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New Energy Sources to the Rescue
As petrol prices rise, policy makers and venture capitalists are suddenly embracing alternatives. Will the trend last
Reasons for the change
In his long career in country music, Willie Nelson has always been on the left side of all things. Now, at 73, he is in the vanguard. Mr. Nelson, who lives on a big farm outside Austin, powers his car with the help of vegetable oil. He has even created his own line of this cleaner-burning diesel blend (混合柴油). He called it "BioWillie", which is distributed at several sites in Texas and is going national, too. Mr. Nelson argues that it will help America’s farmers, truckers and the environment while, at the same time, reducing dependence on foreign petroleum.
With high petrol prices causing troubles in Washington, D.C., everyone is trying to find out alternatives. Soya beans, canola (rapeseed), switch grass, anything, is being investigated~ Even George Bush, a former oilman who supports loyally the industrial development, called last week for more research into ethanol (酒精) and bio-diesel-two key types of bio-fuels (生物燃料) and boldly predicted that "ethanol will replace gasoline consumption". Jim Woolsey, a former head of the CIA notes that developing bio-fuels is in the national interest, since it is high time America stopped its reliance on petroleum from foreign countries and so stopped funding some fanatical religious organizations.
Future: convenience and pains
The federal government is beginning to formulate policy to promote the use of bio-fuels. In Montana, Hawaii and Minnesota all petrol must contain 10% ethanol, while Washington State requires petrol and diesel to contain 2% renewable fuel by volume. For both ethanol and bio-diesel, Congress has required a near-doubling of production by 2012. Both blends, notes Mr. Woolsey approvingly, need little new infrastructure to support them (unlike, say, hydrogen fuel-cell cars). Ethanol can be dispensed at regular petrol stations and works, within limits, in today’s cars. Bio-diesel fuelling stations, such as those for BioWillie, are popping up around America.
Unfortunately for Mr. Bush’s political fortunes, a bio-fuels revolution will not happen in time to ease America’s current pain at the pump. Right now, ethanol--a clean-burning, high-octane alcohol typically derived from com in America, or sugar in Brazil--accounts for just 3% of America’s petrol use, though American cars can handle a 10% ethanol blend. Bio-diesel is used even less.
Moreover, ethanol is typically blended with regular fuel, and a widespread shift to an ethanol blend (a result of another provision of last year’s energy bill) has contributed to some petrol shortages in Texas and elsewhere, as the supply chain creaks into life. Skeptics argue that growing crops for ethanol will bum more petrol than it will save.
But others are persuaded, despite the pains at the beginning stage. "If I had to bet $100, I’d bet on bio-fuels," says Hunter Lovins, co-author of" Natural Capitalism", adding that she would favor them even over other renewable energy sources. Rich investors also believe as growth. Richard Branson, a British entrepreneur who heads the Virgin conglomerate, recently announced plans to invest up to $400 in ethanol production.
Growing production
Can production be scaled up A recent bioengineering breakthrough means that it should soon be possible to convert plant products far more efficiently to ethanol. This lends promise to cellulosic ethanol— a product that can be made from agricultural "waste", such as corn cobs or weeds, which is widely available. (Once corn kernels and sugar-cane sap have been taken away for sugar, they leave plenty of stalks and leaves behind.) The most promising source of cellulosic ethanol, say experts, is switch grass, a native American grass that grows naturally in the prairie heartland and thrives in the poor Mississippi Delta.
Bio-diesel, as yet, is a smaller enterprise. Its plants require less capital than those for ethanol. It is growing fast—sales volume tripled, to 75m gallons, between 2004 and 2005--but that is still a drop in the tanker of the 60 billion gallons of diesel that Americans consume each year. Much of the stuff is made from soya beans, and Jeff Plowman of Austin Bio-fuels, a tiny start-up, notes that soya bean futures are tracking the price of heating oil for the first time. In Texas, Mr. Plowman also sees potential for cottonseed oil, a byproduct of cotton production. Elsewhere, there is even talk of producing bio-diesel from pig manure.
Troubles are still occurring, having pushed back the enthusiasm. In Minnesota, a requirement to have 2% of diesel made from soya was suspended last year when truckers began to complain of clogged filters, though it was fairly quickly reinstated.
Bio-fuels and American farms
Could bio-fuels, in addition to easing the strain on the environment and on wallets, help to save American farms Some policymakers certainly hold out this dream, particularly in the Midwest, where ethanol and bio-diesel production is concentrated. Montana’s Democratic governor, Brian Schweitzer, who uses bio-diesel (made for example from canola) in his own Volkswagen Jetta, imagined with optimism about a technology that he hopes "will jump-start rural America". He points out that America exports masses of wheat, soya beans and corn, and talks of"convert[ing] those export acres to bio-fuels". When the 2007 farm bill is debated, he hopes for "a vision that helps American farmers once again produce their own horsepower on their own farms". This "vision" would include federal crop insurance for farmers who grow canola, safflower and camellia, bringing them up to the level of wheat and soya beans.
The notion of American farmers defying the tide of capitalism to grow their own fuel is a glorious delusion. It seems great, yet it’s not practical. However, Mr. Schweitzer is fight that Congress has some big decisions to make about bio-fuels. To what extent, if any, should government subsidize this newlyemerged industry Already it has received plenty of help. Ethanol producers get a tax credit worth 51 cents a gallon, much to the delight of the industry. There is also a 54 cents-a-gallon tariff on imports of ethanol from Brazil. Starting with the removal of that tariff, Congress needs to rethink its misleading energy policies. Nathanael Greene, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, argues that the federal government’s most important immediate step should be to enact a loan guarantee to create America’s first cellulosic ethanol plant, which would probably be built in Idaho.
If bio-fuels do take off, environmentalists and policymakers will still be unable to relax. Mr. Greene emphasizes, rightly, that bio-fuels alone might not solve all the problems. His organization argues that although American production could rise to 100 billion gallons of bio-fuels by 2050, such changes also need to be combined with improved fuel efficiency and better city planning. More flex-fuel vehicles, which can take up to 85% ethanol blended with petrol, would be particularly sensible.
Recent breakthrough in bioengineering technology has enabled the increased scale of producing both ethanol and bio-diesel.