Can biofuels ever really replace oil?
The amount of oil used in the U.S. – and worldwide – is staggeringly high. And, with China and India fast becoming mega-economies, demand is rapidly growing. Biofuels can make a sizeable dent but true replacement of oil by any alternative energy source is, practically speaking, decades away. There are nascent biofuel technologies such as algaculture (the cultivation of algae in wastewater to make biodiesel), thermal depolymerization (squeezing oil out of a myriad of complex feedstocks) and, above all, cellulosic ethanol that “on paper” have the potential to make huge contributions to our overall demand. One study suggests that applying cellulosic technologies to a combination of agricultural waste (e.g., corn stover and wheat straw) and energy crops (e.g., switchgrass, sorghum and miscanthus) that U.S. gasoline demand could be met on 50 million acres of farm and prairie land or about 10% of the U.S. total! Read the study. But, to achieve the twin goals of “energy independence” (cutting
