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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Better Alcohol Chain for biofuels

This article is about a new process for producing a more viable biofuel than standard Ethanol. Not sure about economic viability at this point but still cool to see new possibilities discovered.

posted by Churt(Elfkind) at 12:21

2 Comments:

Blogger Jar(egg)head said...

Someone said alcohol...?

Hello? Anybody here?

12:43  
Blogger The Mad Builder of Periwinkle said...

The problem with most alternative fuels is simple economics. Even as expensive as gasoline is right now (you should see what the people in other countries like Australia, UK or California pay!) it is the most cost /energy efficient fule source we have right now. When you look at the total cost and energy input to produce vs. the unit of work/energy extracted from a gallon of modern gasoline...it's hard to find anything that comes close right now.

Sadly, most times the people on the EnviroFringe talk about alternative energy/fuel sources that are "just as efficient" or even "more efficient" that gasoline for transporation, you find out they they have completely omitted all or large portions of the total cost to produce the energy source. The processing plants that make the fuel sources don't run on happy thoughts and rainbows...they uses energy too.

Electric cars are cool and all, but where do you think the electricity comes from? Well in the US it mainly comes from those nasty coal burning plants that EnviroNuts hate.

They've been turning oil in to energy for over a century, and market demand has driven lots of efficiency in to the process so it will be a challenge overcome.

The good thing is the folks who figure out how to do it will make a buttload of money, so that provides a great incentive.

Post Script: As an aside, I asked that "where do you think the electricity for electric cars will come from" question to a rabid EnviroNut once. They summoned up all their snide sense of intellectual superiority and said "Don't be so stupid, you plug it in at your house at night."

I'm sure he also believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and that socialized medicine is all free. Had I not been polaxed by the profound stupidity I had just been exposed to I would had enough wits about me to ask him how long he had been living with his parents.

15:14  

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