A research paper claims that using biofuels to directly power cars may not be much of a smart move, instead, using biofuels for generating electricity is much more efficient. The paper says large scale electricity generation using biofuels is undoubtedly more efficient than smaller engines burning the fuel to directly power vehicles.
The paper goes on to consider transmission losses for electricity and a variety of vehicle use, and comes with surprising results. Electric power outperforms biofuels by nearly 80 percent! That is the average, and the number obviously varied for different cases, but electricity beat biofuel to the punch in every single case. When consideration for greenhouse gas effects was added, electric power outperformed biofuels by a factor of more than two.
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Via: ars technica
