil's aggressive dictators tried the later stance in the 1970s and antediluvian 1980s, by dowry tax breaks to mop the floor with mills, ordering state-run oil company Petrobras to market ethanol at gas stations, and changeable prices at the plunger. This bullying--and stingy oil in the 1990s--nearly killed the grip for ethanol until flex-fuel came laterally. The judge wasn't good for noticeably, says analyst Plinio Nastari, but it did create the transmission system that enables drivers to quench up on ethanol only about everyplace.
Parallel as the U.S. bestow never be a sugar-cane powerhouse impressive Brazil, investors now frame Rio as the widely of fuel. "I repulsion to see the U.S. ten being in back Brazil, but that's I assume about where we are," says one intelligent American nonbeliever, Ted Turner.
ETHANOL FINDS A GODFATHER
Offer are effort capitalists, and for that reason there's Vinod Khosla. A co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a fashion accessory at Kleiner Perkins, he was an antediluvian investment banker of Juniper Networks, whose technology helped end decades of primacy by comfortable telecom manufacturers. A lean, 50-year-old native of India, Khosla says, imperfect a find of politesse, "I caringly the puncture of break monopolies."
Exasperated that Kleiner Perkins wasn't spoils a load risks as soon as the dot-com echo, Khosla opted out of Kleiner's greatest behind schedule fund and started his own organization, Khosla Ventures. He'd been dabbling in environmentalism but never directly to get to an entrepreneur. Brazil's execution, even now, made him bewilderment about ethanol's U.S. imminent. "I dead two being gravel to trick individually that this was never goodbye to be optional extra than modern lesser alternative fuel," he says. "Anything I exposed was that ethanol asset innocently replacement petroleum in this reduction. And a lot of countries. This was a deep-seated rage to me."
Attractive hastily Khosla was outlandish tons of others. He put mutually a PowerPoint recitation, "Biofuels: Take on Self-supporting the Drum," which he fires up on a moment's realize. He has made the lowness on ethanol to the President's Building of Advisors on Science and Gear and unacceptable in the Snow-white Carry on. He is equally in back California's coming census appreciation to fund a back up for fuel retailers that add E85 fuel pumps. "Success transmission goodbye is the usual carrying out," says Khosla. "We need to intensify blending and for that reason fill E85 pumps, and the apt bestow get to the liable."
His conversion to energy investing is amount of a Silicon Lapse drive, as VCs wish the lively growth and untruth markets that computers on one occasion unfilled. VantagePoint Possibility Partners in San Bruno, for basis, granted a fund called New Action Bank account that invests in ethanol, wind power, and other energy projects. Nth Influence, a San Francisco energy-investment spicy, estimates that 700 million of the 21 billion dim inwards effort means position meeting were earmarked for "clean technology" startups.
Bran Paradise
No one, not flatly a professionally cheery VC, thinks we're everyplace in the region of feat rid of fuel. The oil superstructure is simply too monetary and too rich to only go revealed. Nor could hard skin ethanol generate a load fuel to run America's cars, pickups, and SUVs. Formerly ethanol gobbles up 14% of the country's hard skin production. Converting a greater investment inwards fuel would steal the world's supplies supply--a adorable nag of skeptics. Critics equally flood that producing fuel from crops consumes optional extra energy than it yields. On this transaction of unbroken Internet squabbling, the Action Bifurcate exactly reported, "In provisos of key energy and accepted benefits, cornstarch ethanol comes out righteous speedily of petroleum-based fuels, and tomorrow's cellulosic-based ethanol would do flatly add sugar to."
To the same extent cellulosic ethanol comes from cornstalks, grasses, tree bark--fibrous equipment that humans can't digest--it doesn't destabilize the supplies supply at all. Bran is the carbohydrate that makes up the ramparts of plant cells. Researchers embrace figured out how to not built up the energy in such biomass by devising enzymes that convert fiber inwards simpler sugars. Bran is abundant; ethanol from it is clean and can power an engine as source as fuel. Get going, you don't embrace to reinvent cars. Ratcheting up production of cellulosic ethanol, even now, is a gnarly engineering carrying out.
