Would you be impressed if I told you...

They are researching changing plant material in to fuel.  Mainly with marine algae, I think.  But the scenario I described above does not take into account the energy required to convert corn (and the stalks, leaves and cobs) into ethanol or gasoline.  Oh, thanks for reminding me that Venezuela has been turning corn into ethanol for a while now.

I thought that ethanol has been in production in more places than just Venezuela for at least two or three decades now.
~

Could be, I'm not really up to date on that.  My point is that plants capture and store loads of energy.   If we could only learn to convert it to forms that are in high demand! In a larger sense, chlorophyll does what energy companies wish they could do.  Photosynthesis is an amazing process. 

The gasoline you buy most likely is 10% ethanol in the USA. It has been this way for years.

And the story behind that is an epic tale of Big Oil vs. Big Agra Corporatist Kleptocrat maneuvering....;-D...

Not 'researching ways'. but 'researching better ways', We have been doing it for years ;-)

Most of the ways we already know involve fermentation. That cost no energy at all, the yeast bacteria do the work.

But of course there is transport, cutting the plants into short bits, destillation, etc, we do need to input some energy.

Yeast itself is free?

:|

Practically free. Just take care never to use all your yeast stock and you can grow more very cheaply

I don't have a yeast stock; I don't need to concern myself with how it grows. 
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Oh, sorry.

Gee, I don't know.  That's something to look into.  I do remember hearing long ago that there wasn't enough arable land to support growing corn for fuel.

The biggest issue with plant-based fuels is growing and processing crops requires energy, which has to be obtained from some source. Finding sources of bio-fuels which are sustainable and net energy positive has proven difficult to date.

While I've not kept track of the subject for the past several years, when I did some research for some articles I wrote, the rough math was:

Ethanol (made from corn) -- Barely 1:1 energy return (at best)

Ethanol (made from sugar cane) -- Slightly above 1:1

Biodiesel (made from soybeans) -- About 2:1 energy return

There were other processes at the time which showed promise, but scaling them up to industrial production levels brought about difficult challenges.

I believe rape seed oil for diesel fuel show better returns, It is a short growth cycle crop with high yield that only need fuel enough to harvest it and run the press. Alas I have not done the math, so I cannot prove it ;-))

Yes, back in the way past  But we've had 10% ethanol gasoline for years now.  They don't even have to advise customers like they used to (in some states).  When I bought a car in 1986 Crown Oil was already adding ethanol and they had to state it clearly on their pumps.  Pontiac made it clear that fuel containing ethanol could not be used in their cars.  Today all of the brands add 10% and it's called E10.

http://www.fuel-testers.com/state_guide_ethanol_laws.html This post was edited by Thriftymaid at December 11, 2016 3:55 PM MST