Apr

Biofuels Won’t Save Us, Hydrogen Won’t Save Us

Posted by admin Published in Biodiesel, Hydrogen

Gas is here to stay, no surprise.

But that conclusion at yesterday’s SAE World Congress in Detroit from a panel of worldly experts strikes a particularly gloomy note. From every side of the energy debate, it has been widely recognized that there is no magic bullet. Yet technological progress has held out new opportunity, new hope that some alternatives could decrease the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Yesterday, panelists brought market realities to the debate.

Hydrogen fuel cells were virtually ignored by the panel for these very reasons. But biofuels took the brunt of criticism. Recent food riots around the globe have shown how politicized that energy source has already become–even though it contributes only a small amount of energy to the world’s needs.

Aren’t there better ways of harvesting biofuels? Read after the jump.

Flexible-fuel vehicles that can
run on any combination of gasoline and E85 ethanol are a bridging
technology at best, according to Meg Novacek,

director of powertrain systems engineering at Chrysler. considering ethanol contains less energy than gasoline, the price has to be
brought low ample to inspire citizens to buy it, she said. “Customers
are only going to buy what makes sense for their budget,” Novacek said.

With regular gasoline running about $3.40 a gallon, E85 is selling for about
$2.79 a gallon. But whether you factor in the biofuel’s lower energy
content–and the resulting decrease in a vehicle’s miles per
gallon–it actually costs about $3.67 per gallon, according to the AAA.

Worse, that doesn’t factor in tax payer subsidies to produce ethanol. The Big Three automakers have furiously pushed ethanol subsidies in Washington, even though the farm lobby remains divided by the fuel.

Photo: compujeramey, licensed through Creative Commons

Original post by Marty Jerome