I recently drove the brae biodiesel bus -- a converted Thomas International shorty schoolbus -- from Denver to Maine.  (brae is my energy consulting firm.  The bus, her name is Gertie, short for Gertrude.)

I wrote about the merry adventure -- the search for biodiesel -- on cleantechblog.com.  The five-part piece, titled Biodiesel BINGO, describes my trek through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania (where the fuel filter finally clogged), New York and then Maine (where my last 5 gallons of Denver Biodiesel's waste veggie oil coagulated. I didn't want to part with it, so now it's frozen.)

The long journey had a purpose.  It was not a shot across the states in a loaned Flex Fuel vehicle to tout the wonders of biofuels.  I was not burning fuel simply to prove the merits of biodiesel:  I'm an energy consultant and was on my way to Maine to work on a home performance/energy efficiency program created by Maine's Governor Baldacci.

The Friday before Thanksgiving, I dined with a venture capital guy (a friend of my brother) at a fancy Mexican restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  He's invested in a few clean energy technologies that are getting lots of recognition and market play.  He condescended about the biodiesel biobus (I had some choice words about the MBA and JDs at one of his investor start-ups, so I had it coming.)

At the end of the evening and the end of one margarita, I proclamed "ethanol is a scam."  He agreed, delighted.  "Yes," he said, "ethanol IS a scam."  We parted, friendly-like, in our mutual disregard for ethanol.

I'm partial to the waste veggie oil that my local guys in Denver made for the Biodiesel Coop. That is a whole other fuel than the Archer Daniel Midland/Cargill biodiesel that I found promoted across the industrial farm belt.  That biodiesel?  Well, it's a scam, too.

So, we three of us so far agree: Ethanol is a scam.  It is energy in-efficient to produce.  It requires just about as much energy ( generally in the form of petro fuel) as we can obtain from it.  Corn is a heavily subsidized mono-culture, not very good for the lands that are paved ove with its production.  The fact that ehtahanol is so well supported in the tax code, legislatively, etc. must be a testament to how poorly our government has been working.  Farm industry lobbyists ( ADM, Cargill ) have been effective in Washington, although the science does not support it. Both sides of the aisle have been complicit: Obama is an ethanol supporter.

Maybe cellulosic ethanol will be better.  But its still a fuel of the future.

I support biodiesel as an alternative fuel. I get "500 miles per acre" in my SVO-converted truck.  By that I mean, an acre of a typical oi-seed crop (canola) produces enough fuel for me to drive 500 miles.  Granted, there is not enough cropland to grow enough to transport the whole country around, but biofuel algea seems a promising solution to this. ( Then I would get about 160,000 miles per acre!)

But here is my real question: Why, since we all peasants/ energy-and-fuel geeks can recognize that ethanol is not the way forward, is it so well promoted, compared to biodiesel?  Auto manufacturers can make Flex fuel cars ( which require  extensive re-engiineering), but can't figure bring themselves to support using any more than B5 in their engines?  (New Holland and Case IH being the exceptions- they recommend B20). Even this Grist series of articles seems to fail to call bull$&!t on ehtanol.

If the people can see that the emperor has no clotes, why can't the leaders? Even the leaders of of the left-leaning media?

Biodiesel has advantages, but it also has its disadvantates. It takes five times more acres to make the same energy as corn ethanol if you use soybeans. Palm oil is wrecking the planet. Nobody makes it from algae, so, why promote using biodiesel from food crops? Why not support funding for research into algae and wait rather than pillage and hope?

"...the cost to the federal taxpayer associated with the tax credit paid on that ethanol would be $1080 per vehicle, per year, or over $10,000 over the life of the vehicle."

"Nobody makes it from algae, so, why promote using biodiesel from food crops? Why not support funding for research into algae and wait rather than pillage and hope?"

Actually, lots of people are making it from algae, and we should indeed support them with further funding.  Algae have the additional benefits of remediating of other waste problems such as water and air contamination (see efforts by MIT spinoff greenfuelonline.com).  They even fix their own nitrogen, allowing for the reduction of NOx.  The main hurdle is that the high oil-yielding species aren't robust enough to be grown in open ponds.  Rather, they need to be grown and harvested in a closed system.

