 by jurvetson
Ethanol vs. electricity:
[Via Cosmic Log]
Suppose you take an acre's worth of switchgrass and turn it into ethanol for your flex-fuel car, while your neighbors take their acre's worth and burn it in a power plant to generate electricity for their plug-in hybrid. Which car would go farther?
If you guessed that your car would, you'd be way off. About 7,000 miles off, in fact.
In a study published online today by the journal Science, researchers say using biomass to generate electricity is more efficient for transportation than making biofuels - and might actually do more to cut CO2 emissions as well.
So does that mean bioelectricity is better than bioethanol? Wrong again.
[More]
Solving complex problems requires a whole systems approach, one that synthesizes a large amount of information. It will not be an either-or world but one that fully recognizes the total costs of different approaches.
This paper makes a fine effort to account for the differential costs of two approaches to using plants for fuel - making biofuels from the plants or burning the plants directly to create electricity. Burning them may be better, at least for the amount of miles traveled that could be provided.
[More at Path to Sustainable]
Technorati Tags: Entertainment, Sustainability 8:46:50 AM 
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