Biofuels produced from cellulosic feedstock such as straw, grasses and wood have long been touted as the successor to today's grain and seed-derived ethanol and biodiesel plants, but the technology has been considered too expensive.
The switch to second generation (cellulosic) biofuels would reduce competition for grain as food and feed, and allow the switch to materials such as straw, which would otherwise go to waste, the journal said.
Biorefineries will also be able to use lignocellulosic crops such as poplar and switchgrass, which can be grown on land less suitable for farming than traditional row crops.
These findings should be a boost to companies hoping to establish themselves in the emerging field, according to the journal.
Also in the publication, researchers in the US Department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University set out to compare the capital and operating costs of generating fuel from materials containing starch and cellulose.
They showed that the capital costs for a 567 megalitre capacity of petroleum equivalent plnat ranged from around $US111 million ($130 million) for a conventional grain ethanol facility to US$854 million for an advanced (Fischer-Tropsch) plant.
The difference in the final cost of the fuel however, was less severe, being 58 cents US per litre for grain ethanol and 60 cents per litre for cellulosic biofuel.
Although the costs of production are comparable for grain ethanol and cellulosic biofuels, the much higher capital costs of the cellulosic plants will be an impediment to their commercialisation, the paper concluded.
The journal says current net analysis for measuring the effectiveness of alternative fuels is wrong and "dangerously misleading". Comparing fuels must be done by assessing how much petroleum fuel each can replace, or by calculating how much carbon dioxide each produces per kilometre driven.
The article did not canvas the possibility of making biofuels from algae, which some commentators believe offers the potential of low capital costs and low production costs, as well as the promise of a high-quality fuel.
