THE STRUGGLE OF NEXT GENERATION BIOFUELS

Next-Generation Biofuels Are Inching Towards Reality, Gallon by Gallon; Advanced biofuels have been on the cusp of commercialization for years, but high prices and technological challenges have held them back. Is that starting to change?

Bryan Walsh, October 11, 2013 (Time Magazine)

“…Made from sources like corn stalks or what straw that don’t compete with food, unlike current biofuels, next-generation biofuels were going to be greener and more efficient than corn-based ethanol, which is still the dominant source of biofuel in the U.S. When Congress passed the 2007 energy bill, it expected the country to be producing over 1 billion gallons of next-generation biofuels by 2013. But the advanced biofuel industry has developed far more slowly than lawmakers predicted, leading the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to cut the 2013 mandate… It’s not that companies don’t know how to make cellulosic ethanol or biofuel from algae. It’s that they’ve struggled to do so cheaply and at a scale large enough to compete with oil…” click here for more

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