The USDA has just issued a report detailing the outlook and challenges of next generation biofuels.

I have written several essays on Xethanol over the past few years. If you recall, they were a poster child for the theme of "overpromise, boost your stock price, and get rich quick" on biofuels.For me, this story dates back to 2006, when an investigative journalist working for ...

I missed this story when it came out last week:Hydrocarbon biofuels' promise tops that of ethanol, gasolineJohn Regalbuto, a chemical engineer at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and director of the NSF catalysis and biocatalysis program, wrote in Science that biomass-derived fuels are not far ...

I am not a big believer in a commercial future for the biochemical conversion of cellulose into fuels. There are many big hurdles in place that are going to have to be overcome before cellulose is commercially converted to ethanol. In a nutshell, one is the logistical problem, which ...

This is a continuation of the previous post covering Vinod Khosla's (VK) recent lengthy interview Milken Institute 2009 Global Conference. The interview was conducted by Elizabeth Corcoran (EC) of Forbes and can be viewed here.In Part I, VK discussed the role of government money, ...

About to hop a plane for Europe, but wanted to share with you a new map from the NRDC that I think is extremely cool:Renewable Energy Map for the U.S.I like this map for two reasons. First, it shows the renewable energy possibilities across ...

Through at least this week, my posting will continue to be sporadic. I have been traveling a lot the past couple of weeks, and this week (Thursday April 23rd) I head to Kansas City to give a talk that will be partially about biofuels and partially about acetylated wood:...

Cellulosic Ethanol is Dead! Long Live Biomass Gasification!My thunder has been stolen. I have been kicking around a post in my head for the past couple of weeks. I just haven't had time to get around to it, with the move and all. But this has been nagging ...

I will be traveling from December 16th until January 13th with intermittent Internet access. During this time, I hope to put up some posts covering the year in energy, my $1,000 bet on oil prices (which I think I will win by the skin of my teeth), finalize ...

When I was in graduate school at Texas A&M in the early 90's, I selected chemical engineering Professor Mark Holtzapple as my research advisor. His work was exactly in my area of interest: Biofuels from cellulose. Even then, I was very concerned about the non-sustainable lifestyle we were living, and ...