Wired on "The Plant That Will Save America"
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09.25.07
Who couldn't love the gee whiz, boyish enthusiasm of Wired Magazine. When they see a trend, they just pounce and cover it like a blanket; last year it was the hydrogen economy, which has barely been heard from since, and this year it is cellulosic ethanol, the plant that will save America. They do note that "There's just one catch- No one has yet figured out how to generate energy from plant matter at a competitive price. The result is that no car today uses a drop of cellulosic ethanol."
They go on for pages, describing the chemistry, looking at veterans who have been trying to do this since Jimmy Carter first funded research in it, enzyme hunters and gatherers, and biochemists breeding genetically modified bacteria that will munch cellulose and sweat Hi-test. They are, as always, optimistic; one scientist says " I truly think that in five years all the hard issues about converting cellulosic biomass to ethanol may be solved."
Blondie famously sang "Dreaming is free"; she was wrong, it costs $ 4.95 on the newstand. ::Wired
If only more news outlets were more like treehugger, only publishing newsworthy stories, without sensionalising, speculating or mudslinging.
Nice sarcasm alumunum, wonder if the editors noticed.
Wired has always been a bit thin on actual story investigation and more on hype. There's always a bit of fantasizing when you're reporting on the edge of new tech but some basic fact checking should be required. Last one I recall was the story about the man who 'burned sea water'. ahem.
Was this meant to be some kind of dig at Wired? For what? Being too thorough? Too much science?
And then for TreeHugger, that gushes over $2 cookies and $120,000 roadsters, to complain about a $5 newsstand price ... please.
I guess they should have instead talked about how to make the cellulose into material that Stewart + Brown could use to make more $300 dresses. That would be more appropriate for the eco-chic that TreeHugger seems to be trying to appeal to now.
I'm surprised that many media stories still concentrate on switchgrass alone when diverse plantings of prairie plants have been show to be much better sources of cellulosic biomass for biofuel than monocultures of switchgrass, while simultaneously sequestering carbon and recreating tallgrass prairie wildlife habitat.
National Science Foundation: Mixed Prairie Grasses Better Source of Biofuel Than Corn Ethanol and Soybean Biodiesel
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108206
University of Minnesota: Back to the future: Prairie grasses emerge as rich energy source
http://www1.umn.edu/umnnews/Feature_Stories/Back_to_the_future_prairie_grasses.html
NPR: Making Gas from Prairie Grasses
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6594253
Carbon-Negative Biofuels from Low-Input High-Diversity Grassland Biomass
David Tilman, Jason Hill, Clarence Lehman
8 DECEMBER 2006 VOL 314 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org
1 August 2006; accepted 24 October 2006
10.1126/science.1133306
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5805/1598/DC1
It's too bad we can't except the true price of renewable fuels (that are currently available). We keep searching for something cheaper than oil/coal, but those industries are heavily subsidized, not to mention backed by kazillion dollar interests.
It's like trying to find a hand-made, locally produced product that costs less than something from a big box company. It's not going to happen. If we want quality, we are going to have to pay for it. And if quality fuel means clean and renewable, we are going to pay more for that quality. (for now at least)
Obviously everyone wants to spend the least they can, myself included. But if the lowest price of clean renewable fuel is $4 a gallon, that's what it is. Better to find ways to stretch that unit of energy than shop for a cheaper one that creates detrimental side effects, in my opinion.
No thanks to the automotive industry, by the way, for sitting on their thumbs.
I don't like wired in the least, last time i picked an issue up, i couldn't distinguish the advertisements from the articles, but i really don't understand how this could have gotten past the editor, it upsets me that after numerous articles berating this kind of journalism over the past few months we are forced to trod through the yellow puddle of this article.
alumunum, I do not understand your problem. I do like wired but I don't think that celullosic ethanol is a solution and think that they got it wrong here. I think they are dreaming.
You have written two comments about this on one post, and said "it upsets me that after numerous articles berating this kind of journalism over the past few months we are forced to trod through the yellow puddle of this article. "
what numerous articles?
=="I truly think that in five years all the hard issues about converting cellulosic biomass to ethanol may be solved." ==
Well thats nice.
Catch is that we don't have that long to wait around and do nothing.
And all the current biofuels just make the problem worse.
http://greyfalcon.net/n2ostudy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/lcarough7.png
http://greyfalcon.net/n2o.png
http://greyfalcon.net/soy
http://greyfalcon.net/soy2
http://greyfalcon.net/palmoil
From the article title I thought they were talking about pot . . .
You might look into butanol. It's like ethanol, but with more energy per gallon, and it can go in unmodified gasoline and diesel engines.
The bacteria that make it are already able to digest cellulose, and they produce some other industrial chemicals as part of the fermentation process, as well.
It has some other benefits, too...
No one would be using ethenanol either if our bought and paid for congress wasn't shoving it down our throats.
Hi:
im realy intersting about this thngs. Im agronomic engiener form spain and im doing a paper about it. Do you know how can fnd free informaton about this, anybody can send me this article for free
thank you
my mail is pitaco81@hotmail.com
Hi:
im realy intersting about this thngs. Im agronomic engiener form spain and im doing a paper about it. Do you know how can fnd free informaton about this, anybody can send me this article for free
thank you
my mail is pitaco81@hotmail.com
well, here's to hoping that it works, everyone knows we need to find better and more organic alternatives as the environment problems continues to worsen.