State of the ethanol nation will be solid, but it's tough now
Photo by Hummanna. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
As we've seen, the corn ethanol industry has taken a huge hit recently, so we decided it was worth it to take a look at the overall ethanol market, corn and otherwise. A good place to start is a new report by Global Industry Analysts, which predicts that, for all its trouble, the world ethanol market grow by about 7,597 million gallons between now and 2012 to 27.7 billion gallons. Even though the excitement for corn ethanol has (mostly) died down, there are still a lot of biofuel mandates on the books (the U.S. will require about 8 billion of those gallons in 2012, for example). This is all good news for POET CEO Jeff Broin, who is quite bullish about his company's chances, especially with a new President whom he sees as "very, very strong for ethanol."
The future may be decent for ethanol, but the present remains very troubling. The latest example is Pacific Ethanol, which just posted a "deeper-than-expected" quarterly loss. See also: VeraSun.
[Source: PRWeb, Domestic Fuel, Reuters]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gorr 1:11PM (11/12/2008)
Why is that i have to repeat again and again the same basics things over and over again. It's silly but i repeat: Foods have to be eaten before criminals steal it from the market with subsidies to burn it thereafter. When foods are eaten and become useless and end-up in sewage water, then it can be converted to fuel, methane or others fuels like ethanol or butanol or bio-diesel from green algae farming where s&%t is the main feedstock and co2 from big chimneys.
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TX CHL Instructor 8:17PM (11/12/2008)
Ethanol is a mediocre (at best) fuel, and corn is a lousy feedstock. There are at least 3 superior alternatives.
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Steve-O 9:32PM (11/12/2008)
Alright, great. I think the two priir comments are great. So I have two questions.
1) Where can I get a car that will run on methane or ethanol from sewage, or the butanol fron sewage nourished algae. OK I got my ethanol car, where can I get the fuel for it that is not made from corn? I'd love to fill up on biobutanol. I mean today and not three years from now. Corn ethanol truly is not ideal, we all know, but what else can I do TODAY? I have seen all the promise of cellulosic at 95 cents a gallon, bio butanol, bio gas, jet fuel and everything else. Wish I could use it, but it's nothing but sunshine up my butt for now. I won't bag on corn-anol because it's my only choice, and it is better than petroleum. I am just your average american and I can't get my hands on any motorized transportation other than diesel, gas, or plain old corn ethanol for now. Hope that changes very soon.
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