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Study Claims Ethanol Worse than Petroleum

posted by n1 on Monday April 21 2014, @08:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the conclusions-would-damage-the-economy dept.

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Biofuels have direct, fuel-cycle GHG emissions that are typically 30-90% lower than those for gasoline or diesel fuels. However, since for some biofuels indirect emissions-including from land use change-can lead to greater total emissions than when using petroleum products, policy support needs to be considered on a case by case basis.

The IPCC has released a finalized draft of its Working Group III report. Sourced from Forbes, their analysis: that ethanol is worse than petroleum. The Working Group itself managed to say... Well, after a quick read-through of chapter 8, it appears they managed to keep any actual meaning occluded by a thick screen of political double-speak. So, I guess they said whatever you would like them to have said since nobody can prove any different.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @06:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @06:39PM (#34506)

    The problem with switchgrass (cellulosic) ethanol is that the enzymes needed to break down the cellulose into bacteria-digestible components are expensive. They are included for free in grains (that's what happens when grain is "malted") but this needs to be done synthetically in cellulose bases, unless you can wait many, many years for nature to take its course.

    Not unsurmountable, but the cost is still high. When we get to reliably paying $5-6 (in 2014 dollars) a gallon gas in the USA, I believe we will be seeing more switchgrass ethanol.