The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #110362   Message #2315633
Posted By: JohnInKansas
14-Apr-08 - 06:30 PM
Thread Name: BS: Food: Inflation
Subject: RE: BS: Food: Inflation
At present, none of the methods using cellulosic plant wastes is close to being cost-competitive with petro fuels. The few plants using them survive only with substantial subsidies, and are pretty much "developmental" efforts with some hope that efficiencies can eventually be improved.

Even the "sugar plants" require modest(?) subsidies to be barely cost-effective.

Work is being done at coming up with a single "bio-agent" that can digest the cellulose and ferment to alcohol without having to pump between vats and change the bugs for the two separate steps. "Commercialization" has been promised "within a year" (for about the last four years) by a couple of the labs.

There has been some progress, but not enough to realistically justify the few million bucks each to build plants to use different plants.

John