The post-alcohol world
后乙醇世界
Biofuels are back. This time they might even work
生物燃料回来了。这一次他们可能会很起作用。
013 Briefing - The future of biofuels.mp3 (7.37 MB, 下载次数: 16)
Oct 28th 2010 | London and san francisco
2010年10月28日 伦敦和洛杉矶
MAKE something people want to buy at a price they can afford. Hardly a revolutionary business strategy, but one that the American biofuels industry has, to date, eschewed. Now a new wave of companies think that they have the technology to change the game and make unsubsidised profits. If they can do so reliably, and on a large scale, biofuels may have a lot more success in freeing the world from fossil fuels than they have had until now.
将人们想买的东西的价格定在他们可以接受的范围内。这几乎算不上一个革命性的商业战略，但是到目前为止，美国的生物燃料行业却并没有这么做。当下，一批新公司认为他们有技术，而这些技术就可以改变游戏（规则）从而获得非补助性的利润。假如这些企业确实可以这么做下去，并且保持如此大的规模，那么与他们目前可以做到的相比，生物燃料或许在将世界从化石燃料中解放出来这一方面会做出更大的贡献。（……就其将世界从化石燃料中解放这方面来说，生物燃料或将取得比之前更大成功）
The original 1970s appeal of biofuels was the opportunity to stick up a finger or two, depending on the local bodily idiom, to the oil sheikhs. Over time, the opportunity to fight global warming added to the original energy-security appeal. Make petrol out of plants in a sufficiently clever way and you can drive around with no net emissions of carbon dioxide as well as no net payments to the mad, the bad and the greedy. A great idea all round, then.
早先20世纪70年代对生物燃料的呼吁源自有机会向石油国竖起一个或者两个指头，依靠当地的身体习语。时至今日，阻击全球变暖的契机也对原始能源安全提出了更高的要求。以高效聪明的方式从植物中提取汽油，你开车就不会产生二氧化碳了。那么，一个伟大的想法就出现了。
Sadly, in America, it did not work out like that. First, the fuel was not petrol. Instead, it was ethanol, which stores less energy per litre, tends to absorb water and is corrosive; people will use it only if it is cheap or if you force them to through mandatory blending. In Brazil, which turned to biofuels after the 1970s oil shocks, the price of ethanol eventually became low enough for the fuel to find a market, thanks to highly productive sugar plantations and distilleries powered by the pulp left when that sugar was extracted from its cane. As a result Brazil is now a biofuels superpower. North American ethanol is mostly made from corn (maize), which is less efficient, and often produced in distilleries powered by coal; it is thus neither as cheap nor as environmentally benign. But American agribusiness, which knows a good thing when it sees one, used its political clout to arrange subsidies and tariffs that made corn-ethanol profitable and that kept out the alternative from Brazil.
不幸的是，在美国并不是这样的。首先，燃料不是汽油而是乙醇，而每升乙醇所含的能量比汽油要少、容易吸水且易腐蚀；仅当它比较便宜或者相关部门通过强制性的混合强迫他们使用时，人们才会使用。而在巴西，20世纪70年代石油危机之后就转向生物燃料了，由于高产的蔗糖种植园和酿造厂（由蔗糖从甘蔗茎中提取出来后所剩的残渣来提供动力），乙醇的价格最终变得很低从而使得它有自己的市场。而北美的乙醇主要是从玉米中提取的，效率更低，并且生产蒸馏间的动力提供主要依靠煤炭；既不经济也不环保。但是美国的农业综合企业通过使用它们的政治影响力来（与政府）协商补贴和关税，以此使得从玉米中提取乙醇有利可图并且能够把来自巴西的乙醇拒在国门之外。
This still left the problem: using corn limits the size of the industry and pits it against the interests of people who want food. Boosters claimed that cellulose, from which the stalks, leaves and wood of plants are made , could if suitably treated become a substitute for the starch in corn. Both starch and cellulose consist of sugar molecules, linked together in different ways, and sugar is what fermentation feeds on. But cellulosic biofuel has so far failed, on an epic scale, to deliver. At the moment, only a handful of factories around the world produce biofuel from cellulose. And that fuel is still ethanol.
但是这仍然存在问题：用玉米来制造乙醇限制了自身的工业规模，并且与那些需要食物的人存在竞争（冲突）。倡导者们声称纤维素（组成植物的根、茎、叶和木材）如果能够被恰当处理，就能够成为玉米中所含的淀粉的替代物。因为淀粉和纤维素都是由糖分子组成，只是它们之间的连排列方式不同罢了，还有一点需要指出，糖是发酵的必需物。但是所谓的"纤维质生物燃料"到目前为止在大规模意义来说并不成功。目前，全世界只有很少一部分工厂用纤维素制造乙醇。并且燃料仍然是乙醇。
This is what companies working on a new generation of biofuels want to change. Instead of ethanol, they plan to make hydrocarbons, molecules chemically much more similar to those that already power planes, trains and automobiles. These will, they say, be "drop-in" fuels, any quantity of which can be put into the appropriate fuel tanks and pipelines with no fuss whatsoever. For that reason alone, they are worth more than ethanol.
