Biofuels Reboot

To "access (the actual Scientific American) publication" you can press here:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-new-era-of-biofuels-raises-environmental-concerns/

Your expanded pdf commentary of the SA article is fair, and thus equally confusing.

First, it is unfortunate the original ADM (supermarket to the world) cartoon saturation advertising (that claimed growing corn ethanol is a fuel replacement) remains so entrenched.

Starch is a "carbohydrate" polymer of the sugar glucose, as is cellulose, and yeast eats sugar along with many other basic nutrients to grow complex proteins, fats, nucleic acids, etc. Ethanol is a waste product that can indeed fuel an engine. Cellulosic ethanol attempts to follow this production path.

A different biofuel production path first incorporates process energy to destroy enormous chemical bond structure to provide "synthesis gas." Building "hydrocarbon" fuels from syngas has its own long history. A reasonable guess is (the largest farmland owner in the US and nuclear advocate) Bill Gates, and (former Mass. Sen.) US Climate Czar John Kerry are organizing a development effort at MIT (described earlier on TEC). Effectively storing nuclear energy into chemical fuel energy.

Clearly, I don't know how to untangle this very complex assessment any better than you, or SA, or the "regulators" discussed. And can only hope others open their minds to something different. What I can affirm is burning firewood for heat is better when you first brush off the snow, melt the ice, and dry the log. Overcoming the strong cellulose chemical bond structure and removing the Oxygen would give me an even better heat to weight performance ratio.