BREAK THEM, JUST DON'T PICK THE REPLASCEMENT PANES:

Biofuel push draws inventors and investors: The effort to turn plant waste into a new form of ethanol is attracting ingenuity and investors (Elizabeth Douglass, March 8, 2007, LA Times)

Wall Street and private investors have joined the search for new kinds of ethanol, putting unprecedented amounts of money behind companies with promising technologies. Oil giants have rushed in as well, striking deals with universities and firms involved in biofuels.

"People are working feverishly on innovations .... Everyone's racing," said Nathanael Greene, clean energy policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There are many more companies now working on many different variations."

Among the motivators: Bush's goal of displacing 20% of the nation's gasoline with alternative fuels and improved fuel economy by 2017. Although biodiesel, hybrid cars, natural-gas-powered buses and other energy advances will be part of the mix, most experts believe Bush's benchmark can't be met without a substantial contribution from next-generation ethanol.

"It's a big technology bet that cellulosic will be a primary contributor," said Alexander Karsner, assistant secretary for the Energy Department's energy efficiency and renewables group. Apart from outright cuts in energy use, he added, such next-generation ethanol "is perhaps the best hope we have in the transportation sector for minimizing the human impacts on global climate change."

Raising gas taxes will only speed the innovation process.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 8, 2007 7:38 AM