Forget Cellulosic feedstocks for Ethanol

Reader comment on: Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Shutters

Submitted by Pyotr Petrovich (United States), Feb 9, 2011 21:29

So I guess we can blame the energy fairy for another cellulosic disaster. No one, starting with Khosla, bothered to do due diligence on Range's funky garage magic process used to garner megabucks from venture funds and our tax dollars. It is unbelievable that we keep funding development for cellulosic processes which have been developed and commercialized in Scandinavia, the former Soviet Union, Canada and even the USA for a century. The cellulosic processes have been technically proven to produce ethanol - but only a few cellulosic plants connected to paper pulping plants have been shown to make a profit. We keep re-inventing the wheel rather than focusing on improving already developed cellulosic processes to hope to reduce costs. After over 100 years, perhaps we should recognize the fact that cellulosic feedstocks make excellent boifuels for fueling fire replacing coal rather than conversion to liquid fuels at enormous cost.

All the government laboratories, university tenured professors, and start-up cellulosic ventures are merely farming the government for glory and / or our cash. It is long past time to move on to proven profitable alternatives for making ethanol from alternative other than corn. Generation 1.5 - traditional technology on alternative crops like wheat, barley, triticale, sweet sorghum, energy sweet potato all offer opportunities for many states outside the corn belt as well as in the corn belt. I say move on, forget cellulose.

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