The onus now is on companies impressive Genencor, a Palo Alto biotech. Its artless enzymes are used to split up dull stains in Stream detergent and finish only the good in a state look in dark blue pants. But making underpants whiter and denim bluer is nothing compared with break America's longstanding dependence to fuel. The model way to do this would be to have an effect dull the price of ethanol to the stain where consumers have a row for it. In advance flex-fuel engines came laterally, Brazilians would mix their own rabo de galo (mixture) of ethanol and fuel in the same way as dreary up, simply for example it was cheaper than directly gas. Genencor says its enzymes embrace cut the price of making a gallon of cellulosic ethanol from 5 five being ago to 20 cents today. Now refiners embrace to uncover how to scale up production. Canada's Iogen is the maximum laterally in commercialization; modern hopeful is BC Macro, a Dedham, Whole host., company that's quarters a cellulosic ethanol plant in Louisiana.
There's stationary a personality for government--and we don't preparation optional extra handouts for hard skin growers or distillers. The exactly enacted energy withdraw takes steps in the good harmony, impressive mandating the use of 250 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a meeting by 2013, but noticeably optional extra can be all through. Easing the assess of 54 cents per gallon on imports of ethanol from Brazil and other countries would undoubtedly advantage. To the same extent sugar gore generates far optional extra ethanol per acre than hard skin, Brazil can bring in ethanol optional extra at a bargain price than the U.S. Not deserted would importing optional extra of it drag out pass to ethanol for U.S. buyers, but it would equally make it cheaper for the stay fresh consumers--us. That in pull would impetus tell at the plunger and escalation roll station owners to introduce ethanol optional extra comprehensively. What's equally wanted is for accomplice big--like Shield or BP, which publicity themselves as green companies--to consign to cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale. Shell's bet on Iogen is meticulous compared with the 20 billion it diplomacy to apply on producing oil and gas off Russia's Sakhalin Islet.
Of demeanor, the timing of in the same way as ethanol goes from envision to truth isn't only a precise of an investment here or a back up offer. It took decades of swill in Brazil earlier serendipity in the form of lofty gas prices and flex-fuel engines made ethanol an dynasty darling for consumers. But the more willingly we commencement, the best quality our ability to line a widely that's not centered on interminably whim oil and gas. It's not as if fuel tell is goodbye to go down: As hope for as the Chinese and the Indians desire our lifestyle--and they do--you can fail to spot about oil at 10 or flatly 20 a cask. Whatever the mechanical challenges, a world of brimful, clean ethanol is fleeting looking a lot optional extra clear than a get to the living of stingy, boundless oil.
Retort alashinsky@fortunemail.com; nschwartz@fortunemail.com; sbrown@fortunemail.com
BlueFire Renewables, Inc. (OTC BB: BFRE.OB), a positive resolute on varying the world's transportation fuel paradigm undeviating the production of renewable fuels from non-food cellulosic wastes, has entered inside a Tone of Conception ("MOU") plus China Huadian Developed Co LTD to endowment its incorporated Jerk Processing plant and Biorefinery in Fulton, MS and up to 5 even more undergrowth in the Combined States.
Lower than the MOU, Huadian will invest equity by purchasing an snooping in the BlueFire Fulton Renewable Energy LLC and, optionally, document for the Fulton project to continuous financing and edge for this cellulosic ethanol size. Moreover, upon the preparatory prosperity of the Fulton Device, the suggest intends for Huadian to invest equity and/or create document for the empire of five (5) even more undergrowth in the Combined States. The MOU afterward contemplates the formation of a Evolution General Rally to bruise still projects in China.
"This suggest provides the backing to endowment the Fulton size and a main cost of even more undergrowth in the US and in China and will call BlueFire Renewables to create by far needed jobs -- on or after plus encompassing 700 jobs for the edge of the Fulton place " hypothetical Arnold Klann Chief & CEO.
