Advanced BioFuels USA

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Earlier this week, a new study from researchers at UC Santa Barbara determined photovoltaics to be much more efficient than biomass at turning sunlight into energy to fuel a car.

“Even the most land-use efficient biomass-based pathway,” the researchers wrote, “(i.e., switchgrass bioelectricity in U.S. counties with hypothetical crop yields of over 24 tonnes/ha) requires 29 times more land than the PV-based alternative in the same locations.”

…The comparison — between biofuels-ICU engines and the solar-electric engine driving option — is actually a variation on the business model for selling razors and blades, or printers and inks. You know how it goes, you buy a cheap printer for under $100, then spend a fortune on the ink.

…It’s the old capex-opex fallacy.

What is that? “Low operating expense doesn’t always lead to the best choice” — because the capex might be unaffordable, unfinancable, or so high that no operating efficiency will ever make up the difference.

Comparing the all-electric Chevrolet Volt to the comparably-sized Chevrolet Eco Cruze, the New York Times reported that (based on a workup from TrueCar), the payback period on a Volt was 26.6 years. After the article appeared, rebuttals surfaced placing the true break-even period at 8.7 years.

…The 8.7 year payback required the Volt owner to never drive more more than 38 miles in a single excursion, was based on a gasoline price of $3.85 per gallon (vs the current average price of $3.31), 15K miles drive per year (vs. the real-world average of 13.4K) and based on a $7,500 subsidy given to the Volt buyer.

…We might add, the costs are based on a car without many of the trimmings – the MRSP of a fully-loaded Volt is $46,265 — and, surprise, you need to install a $490 charging system in your garage — if you have one — and it takes four hours to power up.

…One of the highly-touted advantages of all next-generation biofuels platforms is that it provides a work-around for a dependency on a single feedstock such as corn, sugarcane or soybeans — and prices for all those feedstocks have soared over the years, regardless of whether you think biofuels or other sector demands or input costs are to blame.

…  The answer lies in the capex — because it costs less than $2 per gallon of installed corn ethanol capacity, vs somewhere between $6 and $12 per gallon for cellulosic ethanol capacity, depending on which technology you choose.

Given the cost of capital for high technology in these nefarious times we live in, that’s why there aren’t cellulosic ethanol plants cropping up everywhere, every day. And that’s why, if you ask advanced biofuels developers what they are working hardest on, it is knocking down the capital costs.  READ MORE