这正是那些正在研究新一代生物燃料的公司想要改变的。它们计划要让烃和分子在化学上更接近诸如目前为飞机、火车和汽车提供动力的能源。这些公司宣称，这些新的生物燃料会成为"随时可能实现的"的燃料，任何量的这种燃料都能够被放入合适的燃料箱和管道，而不需为此大惊小怪。仅仅是这一个原因，这些燃料就比乙醇更有价值。
Appropriately designed drop-in fuels can substitute for diesel and aviation fuel, which ethanol cannot. That increases the size of the potential market. They also have advantages on the production side. Because crude oils from different places have different chemical compositions, containing some molecules engines won't like, oil refineries today need to do a lot of careful tweaking. The same applies to the production of biodiesel from plant oils. Genetically engineered bugs making hydrocarbons more or less from scratch could guarantee consistent quality without the hassle, thus perhaps commanding a premium with no extra effort. Meanwhile the feedstock could be nice and cheap: Brazilian sugar. Tariffs that block Brazilian ethanol from northern markets do not apply to drop-in hydrocarbons.
适合的设计的dropin燃料能够够替代柴油和航空用油，乙醇是做不到这点的。这就放大了潜在市场的规模。在生产方面它们也有优势。因为来自各地的原油中含有不同的化学物质，而这些化学物质含有一些发动机不偏好的分子，以至于现在的炼油厂不得不做很多谨慎的调整。从植物油中提取生物柴油也是一样的。组成烃的基因工程的补丁或多或少的能够确保持续的质量要求而不会出现什么麻烦，因此就有可能获得一个收益而无需额外的努力。同时，所需原料很合适并且便宜：巴西蔗糖。阻止巴西乙醇到北美市场的关税并不适用于dropin烃类。
Scale models
成比例的模型
If this approach works, it will not only be beneficial in its own right―modestly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while making money for its investors―it will also provide a lasting market incentive to scientists to devise better ways of turning cellulose into sugar. This gives the prospects for this generation of biofuels a plausibility that was missing from its predecessors. The drop-in firms are starting to come out of the laboratory, float themselves on the stockmarket, team up with oil companies and build their first factories. The dice, in other words, are rolling.
假如这种方法有效，它将不仅仅是对自己有利-----为投资者带来回报的同时在一定程度上减少温室气体的排放-----它也会为科学家致力于设计出更好的方法来把纤维素转化为蔗糖提供一个持久的市场激励。这就给了勘探这一代生物燃料的工作一个理由，而这个理由是上一代所缺失的。Dropin公司开始从实验室中走出来，深入股市，并与那些石油公司合作进而建立他们的首家工厂。换句话说，骰子开始滚动了。
One of the leaders of the drop-in drive is Alan Shaw, the boss of Codexis, a firm based in Redwood City, California, which makes specialised enzymes that perform tricky chemical conversions. In Dr Shaw's opinion, the industry's problem has not been bad products so much as a failure to think big.
Dropin的其中一个领航者是阿兰肖恩，C公司的老板，该公司位于加利福尼亚红木市，生产一种专业酶，这种酶起到灵活的化学转换作用。在肖恩看来，dropin工业的问题不在于劣质产品，更不在于安于现状。
Dr Shaw proposes to remedy that. In collaboration with Shell, an Anglo-Dutch oil company, and Cosan, Brazil's third-largest sugar producer, he plans to build a factory capable of producing 400m litres (2.5m barrels, or 105m gallons) of drop-in fuel every year. The other companies will provide money, reaction vessels and sugar. He will provide the enzymes and genetically engineered bacteria needed to make a drop-in fuel.
肖恩博士打算采取补救措施。通过与壳牌和寇森的合作，他打算建立一家年产能4亿升（250万桶或者1.05亿加仑）dropin燃料的工厂。剩下的公司将会提供资金、反应管道和蔗糖。并由他自己提供酶和生产dropin燃料所需的基因工程细菌。
The project is part of a joint venture by Shell and Cosan; with a capacity of more than 2 billion litres a year, it is the world's largest biofuel operation, and it owns a 16.4% stake in Codexis. At the moment, the joint venture's business is based on fermenting cane sugar into ethanol, but the new plant would start changing that. Codexis's enzymes and bacteria can turn sugar into molecules called straight-chain alkanes which have between 12 and 16 carbon atoms in them. Such alkanes are the main ingredients of diesel fuel.
改项目是壳牌和寇森合资公司的一部分，拥有每年超过2亿升的产能，是世界上最大的生物燃料业务，它持有C公司16.4%的股票。现在，合资公司的生意靠的是发酵蔗糖产出乙醇，但是新工厂将开始改变这种生产方式。C公司的酶和细菌能够将蔗糖转为叫做直链烷烃的分子，该类型的分子含有12到16个碳原子。这种烷烃是柴油的主要成分。
In April Codexis became the first start-up involved in drop-in fuels to float itself on a stockmarket―which in this case was NASDAQ, America's main market for high-tech stocks. But it is not the last. Another firm that recently completed its NASDAQ flotation is Amyris, of Emeryville, which is also in the San Francisco Bay area. Amyris started off using large-scale genetic engineering, also known as synthetic biology, to create bugs that make a malaria drug. But now it, too, has a product that it claims is a drop-in biodiesel. And it, too, has hooked up with an oil company: Total, of France, which owns 17% of the firm.