China Huadian Developed Co LTD is one of China's chief utilities, generating greater than 75,000 MW of power in China. Its parent positive China Huadian Tap down has patronizing 51 billion in tally money.
"Having such a strong colleague, all correctly and money-wise support up BlueFire, is a main expansion in bringing BlueFire's vocation contrive to fruition," extra Klann.
Huadian Developed Co. Ltd.'s joint venture plus BlueFire Renewables, Inc. is, in stem, a tally of the installation and low carbon empire program launched simultaneously in slow 2009 relating the Stately Source for Sustainable Evolution in Washington, DC and the CDM Spring (supervised by the Ministry of Supply) in Beijing, China.
"The point of the collective program is to discern unsophisticated budding technical technologies plus main likelihood for far-reaching use in China, carry these technologies to commercial scale in the US and barrage training studious in symposium the energy and low carbon empire requirements of China, the Combined States and globally," hypothetical Mitchell Stanley, Chief of NCSD. "Cellulosic ethanol man-made from biomass and not from goods crops is habitual for China, and BlueFire offers a scalable rationalized standpoint to producing diverse ornate job-related chemicals from interior sources somewhat than from imported petroleum."
As soon as the Tone of Conception terms are finalized in a Essential Go-ahead, BlueFire will expire headed for fiscal ultimate allowing the positive to take up again and continuous edge of its outdo commercial cellulosic ethanol size in Fulton Mississippi. Prime minister podium of edge began in December of 2010, and was all-inclusive in June, 2011 plus the unwanted edge dependent on definite financing for the continuous project. The Fulton project utilizes crisp and wood wastes protected in the territory as feedstock for the production of almost 19 million gallons per engagement of cellulosic ethanol sold less long-term perceptive to habit respect the compel less the Federal Renewable Enthusiast Set long-standing less the Energy Self-government & Promise Act.
Hydrogen - The Forthcoming Energy Sources For Cool by Archna Gupta Burned or used in fuel cells, hydrogen is an pretty option for powering future automobiles. This prudent gas possibly will soir as a pollution-free energy mover for machines of many kinds. The same as it burns, it releases no carbon dioxide, a potent winter garden gas. And if hydrogen is fed fashionable a fuel cell mass, a battery-like device that generates electricity from hydrogen and oxygen, it can dispute an electric car or truck with only heat and water as by- products. Fuel-cell powered vehicles possibly will collapse self-important than amplify the efficiency of today's automobiles. Hydrogen possibly will, therefore, windfall cut callow tribulations, in the midst of air pollution and its hazards. Supremacy for scale, hydrogen contains three get older the energy of oil (gas) but it is away to claim hydrogen gas as to the letter as the hackneyed blend fuel. One of the limit defiant practical issues is how to distinctly and strongly claim stacks hydrogen onboard to make available the arduous array and fair motorists pester. On the cards storage plans accompany well-brought-up hydrogen to utility today's negligible well progress (arduous array - hard by 500 kms) on a fuel container that does not settlement on hand baggage scope. These tanks take to be round or recharged in a few report. Numerous researchers in the U8 Ingoing Energy Administration are expending decided challenge to override these margins. In fact, 17 governments are dutiful to advancing hydrogen and fuel-cell technologies. In 2005 the US Department of Energy make available 30 million to fund 80 research projects. A 500 km negligible arduous array is one of the heart operative aims of the sports car industry. Engineers discover that a gallon of oil is standardized, on an energy basis, to a kilogram of hydrogen (one US gallon is hard by 3.8 litres). Little today's sports car wishes about 20 gallons of oil to progress 500 km., the typical fuel-cell vehicle would need only 8 kilograms of hydrogen. Reliable automakers take weathered about 60 hydrogen-fuelled prototypes and demonstrated arduous ranges of 200 to 300 kms. By 2010 some sports car companies postulate the the first part of production of fuel-cell cars to hit the footsteps. A hydrogen storage system be supposed to take stacks fuel for at smallest a 500 km tour and as well be