While we all have realized Corn ethanol has not lived up to its promise there has an increasing number of companies developing biomass ethanol. Unlike Corn or other sugar-based ethanol’s Biomass ethanol does not use up our food supply to produce fuel.

As we have seen Ethanol from corn may not be economically viable but second generation Biomass Ethanol may do the trick. Look what happens when the government uses incentives to prod the free market into developing alternative fuel technology!

Biomass is a renewable energy resource generally found in nature in the form of agriculture and forest residuals and energy crops, though it can also come from industrial and urban wastes. There is more than one billion tons of biomass that can be converted into fuel annually in the U.S. alone. Using the Coskata process, each of these tons can be converted into over 100 gallons of low-cost ethanol.

http://www.coskata.com/EthanolFeedstockPotential….

That means we are looking at a potential 100 billion gallons of low-cost ethanol yearly. The United States currently uses 134 billion gallons of gasoline a year. If we converted to e85 instead we would need to produce 114 Billion gallons of biomass ethanol a year but only 20,160 Million gallons of gasoline a year to meet current consumption patterns.

What has Coskata done to attract the interest of one of the world’s largest car companies and the backing of some of the biggest names in cleantech? The Warrenville, Ill.-based startup says it can produce commercial-scale ethanol for under $1 per gallon, made from either biomass (like energy crops switch grass), municipal solid waste or other recycled materials (like old tires – one reason GM is interested). At the pump the company claims its product could be anywhere from 50 cents to $1 per gallon cheaper than gasoline.

http://earth2tech.com/2008/01/13/ethanol-startup-…