Matt,

you can feel free to support this and similar initiatives even if you don't think that personal cars are the way of the future. this process can be tweaked to produce diesel fuel for trains & boats or jet fuel for planes.

"I’m not so sure we ought to rush to perpetuate a transportation and civic infrastructure that is dependent on the automobile for its existence."

I must agree to a point. While this solution is carbon neutral, we need to begin looking at solutions that are carbon negative and help reduce carbon further. I believe that biofuels are a step in the right direction but only a step. We need a massive infrastructure change and unfortunately I think it's going to take a long time to get Americans to see that. For now, I'll embrace the positive steps we can take and consider the next ones: getting mass transit in place, etc. Local governments need to be formulating long term plans to address fuel shortages and the crucial task of getting workers to jobs. We need to make mass transit safe and usable. The shift in consciousness is going to be the hardest part as we've been fed a diet of the personal automobile as a symbol of our freedom.

@ vboring:

You're right. This technology theoretically could be used for diesel or jet fuel... I just often get the feeling that both biofuels producers and the general public don't get it that we have to make greater changes to business as usual in regards to transportation than just changing fuels. A greater lifestyle change, both practically and psychologically needs to take place if we have any chance of tackling climate change, resource overconsumption, population growth, etc.

So, would the waste remain solid and not pollute if we were to do nothing, or would it have otherwise become methane or a similar gas and cause more global warming than if it were used and converted into energy and carbon dioxide?

Either way, this sounds like a decent option, especially if it really does work that well with waste.

I think the point you're missing is that the price for production of this is $1.70-2.00 per gallon. That is not the retail price - the final price would have to include overhead for building the facilities, marketing, shipping the product, retail markup, and quite possibly the cost involved in getting the raw material before production. My point is that fuel will have to remain expensive just to make this stuff competetive, probably expensive enough to cause some significant changes we're already beginning to see in our transportation and civic infrastructure.

There are a lot of people in rural areas who can't afford green upgrades (the people who grow the local produce you desire, for instance), and suggesting that we should allow fuel prices to spiral upward until private transportation dies an early death really doesn't take into consideration that segment of our population. Suburban SUV commuters are going to be able to survive with rising fuel prices longer than the rural poor, and then the only change we'll see is GREATER dependence on imported foods because all of our farmers will be bankrupt.

This is probley one of the first 'Cradle to Cradle' solutions to are transportation problem, turning our waste ( and what abundunce there is of it) in to a fuel that can be used in an already build infrustructer. Cudos to Byogo! However beside "perpetuate a transportation and civic infrastructure that is dependent on the automobile for its existence", how is prosess done, what chemicals are used, what will the by product be, how clean or unclean will it be, will it smell. Oh and the problems and concerns go on. For those of you who do not understand the term 'Cradle to Cradle' by the book, then you will understand what our society truly needs to do, revent the whole way we design things, eliminating the idea of waste!

I absolutely want everlasting life for interstate highways. Otherwise everything that went into producing them will be wasted. A better goal would be to reduce congestion and not expand or build new highways. If you think personal automobiles can be replaced by mass transit you are not being reasonable. Face it, people are going to live and go places where mass transit is not feasible. I think this is a great development. It reduces waste that would otherwise take over natural open spaces and release methane, which is far worse than carbon dioxide.

Waste is a resource, and one that (while limited) will not run out. We can leave it to rot and eventually run out of places to put our trash, or we can use it. For organic matter, what are our recycling options? As far as I can tell, they are a) composting and b) energy. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to add "feedstock for chemical reactions/plastic production" to that list.

My only fear about waste-to-energy programs is that it will reduce the number of people worrying about reducing waste. We lose the psychological impact of huge mounds of trash in landfills. It always takes more energy to produce trash than can be extracted from it, so not wasting has even greater benefits than using waste.

The upshot of that is that as we find more uses for our waste, and more ways to reduce waste, fuel from this kind of process will get more expensive. The economic incentive for a decline of the automobile from being (in many places) the only means of transport, to being used only where it is appropriate or needed, will not necessarily be halted by having a carbon-neutral fuel.

Of course this doesn't allow business as usual. There's not enough waste and biomass. Simple as that. Just look at the companies goal, 2% by 2022. That still leaves 98 percent to deal with. A sobering figure I think, but when you consider the potential for efficiency, conservation and electric traction, there is some hope for the future.

It is somewhat true that we should find some other means to transport. Automobiles have still given Americans, at least, the means to go see relatives who move about. No one is going to want to give up that.
Still, if something else were put in place for say air travel, then you might have something.
Airplanes that haul cargo and haul people use a tremendous amount of fuel.
What if we could have giant blimps that moved the amount of cargo six or more 747's move from place to place, that the blimp used thefuel a jet uses just to get off the ground (one jet). Then 2% fuel production would jump to more like 50% fuel production.
As for a giant blimp that moved people, the blimp could fly to a central airport where electric trolleys would take people close to their finally distination.