Another Biofuels breakthrough

[HavocXphere]

scientists from the University of Texas at Austin have created a microbe capable of making cellulose, which can then be turned into ethanol. The bacteria use sunlight as an energy source, and the cellulose can be harvested without destroying them

Sounds promising.

 

[mercurial]

Woah! Nice one, but what are the chances of this actually reaching the market?

 

[Ou grote]

Patent lasts 20 years, I think...

 

[HavocXphere]

Lets hope they do the honorable thing and keep the profiteering from the patents reasonable.

 

[semiautomatix]

Look, as with a Sasol/Petrol combo, you can get fossil fuel from a variety of sources and it will work across the board. As such, with Ethanol, you can now harvest it from land crops, algae and this bacteria - so we need not wait for one source or another. Ethanol can start shipping today and hopefully within a few short years, all Ethanol-producing industries will catch up to create a global surplus and cheaper fuel prices.

Incidently, what percentage of ethanol can you add to petrol in fairly modern cars (<10 years)?

 

[Ou grote]

Look, as with a Sasol/Petrol combo, you can get fossil fuel from a variety of sources and it will work across the board. As such, with Ethanol, you can now harvest it from land crops, algae and this bacteria - so we need not wait for one source or another. Ethanol can start shipping today and hopefully within a few short years, all Ethanol-producing industries will catch up to create a global surplus and cheaper fuel prices.

Incidently, what percentage of ethanol can you add to petrol in fairly modern cars (<10 years)?

Don't think they'll be producing ethanol on a large scale from food crops.
In Brazil they use a lot of it though, they have a lot of light aircraft using it.

 

[semiautomatix]

Don't think they'll be producing ethanol on a large scale from food crops.
In Brazil they use a lot of it though, they have a lot of light aircraft using it.

In Brazil, the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) requires that gasoline for automobile use has 23% of ethanol added to its composition.

So why don't we use it here? Certainly lower the fuel price. We have mielies and algae.

 

[Ou grote]

So why don't we use it here? Certainly lower the fuel price. We have mielies and algae.

Sure its immahnant.

 

[Ou grote]

re: 'food fules'
most of the hikes in food prices could also be blamed on global warming, inflation and the high transport costs, due to the higher oil price - biofuels helps in solving those problems, and therefor has factors which also lower the price of food.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/biofuel-_myth-corn-ethanol-global-food-shortages.php

we also need some time and investment into the development of these, before we could see improvements(ie above) in efficiency, and thus it would have less effect on food per output as time goes by.

This is where genetically modified crops come in handy.

 

[HavocXphere]

Look, as with a Sasol/Petrol combo, you can get fossil fuel from a variety of sources and it will work across the board. As such, with Ethanol, you can now harvest it from land crops, algae and this bacteria - so we need not wait for one source or another. Ethanol can start shipping today and hopefully within a few short years, all Ethanol-producing industries will catch up to create a global surplus and cheaper fuel prices.

I think with the vanilla algae in use at the moment, the algae don't survive the process, while with this they do.

So why don't we use it here? Certainly lower the fuel price. We have mielies and algae.

Ethanol from Biofuels still costs an arm and a leg. The only reason its popular overseas is because of hardcore subsidies. In other words, it would increase the fuel price.