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A blueprint for energy efficiency
Birmingham News
Sunday, October 08, 2006, MARK HALL
Excerpts:
1. Brazil embarked on a long, arduous path toward energy independence more three decades ago. Its determined quest for energy self-sufficiency finally has paid off.
2. Brazil is now one of the world's leaders in renewable energy resources, with roughly 60 percent of its sugar production invested in ethanol. Ethanol alone accounts for 13.5 percent of Brazil's energy use. Ethanol fuels nearly half of Brazil's automobiles.
3. Brazil producers are confident that if they can keep the cost of ethanol at less than 70 percent of the cost of gasoline, as many as 9 out of every 10 cars sold in Brazil will be flex-fuel.
4. There is a lesson here for Americans - All levels of government must continue to help us stay focused on the prize.
5. Policymakers and Americans in general also should bear in mind that renewable fuels make up a very big and complicated picture. Indeed, current biofuels may only represent the first step toward energy independence and should be viewed as bridge technologies...
6. Feedstocks, such as corn, may turn out to be only short-term solutions until other more efficient technologies prevail.
7. Lucrative technologies? (1) use of algae, which can be bred and developed specifically for energy needs. (2) biomass derived from the cellulosic material of trees, switchgrass and other crop residue.
8. These second generation biofuels may be closer than we realize. For example, scientists recently announced that they had completed genome mapping of a poplar tree, black cottonwood or Populus trichocarpa, which offers huge potential as a biofuels source. The poplars mature in as little as four years and can reach as high as 100 feet.
9. Gene mapping could enable scientists to undertake dramatic improvements in plantation productivity associated with the tree.
10. Recently, Honda Motor Co. announced that it has co-developed the world's first practical process for producing ethanol out of cellulosic biomass. The new process would allow large volumes of ethanol to be produced from widely available biomass such as waste wood, leaves...
11. Meanwhile, Auburn University's David Bransby has emerged as a world leader in the adoption of switchgrass and other cellulosic materials as bioenergy alternatives.
12. Bransby believes by 2025, as much as 35 percent of energy in the United States could be produced by farmers.
13. The critical ingredient for the bioenergy success will be government incentives.
Full report can be found here
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