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On the Newsstand: Biofuels
The most recent issues of two monthly magazines, National Geographic and Wired, boast solid cover stories on biofuels - solid because they make clear the limitations of corn-derived ethanol and focus on the promise of celluloic ethanol - yet the covers themselves present two very different ways of shifting the conversation past corn ethanol and on to cellulose.
On the cover of National Geographic, the title “Growing Fuel: The Wrong Way, The Right Way,” is superimposed over an ear of corn. This is a little confusing as the article focuses (in turn) on producing ethanol from U.S. corn, Brazilian sugarcane, U.S. cellulosic crops, and algae. The article explains the lower energy return from corn-based ethanol and makes a promising case for the other possibilities. So why tout corn on the cover?
The cover of Wired is the template for the button that could, with the right marketing, start appearing on the lapels of biofuel advocates, the single word, “Switch,”woven through a stalk of switchgrass. The sub-head then drives home the point: “Forget oil. This plant is the future of energy. Inside the new science of ethanol.”
Wired takes the edgier route and quickly dismisses corn, focusing first on the history of cellulosic ethanol research, which dates to the 1970s energy crisis. From there, it focuses on the development of the industrial enzymes that break tough cell fibers into the sugars that yeast ferments into ethanol, and on the business prospects for scaling production, reducing costs, and building a national infrastructure for the fuel.
Considering the stories together, the success of the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol industry makes a strong case for the industrial possibilities of a U.S. market for cellulosic ethanol. This is the sort of coverage that biofuels deserve. This new coverage is in stark contrast to the myopic framing in Rolling Stone’s July article, which, while rightly pointing out the insurmountable problems that limit corn ethanol’s potential, conflates all the possibilities of ethanol with all the drawbacks of corn and buries discussion of cellulosic fuels at the end of the piece.
Biofuels do have a future, as does responsible mainstream press coverage of their development.
Comments on this article
Biofuels have a limited role to play in the energy equation. If developed on an industrial scale they are intensive users of land and risk creating large mono-culture farms that are highly susceptible to pest infestation. They have definite limitations in terms of BTU output. Technology innovation in terms or hybrids, intensive farming and better boilers are likely to yield only limited BTU productivity gains.
There are other solutions that have more potential - Wind, Solar, Hydrogen and even nuclear. These solutions are less back to the future and more in line with where technological advances can be made that exceed current energy outputs.
Biofuels have a role and switchgrass is certainly preferable to corn. But the country, and indeed the world, needs to place its bets on the most promising long term, large scale solutions, switchgrass isn’t it.
Can you imagine telling a Martian, when she comes to visit Earth, that the reason we haven’t been able to develop more as a planet was that we decided to grow Switchgrass to solve our rocket propulsion needs!
Tom Gage (editor Energy Primer -Solar, Water Wind and Biofuels, Dell Boooks, 1978)
October 4th, 2007 at 6:52 pmTom, you make a good point that biofuels are only one part of the new toolbox of renewable energy sources we need. I think that’s actually something else worth considering with regard to media coverage: because the bulk of U.S. CO2 emissions come from electricity generation, playing up biofuels as “the solution” is problematic because they have no role to play in generating electricity, which when, you consider the data, is a much bigger sector and a much bigger issue.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:38 am