Guru
Giving Up On Biofuels
Even in a world of $100 crude, biofuels are not making it. Biofuel producers are dropping like flies.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog...7570/?p1=blogs
Petroleum took over for good reasons.
Natural gas might work as feedstock for Fischer-Tropsch.
ObamaTax Delendum Est
Analyst
Even with the taxes Europe puts on petroleum, to offset the cost of bio-fuels. $150 to $200 a barrel isn't enough.Originally Posted by Taxcutter
Oil product from algae will be the reality of the future, but not until significant breakthroughs are made in genitic engineering a variant that relies on man to protect it, so it dedicates all it's energy to making oil.
Analyst
Why does it always seem like you're shilling for Exxon or something?
Why do you push such easily debunked and extremely idiotic propaganda memes like this one - "all alternative energy bad, not work right, too expensive, but oil good, only thing can save us"?
LOLOLOLOL. Sure seems like a hidden agenda to me.
Petroleum is going to be phased out for very, very good reasons.
Natural gas is still a carbon emitting energy source that furthers anthropogenic global warming/climate changes.
Some excerpts from the article you cited:
Amyris’s technology may still be used to make renewable fuels, but this will happen not at Amyris, but under joint ventures established with Total and Cosan. These ventures will need to build up their own production capacity, Melo told analysts. Amyris wants to make clear that it isn’t giving up on its current, relatively small scale, biofuel production. Some of the farnesene Amyris makes is being used to make diesel fuel for buses in Brazil, and Amyris will continue to make farnesene for fuel until the joint ventures are up and running, says Joel Velasco, senior vice president for external relations. As Amyris adds more farnesene capacity this year, some of that, too, could be used for the production of fuel, he says.
Not all biofuels companies are backing off from biofuels though. Mascoma, which has developed a process for making ethanol from cellulosic sources such as wood chips, announced in December that it had fully funded the construction of a cellulosic ethanol plant. Construction is expected to begin within a few months, to be completed by the end of 2013.
Moreover, some facts you would undoubtedly like to ignore ---
Ethanol fuel in Brazil
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(excerpts)
Brazil is the world's second largest producer of ethanol fuel and the world's largest exporter. Together, Brazil and the United States lead the industrial production of ethanol fuel, accounting together for 87.8% of the world's production in 2010.[1][2] In 2010 Brazil produced 26.2 billion litres (6.92 billion U.S. liquid gallons), representing 30.1% of the world's total ethanol used as fuel.[1]
Brazil is considered to have the world's first sustainable biofuels economy and the biofuel industry leader,[3][4][5][6] a policy model for other countries; and its sugarcane ethanol "the most successful alternative fuel to date."[7]
Brazil’s 36-year-old ethanol fuel program is based on the most efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation in the world,[11] uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used to process heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance (output energy/input energy), which varies from 8.3 for average conditions to 10.2 for best practice production.[5][12]
The widespread use of ethanol brought several environmental benefits to urban centers regarding air pollution. Lead additives to gasoline were reduced through the 1980s as the amount of ethanol blended in the fuel was increased, and these additives were completely eliminated by 1991. The addition of ethanol blends instead of lead to gasoline lowered the total carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons, sulfur emissions, and particulate matter significantly.[177] The use of ethanol-only vehicles has also reduced CO emissions drastically. Before the Pró-Álcool Program started, when gasoline was the only fuel in use, CO emissions were higher than 50 g/km driven; they had been reduced to less than 5.8 g/km in 1995.[68] Several studies have also shown that São Paulo has benefit with significantly less air pollution thanks to ethanol's cleaner emissions.[177] Furthermore, Brazilian flex-fuel engines are being designed with higher compression ratios, taking advantage of the higher ethanol blends and maximizing the benefits of the higher oxygen content of ethanol, resulting in lower emissions and improving fuel efficiency.[178]
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy;
that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
Guru
No one has to shill for Exxon.
I just don't like my money going down a rat-hole for something that probably does not work.
Petroleum did not take over because of some deep dark conspiracy. It simply works better than anything else.
When somebody comes along with a better fuel, the use of petroleum will disappear overnight.
For decades Kodak dominated photography. Digital photography came along and now Kodak is gone. The same will happen with oil when something better comes along.
About every thirty years or so people seem to have to try to re-invent the wheel. Solar and wind energy were tried for centuries and found wanting - again and again. They were tried in the late 1930s, the 1970s and now today. Same result each time. Same with electric cars. Electric cars have always been betrayed by the poor performance of their batteries.
Government should butt out of the energy field.
ObamaTax Delendum Est
Analyst
Hidden agenda???? Bio-fuels aren't viable until I can buy them at the pump. Until then, they are nothing but a science project.
As far as ethanol and Brazil, it was cheaper for them, who wisely used sugar cane instead of corn. We can buy ethanol, shipped from Brazil, cheaper than we can the (formerly) subsidized stuff from the US. Lets see how much oil Brazil uses, now that oil is off their shores.
Analyst
Electric cars have really taken off in China - that green country on a hill we need to look up to (cough).
http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/1...east-in-china/
Guru
That doesn't mean their electric cars work worth a hoot.
ObamaTax Delendum Est
Commentator
An alternative will arise when we need it. That is the problem. It doesn't matter how much you subsidize something, if people don't care or need it then it won't work. If we ran out of oil tomorrow, we would have an alternative within a week. Because it would become extremely important for the economy and our way of life.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Guru
Any mechanic can tell you, that stuff is nasty. Gunks up your engine. Don't use it.
Guru
livefree's maundering about ethanol from sugar cane in Brazil made me wonder if the workers in the tropical cane brakes wouldn't gladly trade places with the workers at Foxconn.
Chopping sugar cane with a machete in the tropical sun has got to be brutal work. Are the Brazilian braceros paid as well as the folks at Foxconn? Somehow, I doubt it.
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