David Nebenzahl wrote:
....
My understanding from the commentary I heard before I found these
articles was that the researchers took identical amounts of input "fuel"
(switchgrass) and used them to power the two cars (one using liquid
biofuel, the other electricity). What isn't known is how they converted
the grass into electricity. Also not known is whether they actually used
identical masses of grass in the experiment, or whether they simply
extrapolated from different amounts. (For instance, it's possible that
the conversion to electricity is more efficient due to economy of
scale--burning the fuel in a large plant as opposed to a small portable
engine--and that they simply calculated the yield based on that.)

However they generated electricity as opposed to converting to biofuel
if that's all they did then it's the same thing as the previous example
I gave where the analytical comparisons used input energy from the sun
but didn't count the distillers' grains energy outputs in many ethanol
studies.

Same thing w/ the biodiesel cycle--if you don't count the entire cycle
including useful byproducts you haven't done a fair comparison but
biased the study ground rules to produce the expected/desired result.

And, of course, there's still the problem of while they can be useful in
a niche market (inner city commuting, namely) and while it's a fairly
sizable niche, helping solve that niche problem doesn't mean it's an
overall solution by any stretch.

It reminds me of the touch of realism I heard the other day on
wind/solar generation. The goal is to double their share in 20 years or
so and in fact we've roughly double wind's share in the last 10 or so
which seems pretty good--until one notes that they started out at 0.16%
of US energy consumption so that by doubling it yet again they would be
at 0.3%. It's just not what those in DC want to hear but unfortunately
they're making policy on wishful thinking not reality.

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