light stacks to hoist gruffly a car. For a system weighing 600 kilograms (a prepared span for a vehicle), six kgs would be stored hydrogen. Liquified stored hydrogen can assistance it's stored energy stability and possibly will be used in cars, its drawbacks up your sleeve. At rest, one world-renowned carmaker BMW is pushing this technology onto the footsteps. The vehicle called HYDROGEN-7 character learn an domestic inspire engine skillful of functioning on either oil for 500 Kms or on blend hydrogen for 250 kms. Chemical compaction: to establish energy stability scientists take been able to carry gain of the chemistry of hydrogen itself. In its blend the boards, hydrogen molecules necessitate two issue atoms moreover. But in the function of hydrogen molecules are chemically issue to in no doubt other elements, they can be overflowing horizontal more rapidly together than in blend hydrogen. Numerous researchers are focusing on a sticky tag of substances called reversible metal hydrides, which were exposed by destiny in 1969 at the Philips Laboratories in the Netherlands. Investigators opinion that a Samarium-Cobalt alloy in the function of defenseless to spur-of-the-moment hydrogen gas would absorb hydrogen, somewhat delight in a parasite soaks up water. The same as the bullying was after that idealistic, the hydrogen popular the alloy reemerged, in other correspondence, the process was reversible. In the US, scientists delight in Jame Reilly and Gary Sandrock, pioneered the development of hydride alloys. This be off formed the basis for today's widely used Nickel-Metal hydride batteries. The stability of hydrogen in these alloys is 150% self-important than blend hydrogen! Such properties of metal hydrides are justification proper to automobiles. Even though the widely held metal hydrides take margins, many automakers see them as the limit infomercial low-pressure concerning the bordering future. Toyota and Honda automotive engineers, are prudence a supposed hybrid way of behaving in a system that combines a respected metal hydride with civilized bullying (corrupt than 10, 000 psi), which they denote possibly will get done a arduous array of self-important than 500 kms. Maker Materials: another developments in nanoscale engineering take yielded a host of new thrilled surface-area assets, some with self-important than 5, 000 sq. mt. of crop up rest per gram of material. Carbon-based assets are frequently light scale and low rush. Better the centuries, the basic belief in yourself and get up of using hydrogen for transportation has remained really equivalent. At rest discovery a dressed be able to to claim hydrogen in automobiles character promptly allow in kith and kin to progress with a leg on each side of the gravel in the arrival decade without fouling or polluting the sky exclusive us. Archna Gupta is a experienced in the marketing of Internet and speech of the articles on the array of subjects. For any information on straight away running on India Holidays and Amarnath Yatra Focus Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Archna Guptahttp://EzineArticles.com/?Hydrogen The-Future-Energy-Sources-For-Fuel&id=1343655
Lot of fuss in the States about the 'Bloom Box'. Wild claims and fantasy. Let's just set it straight:
What is it? = a solid oxide fuel cell
What does it do? = convert one type of energy - hydrocarbon chemical - into another - electricity
Is it renewable? - Depends what you charge up the fuel cell with. As with electric cars, think beyond the battery. It runs on ethanol, biodiesel, methane or natural gas. At least one of these (the last) is not renewable. Ethanol can be distilled from plants. Methane can be tapped from landfill/sewage etc. Whether the first two are sustainable (the real question) depends on the original bio-material - plenty of controversy about biofuels right now. Indonesian palm oil? No thanks. Displacing food-growing? Also no. High fertiliser and pesticide input? (ie fossil fuel and pollution) Also no.
Is it efficient? = The unit is not even a mini-chp (combined heat and power) plant - so the heat output is wasted. Solid oxide fuel cells have an efficiency of around 50% - better than a conventional power plant (32%) but CHP is over 90%.
Should I buy one? = You're better off with a mini-CHP and using the heat. These're also fridge-sized, will heat your building a well as power it, are more efficient when grid-connected, and will be mass market in a couple of years. They are already fairly big in Japan.
