Friday, May 8, 2009

Fuel news

I don't normally post on the news of the day but I think there might be a glimmer of direction for us consumers. Specifically in the area of transportation.

The administration announced today they they are discontinuing funding for hydrogen powered transportation! That narrows the field for other technologies.

The second bit is the recent data that suggests that biofuels (fuel from plants essentially) would probably be best if turned into electricity rather than fermented to make a liquid fuel. The preliminary numbers are impressive when termed in miles per acre. Ie, if you took an acre of switchgrass and burned it in an electric plant and made electricity to run a car.

Compare that to taking an acre's production and fermenting it to make a liquid biofuel.

The reason I thought this was significant in that it further directs us to electric for transportation. If you weren't convinced an electric car is in your future, you should be now.

Bottom Line - Electricity looks to be the winning fuel for our 21st century personal transportation fleet. Can you imagine how quiet and clean it will be?

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