Most biofuels fail green test: study

Re: To say nothing of the fact ...

Brazil also has the infrastructure for small, localized production of biofuels from sugarcane. It's kind of surprising that this is a factor, but in the USA, driving all the biomass to the centers where it can be turned into fuel (to power the vehicles that ship the biomass) actually is a significant barrier to the cost-effectiveness of US biofuels.

There has been recent progress on using lignin for biofuels (inedible stalk parts of plants) which could revolutionise biofuels. In fact, this seems likely. There may come a time in the near future where biofuels are both cheaper and don't compete nearly as much with food supplies. But we're not there yet. Soon, perhaps.

Re: "five-litre 4x4 SUV "

It is not the 5l SUV which is the problem. It is the EPA legislation which effectively mandates it.

It is not that USA does not want to have fuel efficient cars - it actually cannot. An Euro Cat 5 diesel which is so clean that you can breathe the output is EPA illegal in the USA and that is very intentional. At one point the petrol and car lobbies ensured that they cannot be sold and USA continues to buy more and more petrol as well as monstrosities which are geared to the local market and produced locally to consume it.

So before outlawing the 5l SUV you have to fix the law which outlaws your average ~40+ MPG 2.2 - 2.5 l turbo-diesel which you will find on the average big EU or Japanese car, truck, van or 4x4.

@Charles 9

From your post, I don't know which side of this argument you are actually on, but the things that you have ignored in the proposed Luddite way of the world is that you would have to actually have a much smaller population, people would have to leave the cities and return to the land (including working it), and that there is insufficient energy in many environments to even boil the water for ale or safe drinking and would generate pollution. Open fires are significantly more polluting per joule of usable energy than anything we do for power at the moment.

On food, preserving with salt assumes you have a local source of salt, something that was not the case in most of Europe before transport. Jerking and smoking assumes that you have heat sources (I know that you can use waste heat from your inefficient open fires), or good sunlight. And people actually knew more about the effects of food poisoning from first hand experience in those days. Whether this was a good or bad thing, the bulk of the population were poorly nourished much of the time. Life expectancy was worse with no good medical services and medicines.

I'm sure it would be possible to design a way of working that was sustainable and local, but I would expect that it would degenerate to the way people actually lived in the middle-ages without some form of non-local engineering and manufacturing capability.

Re: Methane from Cellulose

Actually, there several processes by which methane can be converted to gasoline and other liquid fuels. None of them are spectacurly efficient, but all of them are better than wasting energy and running rthe risks of compressing natural gas until it is LNG. As you point out, LNG is far less energy dense as well as being considerably more volatile than a liquid fuel such as deisel. All we need to is to make nice with the large oil companies and I am sure that they would leap with joy and build the necessary plants. Silly me! I forgot that Big Oil is EVIL.

As an alternative, we will continue ot fiddle about with one Rube Goldberg contaption after another while continuing to stuff millions upon millions of dollars into the pockets of radical islamists. The islamists, I am sure, will happily spend our money on weaponry and use those weapons to work woe until we see things their way. Right?

Notice that I have yet to say anything about Global Warming or The Environment? That's because I see the energy problem as being a national security problem and not an envrironmental problem. Can you imagine what our streets would look like were we to revert to horse or mule drawn vehicles? You think deisel stinks? Try your local barnyard and then tell me you do not like the smell of deisel.