Today’s Biofuels vs. Next-Generation Biofuels

On February 8th the New York Times published an Article entitled Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat. While the study sited by the article makes some very important points about biofuels produced from new crops, it would seem that this article may serve to confuse as much as enlighten. What is true of biofuels today hopefully will change in the next generation of biofuels. At the end of the day it is true that the corn lobby (with certain folks in Washington's current support) is dead wrong. We all knew that. This article takes the logical next step to say that many middle-ground crops, such as soybeans and even sugarcane, may also be flawed. That said, when you get to biomass waste, such as wood waste currently being considered in Georgia, the article does point out that the equation changes dramatically.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, this article does a poor job expressing the importance of this subtly. As usual, the devil is in the details. What I actually think the scientists are doing here is delivering a firm rejection to what has been Washington and Detroit's path to ethanol, regardless of its source. That said, last month GM invested in Coskata, which uses "municipal solid waste (trash), agricultural and forest residuals, bagasse and many other carbon containing input materials".

So, while the report is surely correct in looking at the current state of biofuels the next generation promises to deliver a much different equation. As most who are informed on the subject would say, efficiency is the only silver bullet we have that probably has little or no down-side and should be our first focus. Any new fuel will have kinks that will have to be worked out before we will know for certain we are not doing as much harm as good. In that regard, solar offers a clearer slate of benefits, but again when you go to get that energy to your car using batteries the equation gets more complicated.