One more point about ethanol (or alternatively: butanol) either of which being made from cellulose (waste or harvested)
"Cellulosic Ethanol Better Than Expected" >From the MIT Energy Review: New studies show that it takes much less energy than previously thought to grow the preferred cellulosic crops. January 08, 2008 By Kevin Bullis http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/21995/ "There's some more good news about cellulosic ethanol, a fuel derived from grasses and other nonfood sources." "It's long been estimated that the amount of energy in such fuels will be much more than the net energy required to make them - which is not the case with corn or grain-based ethanol. Now experimental results are in, and the ratio of energy produced to energy used is even better than expected." The renewable energy produced was 540 percent more than the nonrenewable energy used to make it. Previous studies estimated that the number would be more like 340 percent. The improvement comes, basically, from farmers using less energy than researchers thought they would to grow switchgrass, one of the proposed cellulosic sources. The better ratio means that cellulosic ethanol could do more to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions than previously thought. That's particularly good news, since new legislation will require that some 21 billion gallons of fuel be made from such non-corn-grain sources. END My comment: It is hard for some tech writers to combine several new technologies into the same general theme, and then into a coherent whole which gives a complete picture of combining the major advances on several fronts. There is plenty of evidence out now that: 1) Butanol is the highly preferable alcohol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol ...for transportation fuel. It is higher in energy content than ethanol, easier to enrich, less hydrophilic, and cannot be abused in the same way. 2) Genetically engineered or wild bacteria can produce butanol. Big advances can be made here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_acetobutylicum 3) Because it is a larger molecule it can be enriched (dewatered) by nanofiltration methods without the need for distillation, it will be easier to produce on small farms which have not access to waste heat for distillation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_sieve ...Surely, GM/ Costaka, Inc is looking into all of these possibilities ? BTW - ethanol was already available on the world market from Brazil for the equivalent of US $ .50/gallon as recently as 2005. Once oil started to run-up in price and the dollar dropped in value, Brazil effectively has decided to limit exports, and to use it at home so it can export petroleum. Brazil is now one of the top 15 exporters of crude oil to the USA. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:U8lzHVtzGegJ:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html+brazil+2007+petroleum+imports&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
