Comments on: Breaking Down the Obama Biofuel Plan

By: Fungus May Be the Key to Cheaper, More Efficient Biofuel - Enviro Rides

Fungus May Be the Key to Cheaper, More Efficient Biofuel - Enviro Rides — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:40:13 +0000

[...] Biofuel may soon be produced quickly, efficiently, and at a cost comparable to gasoline thanks to a discovery from researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. The research team has identified several genes that improve yeast’s ability to digest the natural sugar xylose. This means that it will soon be possible to efficiently produce bio-ethanol from cellulosic biomass–waste matter such as the stalks, leaves, and husks of plants, wood chips, sawdust, and dead trees–as opposed to land-intensive crops like corn. The unlikely source of the genes: fungus living symbiotically with bark beetles. [...]

By: Fungus May Be the Key to Cheaper, More Efficient Biofuel | Earth and Industry

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 06:36:25 +0000

[...] Biofuel may soon be produced quickly, efficiently, and at a cost comparable to gasoline thanks to a discovery from researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. The research team has identified several genes that improve yeast's ability to digest the natural sugar xylose. This means that it will soon be possible to efficiently produce bio-ethanol from cellulosic biomass–waste matter such as the stalks, leaves, and husks of plants, wood chips, sawdust, and dead trees–as opposed to land-intensive crops like corn. The unlikely source of the genes: fungus living symbiotically with bark beetles. [...]

By: Tim Cook

Tim Cook — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:14:10 +0000

Another aspect that seems unanswered is the fact that the majority of these corn (and other bio-fuel crops) will be using a large amount of fossil-fuel based fertilizers/pesticides to grow such large volumes… is the produced amount of bio-fuels really enough to offset this cost?

By: Breaking Down the Obama Biofuel Plan

Breaking Down the Obama Biofuel Plan — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:03:44 +0000

[...] [Ed. Note: Yesterday, Tim Hurst over at Ecopolitology asked me to break down the recently released Obama administration plan to increase the amount of renewable fuels produced in our country from the current 11.1 billion gallons per year to 36 billion gallons per year in 2022. I happily obliged. The following is an excerpt from the post on Ecopolitology with a link at the end to read the full post.] [...]

By: Nathan Schock

Nathan Schock — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:42:32 +0000

Nick,
I see your point, but 19 million acres really isn’t as big of a number as it sounds. For instance, we produced last year’s record corn crop on 7 million FEWER acres than the last record corn crop. 19 million acres is the amount of farmland in South Dakota. By contrast, a Stanford University study found that 1.2 BILLION acres of former cropland now sits idle around the world.

Also, ethanol is only made from the starch in the corn kernel. The protein put back in the feed supply as distillers grains in your scenario would be the equivalent of corn from 6.3 million acres, so the net acreage for ethanol would be 12.7 million. That’s a far cry from the 30 million you had in your post and I think a manageable number.

Will the majority of ethanol in the future have to come from cellulose? Absolutely. That’s why you see my company and many others working so hard to commercialize the process. But there is likely to be a role for ethanol from corn for a long time and I think the RFS passed by Congress did a good job of identifying that.

By: Breaking Down the Obama Biofuel Plan | Renewable Gossip

Breaking Down the Obama Biofuel Plan | Renewable Gossip — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:09:35 +0000

By: Bob Moffitt

Bob Moffitt — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:40:27 +0000

I can’t speak for all states, but here in Minnesota (which produces roughly 10% of the nation’s ethanol) only one of our plants (a fairly small one) is coal-fired, the rest are natural gas, some also get power from burning biomass or from dedicated wind-turbines.

With our large number of public outlets (350+) we have pretty well proven that if the price is right and the stations are there, consumers will use E85 instead of gasoline. When gas prices soar, E85 use here spikes.