"An area twice the size of Texas would be required to grow the necessary biomass to replace all of the oil currently used in the transportation sector..."

I'm guessing that is based on current techniques for using biomass? I believe that can be cut down to a fraction of that size by doing the following:

1. Replacing the source from relatively low yielding corn and soybean with significantly higher yielding switchgrass, as outlined in the following study (along with plans to reduce overall consumption): http://www.bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/pdfs/NRDC-Growing-Energy-Final.3.pdf

2. Utilizing the very promising Aqueous Phase Sugars-to-Hydrogen Reforming technologies. This alone is 2-3 times more efficient at turning the biomass into energy than using ethanol.

3. Figuring out what our most efficient option is to get that energy to the road. We know that hydrogen fuel cells are 2-3 times more efficient than ICEs, in terms of tank to wheels efficiency. However, advancing battery technologies could mean that turning the hydrogen into electricity right at these Aqueous Phase facilities, so that we are distributing electricity instead of liquid Hydrogen, is the most efficient means of distribution.

We have the technology to do this. Supplemented by other renewable sources, it could be a big part of our future energy picture.

Angelo: A recent study shows that cellulosic ethanol conversion efficiency is going up from 50 to 117 gal/ton and switchgrass production can be increased from 4.5 to 8.5 tons/acre per crop. At that rate, 114 million acres could produce 165 billion gal. of ethanol (equivalent to 108 billion gal. of gas) + huge amount of animal feed per crop. USA uses some 70 million acres to produce animal feed that could otherwise be produced as a by-product from cellulosic ethanol activities, leaving a net requirement of about 44 million acres. Considering that vehicles will be much more efficient in the future, all the cellulosic ethanol required may be produced from existing waste and much less than the 70 million acres presently used for animal feed leaving the human food crop land untouched. Cellulosic Ethanol may be used in various ways to supply relatively clean energy. USA would gain by eliminating OIL imports (and trade deficit), by reducing pollution and creating new jobs and industrial revenues for Americans.

Converting any form of biomass to hydrogen is downright STUPID!!! It means throwning away huge amounts of energy embodied in the carbon. It requires unneccesary expensive equipment. It is a guaranteed way to make the use of biomass energy an economic failure. Hydrogen fuel cells as they now exist are not that much more thermally efficient than diesel engines and considerably less efficient than some experimental ICEs.

Algae — like a breath mint for smokestacks. By Mark Clayton, The Christian Science Monitor

Last month, Greenshift Corporation, a Mount Arlington, N.J., technology incubator company, licensed CO2-gobbling algae technology that uses a screen-like algal filter. It was developed by David Bayless, a researcher at Ohio University.

"You want to do good for the environment, of course, but we're not forcing people to do it for that reason — and that's the key," says the founder of GreenFuel Technologies, in Cambridge, Mass. "We're showing them how they can help the environment and make money at the same time."

GreenFuel has already garnered $11 million in venture capital funding and is conducting a field trial at a 1,000 megawatt power plant owned by a major southwestern power company. Next year, GreenFuel expects two to seven more such demo projects scaling up to a full pro- duction system by 2009.

In 1990, A NREL program calculated that just 15,000 square miles of desert (the Sonoran desert in California and Arizona is more than eight times that size) could grow enough algae to replace nearly all of the nation's current diesel requirements.

Harvey: Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking cellulosic ethanol at all - I'm a HUGE proponent of this. Realistically, ICEs will probably continue to dominate for a long time, without some sort of breakthrough in fuel-cell technologies. If that holds true, converting biomass to hydrogen probably holds little benefit - these efforts to run ICEs on hydrogen are downright comical in my opinion. However, one overlooked issue with ethanol production is the amount of water it consumes. Some ethanol plant proposals have not been able to get off the ground due to a lack of sufficient water sources. This concerns me a little bit - I wonder if anyone else knows more about this?

Deplume: I think you are shooting your mouth off about something you don't know enough about. I'm not going to profess to be an expert on the matter, but unless the recent article on Virent's sugars to hydrogen process are completely false, I'm not sure how we could discount this.

Wasting the carbon? I believe their process produces other useful gases to account for some of it. Regardless, it's a much better option than taking the hydrogen from fossil fuels - what do you think we are doing with that carbon? Sure, some of the fossil fuel to hydrogen projects call for sequestering the CO2, but couldn't that be just as easily applied to Virent's method?

Please, Deplume, I'd like to hear how you would refute everything this article claims:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/01/successful_star.html

Angelo: ....the amount of water to produce cellulosic ethanol...
Have not found the exact answer for water usage in cellulosic ethanol plants. I don't think that the exact consumption exist yet. The water used would depend largely on the feedstock pretreatment and fermentation technologies used. It seems that producing cellulosic ethanol using the enzymatic hydrolysis technique (using cellulase enzymes) uses less water and can provide a net energy balance of some 60,000 BTU/gal versus 20,000 BTU/gal for grain ethanol. Much cheaper 'Wet' (diluted) ethanol may be suitable to feed large future SOFCs for electric power plants. When used in ICE, high grade ethanol can reduce GHG by up to 80%. The idea would be to drastically reduce imported OIL, reduce GHG from vehicles and create new national commercial opportunities and jobs. It seems to be a triple win solution. Coupled with PHEVs and EVs, locally produced cellulosic ethanol could extend fuel availablity for a long time or until a better solution is found.

Harvey: I absolutely agree on the merits of cellulosic ethanol. Up until about a week ago, when I read that article on Virent's process, I was convinced that flex fuel PHEVs where the only practical solution that could be implemented right now. All things considered, that's probably still true (which is why I suggested Viren't process be used to create electricity directly, to help meet the additional demand resulting from PHEVs - that is something that could have an immediate impact).

Too many people that post on this site feel so strongly about a certain solution that they expend all of their energies knocking every other viable one. Some are small wins, some large. Some are ready now, some won't be viable for ten or twenty years. Regardless, in my opinion, anything that is better than what we have should be pursued. The market will sort everything out - we just need to get these options out there in front of consumers. The best one(s) will win.

Think of all of the relatively small sums of funding that go into many of these small projects indivually. Collectively, that is a lot of money. Money that could be put to better use by collaborating better. Many of these smaller eforts complement each other, yet it's almost like every one is pitted against each other, fighing for the scaps of funding that the government and private investors might throw at them. Indivually, few will be able to stand up to the big oil companies over time (which is probably what big oil is hoping for). That means very good ideas are bound to be lost in the shuffle. We need to find a more strategic way of using this funding collectively. We have to remember who the true enemy is....

Angelo:...I agree with you that better ways to produce usable energy will be found, specially when fosill OIL runs out. One of the future better ways may very well be the Virent's APR process. Since it seems to operate with biofuel and ethanol processing by products, mainly (Glycerol, Sorbitol, Ethylene, Glucose) will it be complementary the former processus rather than a stand alone process. Either way, if 2.4 times the energy (BTUs)can be produced from biomass feedstock, it becomes very interesting. From a practical point of view, ethanol and biodiesel would fit better in the current (transport vehicles)infrastructure than Hydrogene and fuel gases. The Virent APR process may be more adapted to stationary power units to convert biomass (or biofuel and ethanol processing by products) to electicity using large Fuel Cells.

"The Virent APR process may be more adapted to stationary power units to convert biomass (or biofuel and ethanol processing by products) to electicity using large Fuel Cells."

Now, we are on the same page. It seems like the most practical use of that technogolgy right now.

I think its a great idea to use animals waste (shit) to produce ethanol. Then we won't run out of food supply in the worst case scenioro, and it wont be so expensive, like the company Intrepid Technology.