Are Biofuels Still Economically Feasible? 186
thefickler writes "With falling gas prices, and the end of capitalism as we know it (otherwise known as the credit crisis), the
biofuels industry is not looking as viable as it once was. Indeed biofuel production has fallen well short of expectations, with biofuel companies closing down or reducing production capacity. It appears that the industry's only hope is government support."
They never were (Score:2, Interesting)
The biofuels of which you speak have always produced more pollution through their manufacture than they have saved through reduced car emissions, so their future is largely political, not economical.
Oh and holy crap what an inflammatory summary. Yes the banks are temporarily not lending at the lower interest rates, no this does not have any effect on capitalism.
Algae is the future (Score:5, Interesting)
At the very least.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Short Answer No, But They Never Were (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Short Answer No, But They Never Were (Score:5, Interesting)
Biofuels from macrocrops are generally infeasible, especially corn.
Biofuels from algae are energy-positive, consume much smaller areas, and are currently our best hope of weaning ourselves from foreign oil. If we had invested in bioprocessing techniques for algae the way we invested in securing our oil supply halfway around the world, we would be an oil-producing country by now.
Hey, this happened once before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back during the 1970's there was a fuel shortage and the bio-fuels industry picked up. Then we saw $30 a barrel and lower oil that drove all the producers out of business. Some say it was a calculated move on the part of OPEC to make sure that no competition arises. I'm not sure I'd go that far as OPEC nearly destroyed itself due to cheating in that period...
It's not much of a surprise that it's happened again. (Gee what happened to that $200 a barrel mark the media was predicting by the end of the year). Bio-fuels were another way for the agriculture lobby to get more money for corn. So with cheap oil, everyone will go back to worrying about other things and in 10 -15 years when there is another disrupution and the prices sky rocket, people will once again start up bio fuel projects.
You'd think we'd learn, but to quote Mark Twain: History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
Research still ongoing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Algae is the future (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, why aren't we considering this ... making gasoline from dead human bodies? If I could squeeze a gallon of high-octane out of granny and grandpa, why not?
Although, it might be a bit creepy, tanking up with your grandparents.
Of course, this would kill the zombie film industry: "There ain't no dead bodies in the graveyard, I done burned them up in my nitro-burning funny car!"
Vertical farms (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people posting so far seem to confuse corn subsidy biofuel with biofuels in general. But there are other biofuels already which are not energy-negative such as alcohol made from sugar cane waste in Brazil, where the nonconvertible cellulose is burned to provide the heat input to the process. Here in the UK we have limited production of alcohol and charcoal from coppiced shrubs and timber processing waste; there are several other initiatives. Given that the price of oil is controlled more by speculation than demand, and given financial instability, we can expect it to change wildly over the next few years. Industries needing long term investment should be protected to some degree from the fluctuations. A working biofuel industry would help to stabilise the oil price, because it would introduce an element of competition into the fuels market. Speculators do not like competitive industries because it is harder to manipulate them.
The future is bio-hydrocarbons... (Score:5, Interesting)
There are fundamental fallacies to our existing economy. They assume a workable environment in which to do business, and that the environment is infinite and free. If you look at the economic cost of global warming over the next hundred years, the global price rises to hundreds of trillions of dollars. A few of the costs include;
A) Land lost by sea level rise
B) Damage caused by increase flood and drought
C) Loss of critical biostocks (crash in fish populations, ocean acidification, key land ocean and air species)
D) Storm damage
E) Increased spread of tropical diseases
F) Wars caused by loss of water, food, and habitable land
G) Loss of land for agriculture
H) Failure of environmental systems supporting a minimum quality of life
Algae based oil is an excellent fuel alternative. Another is bioengineering new fungii discovered to produce diesel fuel directly from cellulose. Both of these technologies are utterly plug and play in our current petroleum base infrastructure. Both sequester carbon from the atmosphere, so their burning adds no new carbon and using them for other purposes like petrochemical feed-stocks actually removes carbon from the atmosphere. Both create tremendous new economic opportunities, and if supported by the government and the current petroleum business point us to a workable gap stop solution until helium cooled pebble bed fission and fusion are perfected.
Re:Are the alternatives economically viable? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Are the alternatives economically viable? (Score:3, Interesting)
While I'm not a fan of corn based ethanol, I am a fan of having a heavily subsidized and regulated agricultural industry in the US combined with import tarrifs and controls in imported food stuffs.
The combination of those factors ensures that farming in the US remains profitable to most farmers and guarantees that even in a global economic melt down, getting food to the plates of Americans will not be an impossible problem.
It does screw with the global economy something fierce though and pisses on all of the non-developed countries that would typically be able to compete on the global market through agricultural exports. But personally, I'm a bit more worried about health and stability in my own country.
-Rick
Re:Are the alternatives economically viable? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Are the alternatives economically viable? (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the authors of a book on seasteading, who emphasize the need for practicality, seem to assume that you need a multi-million-dollar giant techno-platform to get started. What do you think of a homestead-style biofuel farm consisting mainly of a boat and a raft?