Oil Endgame 3: Biofuels to the Rescue?
In 2004, the U.S. consumes approximately 20 million gallons of gasoline per day and this is expected to climb to nearly 30 million gallons per day by 2025 or so. If other aspects of the Oil Endgame plan were implemented successfully, oil use might hold steady or even decline over time. Hence, biofuels could deliver a significant, though not huge, percentage of total US requirements.
[Just five years ago] new methods of converting cellulose- and lignin-rich (woody) materials into liquid fuels, e.g. using genetically engineered bacteria and enzymes, were just emerging. [Today] even newer state of the art technologies now permit biofuels by 2025 to provide 4.3 million barrels/day of crude-oil equivalent at under $35/barrel (equivalent to $.75/gallon of gasoline).
So somewhere between 10 and 20% of gasoline might be grown from crops ... many of which might go help reduce erosion and sequester carbon. And the report goes on to describe multiple benefits to farmers and the agriculture industry. Of course, this doesn't mean shit (and animal waste products and offal, by the way, are a potentially important part of the equation) if we are not simultaneously moving aggressively on convervation and other alternative energy sources. The scientists are clearly doing their job moving the technology forward; the policy makers need to pull their proverbial heads out and craft policy that helps get this industry out of its infancy.
posted by Andy Bochman at 7:53 PM
 
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