My last post made me wonder about the various crops that people are touting as the next big thing for biofuels. Though ethanol is certainly the best-known alternative to petroleum-based gas, and the one most widely used, I was pretty surprised to discover that it doesn’t really offer much of an improvement over regular gas.
According to an article I found in Plenty, the green magazine, the ratio of energy produced compared to the amount of fossil-fuel energy needed to make ethanol is just a whisker above that of gasoline. Gas comes in at about 1:1, while ethanol is about 1.5:1.
But biofuel produced from cellulose plant material, that is the fibers found in trees or various grasses, blows them away; it comes in at 10:1.
Of course, it’s not that simple. Ethanol, which gets its energy from the starch in corn or soy, is easier to make than fuel derived from cellulose because the starch breaks down easily. Cellulose is a bit more hardy, and requires additional processing steps. Still, it seems pretty obvious to me that perhaps if we’re hunting for next major fuel source, the best place to look would be the crops where we can find the most energy.
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