This is what I'm talking about!
Cool Planet Energy Systems First Company to Develop Carbon Negative Fuel at Projected Cost of Less Than $1.50 Per Gallon
It is produced from woody plant materials, so it doesn't compete with food. Biochar is a byproduct of the process, which can be used as a soil amendment. That's what makes it carbon negative.
It has been tested on an unmodified car with a blend of 5% of the new fuel and 95% regular gasoline with no measurable differences.
And, by the way, no government subsidies are needed....
Biofuels are not useless, but they don't have millions of years to store up their energy potential.
ReplyDeleteIf you used wood as your source of heating, you would very quickly chop down all your forests: thus the interest in non-combustive energy.
Funny you should mention that, the 19th century equivalent process produced "wood alcohol", more commonly known today as methanol, which can be used directly in fuel cells.
ReplyDeleteThe source of heating does not have to be wood; it can easily be other stuff like crop residues or switchgrass. When I said woody I meant as opposed to the sugary materials that ethanol requires.
Your point is quite valid though when it comes to mass adoption. We're already using 40% of all plant matter that grows on the planet, there's not that much more to extract. As long as we're capturing waste from other processes, we're doing good, but when we start growing biomass specifically to produce fuel, then the problems rapidly start accumulating.