I'd like to see permacultures all over the place for both food and non-food uses.  I have the utmost respect for the work of the Land Institute.  It's also good to have some clarity against quick-fix schemes.  Nevertheless, I think butanol from cellulose is really very promising.  It also takes money from major corporations to get things accomplished, so I'm glad that DuPont and BP are at least willing to get their feet wet.  The return on energy invested for any biofuel will max out at around 3:1, which pales in comparison to petroleum's 50:1.  Still, that's a net positive, and we need to look forward with hope rather than despair.

Now we see why the powers that be rigged the 2006 election: So that Barrack Obama could become a shill for the biofuels industry and funnel money to agribusiness.

Yes, they weren't content poisoning our bodies with corn syrup and causing obesity, diabetes and heart problems...now they want to put their corn in our cars!  

Yeah, gummy fuel injectors are the future...forget about the six years that George Bush has funded the real next economy, Hydrogen.  Take a giant leap backward with Hillary and send your dollars to ADM.

literally. Algae is not being used to mass produce a marketable product, and is not on the cusp of doing so. It remains a research project. Bodiesel made from food crops will not facilitate the development of other forms, like algae. Biodiesel does not have an equivalent argument that ethanol made from corn will lead to ethanol made from cellulose. I would be happy to see something like algae replace food crops.

According to the theory developed by the late H.T. Odum (widely regarded as the father of systems ecology), Tad Patzek is quite correct in allocating ALL the input eMergy (yes, that's the proper term here; see Odum for details)of biofuel production to the fuel produced. (And it all goes equally to every co-product, too!)  This is one of several ways in which conventional wisdom fails as a reliable guide for properly evaluating alternative fuel schemes. Another is in treating all energy types(both input and output) as kcal-for-kcal equivalent, something we'd never do with the monetary currencies of different countries, for example.  Thus, Pimentel and Patzek have been unfairly criticized for taking necessary human labor into account.  In fact, what appear to be an insignificant number of kcal of human work are worth (i.e., equivalent to) a great many kcal of petroleum energy, and in large measure have been developed from it! This is kind of understanding required for coming to terms with the crucial concepts of eMergy, energy transformity and energy quality. And, while we're on the subject of system inputs, let's be clear that among them is money.  Since money flowing through the economy is itself backed by eMergy flow, the eMergetic equivalent of tax breaks, price supports, discounts, etc. must also be accounted for.

I invite anyone who thinks ethanol (or any other biofuel)sustainably delivers positive net eMergy on some given scale (and scale does matter!) to put it to the following simple (but admittedly difficult) test:  Develop a system FROM SCRATCH that produces/builds EVERYTHING it needs to operate (machinery, goods, services, etc., etc.)using only what it produces (e.g., the fuel)or the eMergy equivalent thereof(on an equal exchange basis), AND does better than just break even. I say "from scratch" to make sure you take ALL input eMergy into account.

If, as some contend,  ethanol produced from agribusiness corn has a real eMergy yield ratio of 3:1, that ethanol should be a PRIMARY energy source more than capable of "self-subsidy" in the sense above. Let's see it.

When I say "produces/builds everything it needs to operate..." I mean that the system must use only the biofuel it yields (or the eMergy eqivalent thereof gotten in direct or indirect exchange)as the FEEDBACK (after any number of downstream transformations into goods, machines, services, labor, etc.) required to engage with basically "free" (i.e. uncosted)natural inputs in ALL the processes for producing the fuel itself.  Such "free" inputs would be sunlight, rain, atmospheric gases, other natural resouces like metal ores, groundwater, etc. If artificial irrigation is required for growing the biomass, the biofuel (or its exact equivalent) must supply the feedback energy to provide it. Ditto for all added fertilizer.

I should also clarify my comment on money. Regardless of what is actually paid out by the system for materials, goods, services, etc., the total eMergy input already gages most of the REAL monetary value.  However, I suspect that there may be cases where significant value-added is not measured DIRECTLY by eMergy.  It would take very careful analysis to find out for sure.

I'd appreciate any insightful feedback as I continue to wrestle with these ideas.