When Will Cellulosic Ethanol Match Corn?
Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “How many years before cellulosic ethanol matches corn ethanol production?” So what did you say? 42% said More than ten years; 23% said Five to ten years; 18% said Five years; 14% said Never and 3% said Next year. We’ve seen huge strides in the efficiency of corn ethanol production and research on the use of new feedstocks but we’re not quite there for mass quantity cellulosic production. Will we be? What do you think? Feel free to add your comments here.
Our new ZimmPoll is now live. We’re asking the question, “Which is more important to rural America: GPS Service or Broadband Internet?” We thought it would be interesting you get your thoughts on this in light of the Lightsquared rural broadband service that seems to pose some serious problems for GPS service. Your input and thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.
3 Comments »
Dennis Makarov
The future of cellulosic ethanol will be much like what they’ve been saying about clean fusion power for the last 50 years — in 30 years it will be up and running.
Chip Daigle
You guys are asking the wrong question!!! Almost half of the Ethanol in the world is advanced right now and you are totally overlooking that possiblilty. I’m talking about Sugar-based Ethanol from Sugarcane, Sweet Sorghum, and Sugar beets. We could/should devote half the Sugarcane crop to Ethanol. We can plant Sweet Sorghum in the SW Desserts and Sugar beets up North instead of Corn for Ethanol. Also we should be trading Corn for Sugarcane Ethanol from South and Central America. I dont mind funding research for Cellulosic and Algae, but we dont have to wait on them to have Advance Ethanol!!!
BIOblogger
The EISA bill “mandated” parity at 15 years starting in 2007 when it was passed. In the 4 years since then there has been a considerable amount of development through pilot and demo stages but the amount meeting the guidelines has been deflated from the 200 million g/y goal to only 3-7 million gallons. So we are barely up to the gate after 4 years. Under the circumstances, 15 more years seems reasonable, if not optimistic.
Of course, one “killer ap” – for instance, the success of a INEOS New Planet Bioenergy, Coskata, POET, or Enerkem cellulosic ethanol plant – could create a major surge in deployment.
The economy, the price of oil, the stability of energy policymaking (particularly EISA’s RFS2), and the build-out of infrastructure and FFVs will probably be the major determinants of when parity will be attained.
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