Biofuel Loses Its Luster

Another One Bites the Dust

The US produces 7 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol per year, supplying about 5% of our annual gasoline market.

To many out there, this 10-digit figure is just large enough to create hope, yet deficient enough to spur demands for more corn, more ethanol, and more biofuel.

Just as our hopes for a quick solution started to seep into our collective conscience, as GM and other major auto manufacturers started spending the big money researching engines that could run off of pure biofuel, our dreams are crushed. Here’s why…

The Biofuel Bust

Recent studies conducted at the University of Minnesota and Princeton University have shown that biofuels (considered carbon-neutral as the plants they’re distilled from re-absorb the carbon emitted when the fuel is burned) may not be as magical as they’ve been touted.

Specific numbers are pretty upsetting, namely the number 167—this is the number of years corn would have to be farmed for biofuel before it would achieve any appreciable reduction in atmospheric carbon levels.

This flies in the face of what is now a multi-year, state and federal effort to cut fossil fuel’s green-house gas emissions by diluting the fuel itself with carbon-neutral corn-based ethanol.

But to investors, it means something more.

Now, with these studies finally taking the magical sheen off of the bio-fuel solution, choosing the next big thing in consumer transportation seems more daunting than ever.

On the other hand, maybe these developments make the choice just that much easier.

Consider this:

We already know that hybrids, which have long been a popular quick-fix to big-picture problems like climate change and shrinking reserves, have little staying power in the long term.

As a marketing ploy, the Priuses and Civic Hybrids of the world continue to do wonders for their manufacturer’s bottom lines, but as electrics take the stage (in an attempt) to prove that fossils can be cut out of the picture entirely, the end of the hybrid’s short reign is rapidly approaching.

This leaves few true frontrunners, as electric power itself will remain inherently flawed until a majority of the power plants making batteries are converted to clean and renewable energy sources.

And car makers today are already making inroads to developing these technologies for the consumer market.

Next week we’ll talk more about alternatives to oil, and why the cars you see on the roads in fifteen years will look nothing like what we have today.

To a greener future,

David Craig
CleanEnergySector.com