Thermochemical Or Biochemical Route For Cellulosic Ethanol?

[oilgiant]

The discussion goes on: Which of the two routes - thermochemical or biochemical - is the most optimal one for the production of cellulosic ethanol?

 

The jury is still out, but there are a number of people who swear by the thermochemical route. For instance, see this post which researchers believe they have a thermochemical route for cellulosic ethanol production that is as simple and cheap as ABC.

 

The devil could still be in the details in this regard. While the costs for the biochemical route are fairly explicit, they are not for the thermochemical process where there might be costs to further process the pretreated biomass before you could gasify it, and many times the cost of energy is not properly factored in.

 

Given all these uncertainties with the thermochemical method, what is your opinion on that? Do you feel thermochemical method is more suited to cellulosic ethanol than biochemical method?