Sustainability Part 3: What's the comparison between thermal output per hectare for biofuels and amount used?

Question

Please use the same unit each time so convert to Kws.

How much energy does it take to plow, harrow, drill, seed, fertilize, combine?

How much energy does it require to get it from the field to the factory?

How much energy does the factory consume?

How much energy is used transporting it to refueling stations?.

Would there be any of it left?

Answer 1

Without having the data at my finger tips, I do know that of all the proposed bio-fuel sources, ALGAE is the most energy efficient per acre to produce, and delivers the greatest amount of convertible biomass per acre. It has the added benefit that it can be designed in as a "loop" in the conversion plant so that the wastes produced in turning it to biofuel are pumped back into the algae pools and consumed by the algae itself -- leaving virtually nil negative environmental impact from the process.

Answer 2

the market price for the cheapest source of bio fuel, sugar canes, grown in tropical zones, is more or less the price of sugar from the same sources, and that is cheaper than the price of fuel for cars.
however, if you insist on producing it from other sources, in different climate zones, the result would be much more expensive.
and there are more interesting sources for bio fuel, and not necessarily methanol, which are under development now.