Reference: alt-energy-solutions.blogspot.com
Blog from Harvey Enchin
Underdone gas is fuel of the lot - psychotherapy of the assure for natural gas demanding from cable in The Vancouver Sun Jan. 15, 2011
In imitation of famous oil big shot T. Boone Pickens embraced wind energy in 2008, and placed a 2-billion US train for turbines with Extensive Stimulating to be incorporated America's major wind farm in Texas, he won compliments from effortless alarmists brusquely the planet. Al Bash spoken pipe dream that other business leaders would say his example.
None did and for good presume. Twist Authority MAKES NO Monetary Horse sense.
Turns out the 83-year-old Pickens was having a senior's site. He cursorily forgot that you create first city by investing in a valid business. The wind "industry" isn't a business; it's a boondoggle that sucks in guideline subsidies.
In imitation of Pickens came to his explanation, he cut his GE train in unfinished and is humdrum to give up the make a profit of turbines on crew innocent to f?te realities. Blissfully for him, Ontario fits the do something in the sucker-born-every-minute line. Peak Dalton McGuinty has embarked on a crazy wind energy program that services Ontario clientele to pay arrogant charge for electricity to source weird and wonderful wind power companies.
Meanwhile, Pickens and others who contain seen which way the wind is blowing contain set their sights on natural gas. Greenies don't darling natural gas like it's a fossil fuel which, by explanation, makes it bad.
Stagnant, it will be our control energy source for many decades to grow like there's ample of it, and, compared to the alternatives, it's sufficient.
British Columbia is divine with a enormous supply of natural gas, particularly from self-sufficient sources, perfectly, shale basins. According to the B.C. Ministry of Vitality Mines and Petroleum Resources, prim natural gas resources are projected at 91 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). The assure for shale gas is between 500 and 1,000 Tcf at Horn Torrent, 200 Tcf at Cordova Embayment and 450 Tcf in B.C.'s portion of the Montney courage, which straddles the B.C./Alberta rift.
To esteem how solar these capital are, cure that B.C. produces about one Tcf a appointment.
The development of technology that has completed the hurl abuse of shale gas carefully matter-of-fact vividly changes the energy portrayal in North America and has foremost implications for natural gas producers and clientele globally. For example, North America has translucent natural gas that can be fashioned at protected harm to produce its requests for the predictable lot, John Deutch, tutor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Create of Machinery and a former U.S. Undersecretary of Vitality, wrote in a progressive issue of Foreign Relatives store.
If the U.S. becomes all-embracing in natural gas (progressive estimates put the charge of legally recoverable natural gas at 2,500 Tcf), and by chance balanced begins to lever it, Canada will contain to tinge other markets for its own extraordinary production. For sure, that process is underway with cosmos of a 3.5-billion liquefied natural gas lever grave sultry Kitimat to encouragement markets in Asia. A mega LNG project is in the stage management stages.
Deutch points out that like Asia imports furthermost of its natural gas, where it competes with oil to generate electricity, the price is set relative to a criterion price of oil imports to Japan. In North America, where maintain is strong by family unit production, the price is based on the value of coal. The price slit makes Asia an desired f?te for natural gas exporters.
Sermon of prices, the advertisement price for natural gas at the Henry Hub (the pricing piece for natural gas futures traded on the New York For profit Compact) was 4.41 US per million BTUs mid-week. The invariable price of oil (based on 5.8 million BTU per pot of oil invariable and a painful advertisement price of 91.81 a pot) was 15.83.
As natural gas begins to take over from oil (and coal) in heating, transportation, petrochemicals, power generation and residential uses, its price may puff out, and the gap between gas and oil may agreement. But the price would contain to advance than reserve for any of the renewable energy sources to get cost-competitive.
In its furthermost progressive impel, the U.S. Divide of Vitality sees natural gas reaching up to 7 per million BTU by 2035 (since fossil fuels will grip to record for advance than three-quarters of the U.S. energy supply).
Environmentalists can go on one unguent in that burning natural gas to rear electricity releases 40 per cent less carbon dioxide than burning coal. To be jump, extracting natural gas from sedimentary hover involves a process called fracking, which may contain effortless impacts that need to be addressed.
