On May 11, 12:09*am, David Nebenzahl wrote:
After hearing a comment about this on a PBS talking-heads show, I found
a couple articles confirming what was said: a team of researchers
compared turning an equal amount of biomass into biofuel to producing
electricity from it to power an electric car. The winner? The electric
car, by far (on the order of 80% more).

Articles hehttp://www.technologyreview.com/ener...90508/biomass_...

Of course, this is only part of the picture. While this indicates it
would make more sense to put our eggs in the electric-car basket, rather
than funding more biofuel research, the problem remains of the high cost
of electric vehicles, and the greater difficulty of converting the
world's cars to run on electricity rather than an "alternative" fuel.
(Not to mention the yet-unsolved problems of better battery storage.)

But it's interesting. Discuss amongst yourselves.

--
Save the Planet
Kill Yourself

- motto of the Church of Euthanasia (http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/)

The problem, around here, is that electric cars lose a LOT of
efficiency in the winter. It's even a problem with hybrids. Two
friends who have Priuses report a 1/3rd drop in gas mileage in the
winter (from about 60 mpg to about 40 mpg).

Seems like they could boost the gas mileage. I had a 1988 Pontiac
LeMans that got 45 mpg. In 20 years, not much has changed.