Wednesday, April 16, 2014

--Advanced biofuels are the fuel of the future, and always will be --?

Within a New York Times post titled Dual Turning Point for Biofuels
, one has the text

There is an old joke in the energy business that advanced biofuels are the fuel of the future, and always will be

This is indeed an old line. In 2004, IPBiz, in a post Oil shale: history repeating? , had the text:

As has been said, synfuel is the fuel of the future and always will be.

See also Henry Ford and ethanol

The NYT article was less than clear on what the "dual turning point" was.

One issue was market saturation:


But even as Abengoa and other companies prepare to produce significant amounts of cellulosic ethanol, using corn stalks and wheat straw as opposed to corn itself, the appetite for such fuels seems to be diminishing.

The market is saturated with ethanol from corn.




Also mentioned was the changed circumstances from fracking, etc.:


Other things have changed, too, since 2007. A boom in shale drilling has produced a sudden gush of domestic oil. Increasingly efficient cars and a sluggish economy have cut demand for fuel.



And



A major obstacle for the biofuel industry is the “blend wall,” the current 10 percent limit on ethanol at most gasoline stations. Some car companies warn that above that level, fuel could damage engines in older vehicles. The Energy Department has disputed such concerns, and the E.P.A. has approved use of 15 percent ethanol blends for cars manufactured after 2001. But gasoline stations have been slow at installing the necessary equipment. And only a modest number of vehicles can use E-85, a blend that is 85 percent ethanol.

But biofuel producers and lobbyists say the country needs more of their product. “Cellulosic biofuel has the promise to deliver tens of billions of gallons of ethanol to the United States, but there needs to be a market for that,” Brian Foody, president and chief executive of the Canadian biofuel company Iogen, told reporters in a recent conference call by industry executives discussing the impact of the E.P.A. proposal. “We believe it’s critical for E.P.A. to create a segment or space in the market for E-85 to grow and to set numbers that will provide incentives.”

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