Renewable energy professor big on cellulosic ethanol

Last week, ethanol was a big story on 60 Minutes. As a follow-up, the Energy Stock Blog has an interview with Professor Daniel Kammen, the founding director of The Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at Berkeley. On the ESB, Kammen says that while ethanol is a short-term solution, the future does not belong to hydrogen but to cellulosic ethanol. Kammen expects cellulosic ethanol will make up between one third and one half of our total gasoline one day, and that E85 will be 15 percent of U.S. transport fuels in the next few years.

Cellulosic ethanol is ethanol made not from edible substances like corn or soybeans, but the cellulose in plants. Cellulose is present in all parts of plants, which means all parts of a plant can be turned into ethanol and results in higher yields per acre. Cellulosic ethanol is still an emerging technology and is available commercially only in limited areas.  You can see and read more about the original 60 Minutes piece here.

[Source: Energy Stock Blog]