The US Energy Administration (EIA) projects a flattened demand for oil in the US through the year 2030, thanks at least in part to biofuels expansion. As biofuels and bio-electricity production expands rapidly, bioenergy will be used to substitute for fossil fuels -- particularly oil.
Algae company GreenShift is pairing up with Montana maize ethanol operations to utilise their CO2 output for producing algal biofuels.
In California, Primafuel revealed ambitious plans for both algal biofuels and specialty chemicals operations, designed in the two phases of bioproduction and chemical refinery.
Another bioenergy company with big plans for production of specialty chemicals from biomass is BioEnergy International of Quincy, MA.
Commercial alcohol distilleries are discovering advantages to bioenergy. Yet another distillery in the UK is installing a biomass Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generating plant to provide operating power and process heat/steam for its main operation. The new plant will be installed at Combination of Rothes Distillers LTD in Scotland by Helius Energy. Over 1.5 GW of power from biomass has been announced in the UK since the beginning of 2008.
It took humans several thousand years to learn how to use the energy stored by the sun in fossil fuels over billions of years. Now, in the dozens of decades left before humans use all the accessible fossil fuels, would be a good time for them to learn to use shorter term solar storage, such as bioenergy, and for them to learn to use solar energy directly.
Earth orbiting solar power plants would be best, able to collect solar energy at its strongest, for 23 hours a day or so.
I would have to agree that the growing use of biofuels, especially ethanol has helped to keep gasoline prices lower that what they otherwise would have been and also to lower oil consumption. This years requirement to blend 500 million gallons of biodiesel into the diesel fuel supply will also help to displace oil consumption.
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