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Biofuel for land vehicles is largely dead, or rather limited to legacy systems (Brazil etc). Whatever EVs can't do (if anything) will likely be taken up by hydr
by scythe 6y ago
Biofuel for land vehicles is largely dead, or rather limited to legacy systems (Brazil etc). Whatever EVs can't do (if anything) will likely be taken up by hydrogen.
Biofuel for airplanes however will probably be around for a while. Unlike cars, airplanes are usually built to last for decades. It might be possible to fly planes fuelled by hydrogen or ammonia, but many of the planes currently flying today should still be flying in 2050 -- not necessarily a bad thing because building an airplane isn't exactly low-impact. Synthesizing jet fuel from plant matter is probably easier than starting from "scratch" (syngas).
- ArkVark 6y agoThe fertilizers used, the soil degraded, and the runoff from it all into water sources, plus the fact that the energy return is barely higher than the energy investment (or in some cases actually negative) means that Biofuels are already dead - they survive only based on Government subsidies.
- xyzzyz 6y agoI can scarcely believe that EROEI for biofuels is negative. Can you provide source for this?
- ArkVark 6y agohttp://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.468.2464&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.468... EROEI of 1.07 from this metastudy for Corn Ethanol. Society needs at least an EROEI of 3:1, so corn ethanol, at least, is a boondoggle.
- credit_guy 6y agoI'm not sure how much I can trust that document. It's written by some academics, they might or might not have an agenda. Here's a study done by the USDA, published in 2016 and describing the state of the affairs in 2015 https://mnbiofuels.org/images/2015EnergyBalanceCornEthanol.pdf https://mnbiofuels.org/images/2015EnergyBalanceCornEthanol.p... Bottom line: ignoring any carbon credits, the return on energy using the existing facilities in Iowa is 2.3 (page 14, bottom of 3rd column).
- Animats 6y agoSee [1]. Numbers vary, but ethanol from corn seems to be in the 0.5 to 1.5 range. Which is not very good. [1] https://www.buildinggreen.com/news-article/energy-return-investment https://www.buildinggreen.com/news-article/energy-return-inv...