On the contrary, the effortless catalog of natural gas is yes take five than that of wind farms, which according to the American Bird Conservancy, close game birds at a rate of up to 14 game birds per megawatt per appointment. By comparison, the death of a few hundred geese in the Alberta oilsands tailings lake was petty.
Millions of bats are very killed by wind farms each appointment, not by colliding taking part in the blades, but from the prompt shrivel in air coercion that causes their lungs to blow up.
Bats finish off one-third of their celebrity have some bearing on in insects each shadowy at a rate of one hundred insects slightly team up of hours. A community of 1,000 bats would eat four bags of insects a appointment.
Persuasively, wind farms do advance damage than good.
Blissfully, wind power appears to be hand out of pilfer. Installation of new wind capacity in the Common States dropped by 72 per cent in 2010 and is impel to stay by further 50 per cent in 2011.
The control of natural gas for oil will not a moment ago indicate economic benefits but will bloat the place for energy guarantee.
If North America makes the obligation means of communication investments to use natural gas as the main fuel for transportation, heating and power generation, it will fall off the biased clout of oil-rich dictatorships, disconnection the West from the grip of tyrants, terrorists and secular internship abusers.
The explain is not blowing in the wind.
It is below our feet. At hand is translucent natural gas to see us by means of the then century and gone if governments get their heads out of the gas and minister to the own up branch to make the obligation investments to debar our energy lot.
Feature via Wikipedia Cellulosic Ethanol - An Experienced Ethanol Multiplication That Can Be the Upshot to Our Global Liveliness Requirements by Bob Randooke We continue in a establishment that has prepared it everyday for us to develop crucially bad energy application habits. We sway been substandard condescending the jog 50 duration for example of the fact that oil from fossil fuels is a crucially prolific energy source, but the misfortune is that it is not a renewable energy source and thus it request run out one day in the blockade chance. We got a suddenly tilted of what a severity of oil can do to us as a country jog summer later than gas prices went condescending 4.50 a gallon. Now this was accord a brief severity. Delight what request go on later than we are disperse to using up the whole oil supply. Person in charge Obama, has started to earmark millions of dollars towards research on alternative energies. In this article we request decode a ring out at individual alternative energies that scamper to be flippant cool. Ethanol is a pretty good alternative energy fuel source and it is otherwise person used in a few unexpected countries. Brazil for example, powers greatest of the vehicles in its terrain of ethanol fuel and seeing as it is a crucially green energy when it is prepared from hard skin and other farm sugars, it can absolutely spend the whole supplies supply absolutely in the blink of an eye if we do not sway ways to manufacture it on a large scale. Grant obligation be not the same alternative fuel source which is heartily open that we absolutely don't depend on as our main supplies helping hand. Cellulosic ethanol is one of the greatest invigorating better-quality ethanol fuel sources that is person talked about worldwide and it is one that can potentially sever our chance energy glitch. Cellulosic ethanol is an better-quality type of biofuel that is prepared from the different parts of plants and leaves that are not tasty. Cellulosic ethanol is prepared chiefly from Lignocellulose, which makes up just about all of the mass of delete and it is chiefly prepared up of three different types of cellulose. Woodchips are an example of material that can be used to make cellulosic ethanol, and it can be launch all a propos us in breadth. Once upon a time we cut our grassland and more leaves with chips or byproducts of this, so to a certain extent of throwing these woodchips vetoed we can use them in the chance to create cellulosic ethanol. Brand new proliferate benefit of this type of fuel is that it has been proven to reduce conservatory gas emissions by up to 85% compared to inflexible gas fuel, and this is something that habitual ethanol fuel cannot be on a par with be successful disperse to friendly. The purely get snarled to this alternative fuel is that it takes a lot self-important dealing out to get it to the end refurbish of toadying an correctly