Bush confident US can solve cellulosic challenge

05 March 2008 20:09  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--President George Bush said on Wednesday he is confident that the US can make cellulosic fuels commercially viable and overcome pricing pressures on foods and animal feed from corn-based ethanol.

 

Speaking at a renewable fuels conference, Bush cited the energy bill he signed late last year that mandates US production and consumption of 36bn gal/year of biofuels by 2022, a target that even federal energy experts have said cannot be met.

 

“I’m confident the United States can meet those goals, and I know we must, for the sake of economic security, national security and for the sake of being good stewards of the environment,” Bush said.

 

He conceded that while “corn ethanol holds a lot of promise, there are a lot of challenges”.

 

“If you’re a hog-raiser in the US, you’re beginning to worry about the cost of corn to feed your animals,” he said.  “I’m beginning to hear complaints from our cattlemen about the high price of corn.  The high price of corn is beginning to affect the price of food.”

 

“And so we’ve got to do something about it,” he said.  “And the best thing to do is not to retreat from our commitment to alternative fuels but to spend research and development money on alternatives to corn ethanol, ethanol made from other materials - for example cellulosic ethanol holds a lot of promise.”

 

He said that the US Energy Department has dedicated nearly $1bn (€660m) to develop cost-competitive cellulosic ethanol, noting that in a relatively brief period of time the cost of cellulosic ethanol has dropped by 60%.

 

“New technologies are coming,” he said.  “The job of the federal government is to expedite their arrival.”

 

He compared the current state of biofuels production technology to the early days of automobile manufacturing and Alexander Graham Bell’s development of the telephone.

 

He quoted an 1876 newspaper report on Bell’s invention, which said that “It is to be doubted if the telephone will be used other than locally; it is too sensitive for circuits exceeding a few miles”.

 

“Imagine if the author of that article were alive today,” Bush said, citing the growing global wireless communications network.

 

“The same thing is going to happen when it comes to energy,” Bush said.  “I know there are doubters, but I am confident that when we look back at this period of time, they will say, ‘How could you have doubted the capacity of mankind to develop the technologies necessary?’”

 

($1 = €.66)

Bookmark Simon Robinson’s Big Biofuels Blog for some independent thinking on biofuels

By: Joe Kamalick
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