'New' ethanol not commercially viable

Several more companies are expected to begin producing biofuels next year, but an energy research associate says the public shouldn't expect any energy breakthroughs anytime soon.

Five companies will begin producing cellulosic ethanol in 2011, which is different from regular ethanol in that it comes from woodchips and grass instead of sugar or corn. The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act already calls for 250 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol to be on the market next year and for 16 billion gallons to be produced per year by 2022.

But Brian McGraw, a research associate with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), has worked closely with the alternate ethanol and says this type of production is not commercially viable.

Brian McGraw (CEI)"They can't be produced at a price that is anything short of five or six dollars a gallon," he reports. So with a type of ethanol that "has been around for over 100 years," he says the government is essentially "conducting a giant science experiment, which, so far, hasn't proven successful."

McGraw adds that cellulosic ethanol is no more efficient than regular ethanol, which in its pure form only gives consumers about 66 percent of the miles per gallon that regular gasoline provides. The only difference between the two is how they are made.


"You don't need to grow corn and truck it all over the country, so it does have a much greener footprint in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than corn ethanol does. But it has the same net energy in the end," he concludes.

source: onenewsnow