GoodFuels

Forbes: chemistry vs biology

Forbes has an interesting opinion article up today on their website.

The author talks about corn-based ethanol vs second generation cellulosic ethanol, and how best to produce both.

The race is starting to shape up.

The contest: Take some type of agricultural waste, easy-to-grow non-food crop or just sunshine; add water and carbon dioxide and turn it into some type of fuel, like ethanol, butanol, gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

The entrants: enzymes, algae, yeast, bacteria and plain old chemistry.

The winners will be the methods that use the least amount of energy to produce a fuel that stores the most amount of energy, at the best cost. Since the beginning of 2007, $1.8 billion has been invested worldwide in the race to these so-called next generation biofuels, according to Ethan Zindler, an analyst at New Energy Finance.

He goes on to discuss how each method goes about actually making the fuel, and includes a pretty in-depth discussion of algae-based biofuels as well as fuel made from cellulosic feedstocks.

Current generation biofuels work because yeast likes the same food we do. Yeast thrives on the loads of sugar found in corn kernels and sugar cane, and they happily turn out lots of ethanol as a waste product.

But the hope is that the parts of plants that aren’t so easy to digest can be turned into fuel. Cellulose, which comprises cell walls; hemicellulose, polymers found in plant walls; and lignin, the stiff stuff in cell walls that gives plants, such as trees, their support.

All in all, a very concise article. Check it out here.