I'm not sure that cellulosic ethanol is at the stage where your comment on "breakthroughs" applies.

Humans have been making ethanol out of wood for, I believe, at least a couple of thousand years - to drink.

Therefore, with the current price of gasoline, and the already developed processes that are being scaled up at Coskata and a few others, perhaps this is not an industry in need of breakthroughs as much as a follow through, i.e. the price of gasoline changes the breakeven point of cellulosic ethanol on the open market so these pilot project can now be scaled with a much wider margin regarding cost to market price per gallon.

Of course, breakthroughs in regards so more efficient enzymes, etc. would help even more.

I entirely agree with JMG: we don't need any technological breakthroughs to do address climate change (and ecological crises generally).  However, meeting these challenges with existing technologies will require a radical shift in the expectations and standards to which we design our infrastructure.  Buildings, for example, are typically designed on the basis of "how can I make this good enough to meet code while doing it as cheaply as possible?".  Even so-called "green" buildings are usually approached from this mindset.  And this attitude infects everyone from the owners, architects, through the engineers and the contractors who actually build the thing.  I don't have direct experience with other infrastructure industries, but I can only assume (and have some circumstantial evidence to support) that it's equally bad in e.g. the power sector, or roadbuilding, etc.

Meeting the challenges ahead of us will require a breakthrough, a cultural and social breakthorugh.  We're going to have to dramatically raise our standards in a short period of time, and we're going to have to act on those changed expectations.  Which means that, for people working in the relevant industries, the ideas of "business as usual" and "code compliant" are death itself.  These attitudes must be challenged at every opportunity, and a new vision of how we create our built environment installed in their place.

Yes, wood alcohol is poisonous, but my understanding is that cellulosic ethanol is not.  
Not that it matters regarding the point that I was trying to make, that is simply that I don't see that breakthroughs are needed to produce cellulosic ethanol. The growth of the cellulosic market seems to be entirely dependent on the price of gas and its possible alternatives.

Cellulosic ethanol was made in Romania during WWII when the petro industry was repeatedly bombed.  So at some point, 3-4-5 dollar a gallon gas, or maybe if you're a skeptic 10 dollar gas, cellulosic ethanol needs no breakthroughs only efficient large scale production.

Now you may argue that it takes too much land, it's not as pure burning as hydrogen, etc, but it has to become economically viable at some point.  Then we can debate the environmental factors.

to believe that humans can live without biofuels, gas or something, anything, to burn and propel ourselves and our goods around.

Combustion is a basic human function, after all.

Better to kill off all life on Earth, and to use all of our food sources to make us go! go! go! than to actually feed ourselves and our fellow people.

biodiversivist, where are your priorities?

ecosystems, shmecosystems.

Fuel is dead.  Let's get over it.

... for making me think that I'm not such a bad writer as to bury my point so badly as to hide it from ALL readers (although I'm hurt that your short summary probably made my point better than my long wanderings that probably do nothing but demonstrate my old-fartitude).

Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.

Solar cells at 30 percent.

Wind farms with batteries installed in Ireland.

Nuclear cells that can convert radiation to electricity with 40 percent efficiency.

Ammonia solids that can capture hydrogen for lightweight storage.

We've got breakthroughs out the wazzu!

As noted solar cells have been around since the 1960s.

What are we waiting for?

How about Brown's Gas?

J. Bailo Participant Texeme.Construct()

JMG,
You had a great article.  What might happen sometimes is the articles are so good, complete and reasonable that there is nothing to criticize.   Then somebody makes a post that does offer criticism and the comment posts trail after that.  

I had heard about Rickover (well yah, I was around when he was in the news), but it was interesting to hear how he ran the Navy's nuclear program and how to avoid the serious problems.   If only more people would think about the planet that way.

I admire Rickover.  His success is almost unbelievable.  And the nuclear missle sub is the deterent that most likely made nuclear war unthinkable, even for the craziest dictators.  His efforts, fighting the bureacracy the whole way, saved the planet.

But then of course idiots got a hold of his reactor design and planted them all over  the country.  And submariners are deafening and destroying whales and other marine life with their sonar.  Can't blame that on Rickover though.

In fact, someone just like Rickover is needed right now.  To push solutions through the mess o america to solve GHG climate disaster.

As far as high school graduates running nuclear subs?  That would take an understanding of the how the system operates.  It's simple really.  A radioactive boiler and a steam turbine.  They got their nuclear engineering "degrees" on the job.

As far as the idea that:  'the will to believe that "all is well," the human tendency to put the best possible interpretation on every sign that might suggest trouble.'  The idea that this is central to our climate problems?  It would seem to be the case as far as the mass media culture.

But for activists trying to discover the solutions ("wondertoys?", I bet Rickover heard that critique daily) it's a matter of discriminating between boobdoggles like ethanol (cellulosic, cane, corn, whatever) and real solutions like renewable electric powered transportation.

That FLOX thing?  For many year many people have been burning various fuels in high temperature, high pressure, oxygen rich, and oxygen free  vessels then claiming big breakthroughs by measuring what comes out.  So now they restrict the oxygen?  "All will be well" they say, if you just fund our "wondertoy".  But it's still just combustion.

You were right in the first place though.  No breakthroughs needed.  Just go with what we have that has already been proven to produce the power we need without combustion or nuclear fission.

Renewables and conservation built out on a massive scale to replace the old system. Rickover could do it, why can't we?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

....The plant in that state will be capable of consuming 170 million tons of switchgrass a day.

Ah, I don't think so. That's 1700 aircraft carrier size loads every 24 hrs.

 "ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel"

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog