Fuel from food? The feast is over

use grass not food. Miscanthrus, hemp, euphoborea

how much you want to bet its still being made from food but this is just propaganda to make it seem like its made from something else?

Its farmers who decide what they plant and if biofuel crops earn them more then food crops they are likely to plant it on all their soil, fertile or not.

Seems like a very inefficient way to ultimately harvest energy from the sun. Why not cut the middle man and go directly to PV solar?

Vulvox's breakthrough collectors will be able to generate electricity with 50% efficiency.
http://vulvox.tri...d18.html]http://vulvox.tri...d18.html[/url]
The dual solar thermal-photovoltaic system will wrest approximately twice as much power from an area as regular solar thermal or photovoltaic energy systems. That will be an important advantage in the upcoming industry of rooftop solar power. Apartment buildings, skyscrapers and industrial buildings all have flat roofs that can accommodate our solar power systems and the greater efficiency of of dual thermal-photovoltaic energy generation systems will make it cost competitive with other generation systems.

There are times when the sun is too strong and excess power that could be generated would overtax the turbine generators. Solar thermal utilities have to aim their solar reflectors away from the power towers to cool them, wasting solar energy and lowering efficiency.

The Vulvox solar system will have a photoelectric component that will continue generating electricity and it will be fed into the grid, even if the collectors are aimed in another direction to cool the power towers.

The Vulvox solar system will generate higher power levels than competing parabolic troughs and solar power towers, while retaining all of the storage capabilities of solar thermal power.

http://vulvox.tri...d18.html]http://vulvox.tri...d18.html[/url]

Seems like a very inefficient way to ultimately harvest energy from the sun.

Sure. ~2% sunlight to biomass is about the best you can expect from macroscopic plants.

From biomass you can make various kinds of fuel depending on processing method and how much you're willing to pay; ethanol, methanol, butanol, DME or synthetic oil. These fuels can be used directly in existing vehicles or with slight modification and they have high enough energy density for applications that really need it(e.g. aircraft)

Why not cut the middle man and go directly to PV solar?

Because PV cells are expensive as hell and generate electricity(which is not a portable fuel), that forces upon you a new middleman(batteries, electrolysis hydrogen storage fuel cells; whatever).

It's doubtful that PV cells can be ramped up fast enough to make any difference; in France they're going to offer an obscene feed in tarriff of euro 0.45/kWh(commercial buildings), euro 0.33/kWh(residential and ground mounted), euro 0.55/kWh(building integrated); even when the tax payer is guaranteeing a price ~10-20 times the price that nuclear electricity costs at the bus bar from any of their 86 nuclear plants they still only expect capacity to grow to 5400 MW installed by 2020(at ~20% capacity factor that's equivalent to one nuclear plant and one pumped storage plant).

Renewables cannot produce more than the Solar Constant without indebting the future. PV cannot exceed 4 - 6 kWh m^-2 day^-1.

Nuclear power is secure power.

Nuclear power is secure power.

Until you realize that there isn't enough enrichable uranium in the world to last past 2080 if a full conversion were to occur today.

This is relevant only due to the lack of adoption of breeder reactors, which some countries, US included, have outlawed.