Vinod Khosla was a founder of Sun Microsystems, and then as a venture capitalist he helped a host of other technology companies get off the ground. These days, Khosla is still investing in technology, but much of it has nothing to do with the world of network computing in which he made his name. He is particularly excited about new ways of producing ethanol, which he says could rapidly displace gasoline.
“I am convinced we can replace a majority of petroleum used for cars and light trucks with ethanol within 25 years,” he said. He has already invested “tens of millions of dollars,” he said, in companies that are developing methods to produce ethanol using plant sources other than corn.
Khosla is not the only one with a big stake in ethanol: add the names Richard Branson and Bill Gates to the list.
The excitement over ethanol derives from research that has cut the cost of converting nonfood plant matter like grasses and wood chips into alcohol. Khosla says such cellulosic ethanol will eventually be cheaper to produce than either gasoline or corn-derived ethanol.
Some publicly traded companies with operations linked to ethanol include Novozymes and Danisco, both based in Denmark, and Diversa of San Diego; all three have said they have made major gains in reducing the cost of the enzymes needed to produce ethanol from cellulose.
Corn ethanol has been around for years, and even with a current spike in demand, the industry commands only a 3 percent share of the market. Khosla counters that soaring energy prices have made corn-based ethanol more competitive, while research advances in breaking down cellulose into simple sugars have cut the cost of making ethanol from other sources.
“Ethanol is cheaper to produce, unsubsidized, than gasoline today,” he said. “As these technologies ramp up, they will be cheaper, unsubsidized, than gasoline even if petroleum drops to $35 a barrel.”
Both sides of the equation — based on renewable crops resulting in energy — are moving forward. I don’t know if there’s significant benefit to whether they are edible crops or not. The whole cost of production will probably be the driving force in early days.
Actually, when you read the article, the breakthrough seems to be a better process for converting cellulose (wood chips, crop debris, grass, etc.) to sugar or something else that can be fermented and turned into ethanol. Changes to the process which distills ethanol from the fermented mixture) aren’t mentioned specifically in the article. What isn’t mentioned is what happens to the remaining waste material that wasn’t turned into ethanol.
In case you were wondering, the leftovers from making whiskey and other distilled beverages (and, for that matter, beer and wine) is typically fed to livestock.
Get ready for oil lobbyists and their Republican puppets to start fighting this…………..are you still considered cynical when you are right?
End the subsidies to the ethanol industry and see how much money ‘pours’ into it. Those billionares will find religion real quick on what does and doesn’t work.
e.s. — didn’t read the article, eh? Even the precis as posted refers to “unsubsidized” costs.
Floyd — nice question; though, I imagine what to do with remainders is pretty standard portion of the equation, nowadays. Recovering all the profits is sensible for any kind of manufacturing.
Oil fills the coffers of both parties Jason…….If they start to fight you will see members of congress from both sides against it.
I would like to see more going on in the hydrogen fuel area. Nice to have more than one way to *skin the cat* as they say.
Gay & Robinson, the largest sugar producer in Hawaii, has plans to convert its sugar operations to produce ethanol. title=”link”
while we are at it, perhaps we could end the subsidies to the oil industry, like the sweetheart deals they get on leasing Federal lands. And shouldn’t the costs of US foreign policy in the middle east be chargeable as a subsidy to the oil industry?
a few tax breaks for ethanol are nothing by comparison.
I love the idea of alternative fuel sources. However, I am not sure if Ethanol is sustainable. I have read somewhere that 15 acres of land would have to be used to fuel a car with the crops grown on it. If this estimation is correct it is hard to se this being widely used, especially in areas that have limited farmland available.
Perhaps this method increases the efficiency enough to make it viable, but I am a little skeptical.