sicophiliac

Economically Viable Alternative Energy: Nova Biosource

1000 gallons of water per gallon of biodiesel? I have never heard anything like that before about biodiesel. I suppose a lot would go into irrigating the crops but that number still sounds high. Another point for biodiesel that was not made is that its net energy return is around 3:1 compared to corn ethanol which is supposedly around 1.3:1 based on the reports out there. This ratio would be key for long term scalability of any source of energy. Its twice that of the oil sands in Canada with the current technology they use. I would imagine biodiesel from algae would have a substantially better net energy return given algae grows so much faster and apparently 50% of the biomass can be converted into fuel. Not to mention algae can grow from almost nothing and its unlikely much petroleum based fertilizers would be needed. One more plus is that biodiesel or diesel for that matter is much more efficient to burn than gasoline. A car with X hp and X acceleration could get say 20 mpg running on gasoline, maybe 15 mpg on E85. However running on diesel or biodiesel for that matter it would get maybe 30 mpg if not better and still run just as strong, not to mention the lifespan of the engine would be greatly extended as well as lowend torque.