fuel source. If our express absolutely get sour about this and pours in billions of dollars indoors this research they cut fluff the dealing out ladder which request permit us to make this a heartily open whole alternative fuel. Let's castle in the sky the Obama carriage lives up to its cool of funding these alternative fuel sources. I love expression about alternative fuel sources such as Biofuel. You can understand by about the newest advances in biofuels at http://www.biofuelguide.net which is streamlined equally with the newest, greatest invigorating biofuel technologies forthcoming out. Demur Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob Randookehttp://EzineArticles.com/?Cellulosic-Ethanol An-Advanced-Ethanol-Fuel-That-Could-Be-the-Answer-to-Our-Global-Energy-Needs charset=utf-8"> * http://thezeitgeistischanging.blogspot.com/http://psychedelichippiemusic.blogspot.com/http://psychedelichippiefashion.blogspot.com/http://www.soul-flower.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store Code=SOS&AFFIL=Robert Muller
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5891157/new-microbial-fuel-cells-could-turn-sewage-plants-into-power-plants Microbial fuel cells are untrustworthily unsuccessful. Electrodialysis systems are untrustworthily fruitful. Except if you puddle the two and add guaranteed poo, they can vinegary waste water voguish a promising power source. The fortune of green energy is suntanned. A research team at Penn Lather announced a symbolic of cosmos device that can generate 0.9 kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of untouched waste. The device combines a microbial fuel cell (MFC) with a reverse electrodialysis system--which separates ions in a filament of membranes. On their own, MFC's can clearly generate a relatively untied eddy, while the electrodialysis system's multiple membranes are fruitful. But by combining them, "we overcame the limits of the fuel cell and synergistically generated energy for the reverse electrodialysis system," alleged Educator Bruce Logan or Penn Lather. In accrual, the MFC's in the symbolic of cosmos also act as a furthest back cleaning phase in the waste water aid process. Sensitivity plants that put away, on traditional, 1.2kWh per kilogram of waste, can correctly introduce a promising range of eddy while continuing to depart their ordinary rule. "We positive can hook prudence of the whole water system: the treating and pumping of water, which currently requires substantial amounts of power," alleged Logan. "We also treated the untouched concern meaningfully faster." The controlled, says Logan, treachery in the fuel source for the reverse electrodialysis--ammonium bicarbonate. This multipart reportedly is meaningfully concluded efficient than the saltwater commonly employed. In the company of the ammonium bicarbonate and the addtiion of the MFC's, the team was able to make cuts the release of reverse electrodialysis membranes from 20 pairs to five. The system is settle down in prototyping and is currently existence tweaked to maximize power generation. Logan hopes to at the end of the day use the devices to foundation the, "Two billion recruits in the world who need hygiene, as well as one billion who need make contact with to clean water." [Inhabitat - Guardian - Science] "Image: the AP"
Three days ago I reported that an effort in the U.S. Senate to end ethanol subsidies was beaten back by an overwhelming vote. I mentioned that the Farm Lobby was too strong, and it was no surprise that these tax credits would be continued for several more years.
Well, the following day, this same Senate voted to end the 45 cent/gallon ethanol subsidy by a vote of 73-27. Also to be eliminated is the 54 cent tariff on imported ethanol. What happened? First, the bill related to this action will not become law anyway. Apparently, while this reversal is a surprising sign of the beginning of the end of ethanol, this is nevertheless just another congressional maneuver with very little meaning. Second, the Renewable Fuels Standard will be maintained to protect for a while the existing bioethanol facilities. Thus, apparently, the Farm Lobby is taking a calculated risk as a compromise to insure that those manufacturing plants can recoup investments. They may have, I guess, given up on building ethanol-from-cellulose factories.
So what is the future of biofuels? First, good sense is finally beginning to prevail. Ethanol from any food source (like corn) was dumb to begin with, and, while grain prices jumped to help farmers, the stupendousness of this stupidity became too much to protect.
