While it may be way too early to declare a final winner in the race to find replacement renewable liquid fuels for the jet fuel and diesel that power so many of the vehicles in the world, there are some indications as to the technology that just might end up coming out ahead.

The results starting to appear also show that sometimes there is a disconnect between what the Government wants and considers possible, and the real world. The concern over climate change (not peak oil) led many governments around the world to mandate that propulsion fuels include a growing percentage generated from a renewable source. Six years ago I was in St Louis for the Renewable Energy Conference with its great emphasis on cellulosic ethanol. President Bush came to bless the endeavor, and much was made of it being the time to start building plants. A short while thereafter, I started looking into the generation of biodiesel from algae, and brought up the logical suggestion, to me, of growing it underground. (That idea still gains me the occasional pat on the head). Some of the early reviews of the technology were not good, but nevertheless, the Defense Advances Research Projects Agency began funding the development of algae, particularly as a source for jet fuel.

Time passed, and the development of the new fuels took quite different paths. In order to encourage the change to renewable fuels, the EPA mandated that motor fuel include 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2009, 250 million in 2010, and 500 million by 2013. (This is on the way to a target of around 2 mbd by 2022.) Some of the original companies to seize on this opportunity started out with too great an ambition. Range Fuels, after some $156 million of Government loans from the Bush Administration, closed its doors this past year, unable to make the product it had promised. When it became obvious that the initial targets would not be met the mandated volumes were lowered, so that this year, for example, the industry target is 8.5 million gallons. But still the Government will fine companies, for not using a fuel that doesn’t yet exist in the volumes needed to meet those quotas.

Robert Rapier recently drew attention to the demise of GreenFuel Technologies, the company founded on ideas from MIT and Harvard and supported by millions of dollars in venture capital funding. One of the creative ideas that the company has was to located their plant at existing power stations so that the carbon dioxide generated in the flue gas could be fed into the bio-reactors holding the algae, with the gas also keeping the algae at an optimal growing temperature. It was a company that was in the vanguard of promoting the use of algae in both carbon dioxide collection and liquid fuels production.

The company, however, ran into problems in raising more money in the current climate, and with the technology. According to to a recent news report:

Getting the whole thing to run smoothly, though, was tougher than expected. GreenFuel could grow algae. The problem was controlling it. In 2007, a project to grow algae in an Arizona greenhouse went awry when the algae grew faster than they could be harvested and died off. The company also found its system would cost more than twice its target.

A few days ago I participated in a conference call (recording available here) about biofuels with an organization called Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). In this article, I will discuss some things I found interesting, including a new technique for making biodiesel that involves feeding biomass to algae.

The call had three speakers. The first, Jim McMillan of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory gave an overview of the current US biofuel situation. According to him, a lot of current interest is in cellulosic ethanol, since corn ethanol doesn't scale up very well. At this point, the cost of cellulosic ethanol seems to be double or more that of corn ethanol. The economics are still being clarified by demonstration projects. Until there is some sort of climate legislation that raises the price of carbon, it will be difficult to overcome the price gap.

Back at the beginning of January I changed cars, and now drive a Camry Hybrid. It came with the usual displays for mpg, where the power was flowing and such, and for a month I played with looking at the different displays and then, as with most new toys, started to ignore them. However, pulling into the garage one night just over a month ago, I switched off the engine and a little “Excellent” appeared in a hitherto un-noticed final display on the dash. Now how do I confess this? Since then my driving habits have changed - more than I would freely admit - by the wish to be praised by a machine. The commute home is under three miles, and in somewhat hilly country so this requires a little effort on my part, but more often than not I now get that little glow of satisfaction from such a sign as I enter the house, generating a feeling that I am doing my part.

Well, not completely, and in terms of the greater scheme of things not even at any level of significance. The problem that we are coming to face is much larger, and more imminent than can be solved with simple small measures. Yet by touting the gains in efficiency through use of hybrid cars, or the growth rates of the solar and wind industries, one can convey to the general public that there is a considerable amount of technical progress being made in solving what “short term inconvenience” we might face as this “peak oil thingee” comes to pass and we have to live through it. The scale of the problem is glossed over, and the inadequacy of currently proposed solutions in their impact on the overall size of the problem is lost in the debate over issues that may be resolved with additional investment and time.