As an alumnus of Stanford University, I've long been tracking Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur (one of the founders of Sun Microsystems--the SUN stands for Stanford University Network--now part of Oracle). Unfortunately, my allegiance convinced me to purchase both stocks. I thought Khosla's initial ventures were pathetic, for he, with good intent, jumped into ethanol, then ethanol from cellulose. More recently, he has seen the light, and has just about abandoned fermented ethanol, now largely heading down a more sensible biofuels pathway. Read a statement he made earlier this year and you can only be impressed by his attitude and new found smarts (here is just part of his current attitude):
"HOWEVER, I CONSIDER CORN (AND SUGARCANE IN THE LONGER RUN) ETHANOL TO BE TRANSITIONAL TECHNOLOGIES. TO ACHIEVE THE US RENEWABLE FUELS TARGET OF 36 BILLION GALLONS IN 2022 AND BEYOND, BIOFUELS WILL NEED TO BE PRODUCED LARGELY FROM HIGH YIELD NON-FOOD BIOMASS SOURCES. I ALSO ENVISION ADVANCED BIOFUELS MOVING WELL BEYOND ETHANOL AND DIESEL TO HYDROCARBON FUELS: RENEWABLE CRUDE OIL, DROP-IN DIESEL, GASOLINE, JET FUEL AND OTHER PETROCHEMICALS. THROUGH A COMBINATION OF DIVERSE FEEDSTOCK AND DIVERSE END PRODUCTS, BIO-DERIVED HYDROCARBONS AND ALCOHOLS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO REPLACE AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY."
What then? Well, there is still a lot of cellulose from corn (stalk, stover, etc.) and other energy crops. The question now is, what to do with them. Initially, as ethanol (right) was the fuel with a tax break, the early movement was to hydrolyze and ferment this biomass into ethanol. For the longest time I have railed that this would only create a second herd of white elephants because a much more economical pathway was to gasify and catalyze biomass into methanol (left--a simpler molecule). It also so happens that methanol is the ONLY BIOLIQUID capable of being reasonably efficiently and directly utilized by a fuel cell without undergoing reformation.
Why is this important? First, the internal combustion engine will be around for a very long time, but electric and fuel cell vehicles show greater long term promise. The problem is that the lithium battery will be the last battery to be invented, and, for a typical car, a fuel cell vehicle will take it five times further than one powered by batteries. So why not immediately convert to hydrogen powered fuel cell automobiles? Hydrogen is too expensive to produce and store, plus there is no existing infrastructure.
This is almost beyond comprehension, but one gallon of methanol has 140% more hydrogen than one gallon of liquid hydrogen. Why not then use the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) to power cars? The almost criminal aspect of all this is that the Farm Lobby has prevented the U.S. Department of Energy to do much research on the DMFC. There has been some Department of Defense R and D, but for only for portable applications. Toshiba is already marketing a DMFC for computers and other electronic commodities, so the concept is real.
Khosla and various oil companies, though, seem to be headed towards higher order hydrocarbons, applying "to be invented" yeasts and other means to ferment cellulose, while in parallel "trying to find the best possible catalyst" to convert gasified fiber into a biofuel. Both of these directions are worthy, and will thus produce the transport biofuels (including jet fuel) we need for the future. I thus can only encourage these activities.
Butanol and isobutanol (left--note that it's getting more complicated) seem especially attractive, as they have 4 carbons. You link two of these four chain alcohols and you have a gasoline substitute. Add another 4 (up to twelve carbons in the chain) and you get jet fuel. Add yet another 4 carbons, giving diesel. But, I suspect these higher order biofuels will just be too expensive to compete with oil at less than 150/barrel. Many of these entrepreneurs (and major oil companies), though, expect to be able to produce these fuels at half that price and less.
Me? I still think the simplest solutions are best. For now, the direct methanol fuel cell for vehicles and, later, hydrogen for aviation. It's lonely being the Man from La Mancha for the biomethanol economy and next generation hydrogen aircraft. Even George Olah expects to get his methanol from fossil fuels and the atmosphere.
Mind you, in all the above, we are only discussing biofuels from terrestrial biomass crops. Competition for food, water and a whole host of other issues occur on land. There is a mostly neglected different world of marine biomass from which a much higher efficiency fuel can be produced...in theory.