4月C公司成为第一家有关dropin燃料的上市公司----并且是纳斯达克，美国主要的高科技股票市场。但它并不是最后一家。另一家最近在纳斯达克完成上市的公司是E市的A公司，也在旧金山湾地区。A公司开始于使用大规模的基因工程，也叫做综合生物，来生产制造疟疾药品的不bugs。但它目前也生产了一种声称是dropin生物柴油的产品。并且该公司也与一家叫做T的法国公司成立了一家合资公司，其中T公司持有17%的股票。
Amyris's biodiesel is made of more complicated molecules than Codexis's (they are known, technically, as terpenes), and the firm employs genetically engineered yeast, rather than bacteria. But Brazilian sugar is again used as the raw material. Amyris has formed a joint venture with Santelisa Vale, Brazil's second-largest sugar company, and is busy refitting some of that firm's ethanol plants in order to make drop-in diesel.
与C公司相比（C公司使用的东西在技术上被叫做terpenes），A公司的生物柴油是用更为复杂的分子生产的，并且公司使用的是基因工程酵母而不是细菌。但是来自巴西的蔗糖仍然是原材料。A公司已经与一家叫做S的巴西第二大蔗糖公司建立了一家合资公司，目前正忙着重组那家公司的乙醇工厂来生产dropin柴油。
The Codexis-Cosan-Shell partnership and the Amyris-Santelisa-Total one are the furthest along of the drop-in fuel businesses, but others are coming up on the rails. LS9, which is based in South San Francisco (a separate municipality that has a cluster of biotech companies), also uses bacteria to make straight-chain alkanes. It is converting a fermentation plant in Florida into a test facility to see if what works in the laboratory will work at scale. And Virent, based in Madison, Wisconsin, is making alkanes out of sugars using a chemical, rather than a biological, process.
CCS三家公司的合作及AST是在dropin燃料业务方面走的最远的企业，但是其他一些企业也正在努力中。L是一家南旧金山（仅有的一个拥有很多生物科技公司的城市）的公司，也是使用细菌来生产直链烷烃。L正在将一家弗罗里达的发酵车间转为一个测试设备，以此来观察在实验室里的成功否是在外面也是如此。而V是一家来自威斯康兴州曼迪逊的公司，使用化学而不是生物工艺从蔗糖中提取烷烃。
Gevo, of Englewood, Colorado, which filed for flotation on NASDAQ in August, is planning to make another type of post-ethanol fuel: butanol. Like Codexis, it will use enzymes and genetically engineered bugs to do this; like Amyris and LS9, it will retrofit existing ethanol plants to keep the cost down. The aim is to turn out an annual 2 billion litres of butanol by 2014. BP, a British petroleum company, is building a butanol pilot plant to do this near Hull in the north of England and also has big ambitions for the fuel.
科罗拉多州的E市的G公司计划生产另一种类型的后乙醇燃料----丁醇，该公司准备8月在纳斯达克上市。与C公司一样，G公司将会使用酶和基因工程bugs来生产新燃料；而与A和L公司一样，它也打算改造现存的乙醇工厂以保持低成本。该公司的目标是到2014年实现年产量2亿升的甲醇的产能。BP是一家英国是由公司，也有对燃料市场很大的雄心，今年正在建造一个甲醇实验厂，该工厂位于英格兰北部的HULL附近。
Like ethanol, butanol is an alcohol. That means each of its molecules contains an oxygen atom as well as the carbon and hydrogen found in an alkane. Butanol, however, has four carbon atoms in its molecules, whereas ethanol has two. That gives butanol more energy for a given mass and makes it more alkane-like in its properties; nor does it absorb water as readily as ethanol. Moreover, the production process for butanol is more efficient than the processes that produce alkanes; proportionately more of the energy from the feedstock (various crops for Gevo, wheat for BP) ends up in the final fuel. And BP will certainly be able to bring to the party the ambitious scale that Dr Shaw praises.
同乙醇一样，丁醇也是一种乙醇。就是说每个分子也都含有氧原子以及在烷烃中存在的碳和氢。但是每个丁醇分子有四个碳原子，而乙醇是两个。这就使得丁醇在同等质量下更有能量，性质更像烷烃；与乙醇一样，丁醇也很容易吸收水分。而且，丁醇的加工过程比生产烷烃更有效率；成比例的更多的来自各种给料（G的给料有各种各种的作物，而BP只用小麦）的能量在最后燃料中结束。BP未来肯定能够实现肖恩博士所称赞的野心勃勃的比例。
The last of the Bay-area drop-in contenders is, in many ways, the most intriguing. Solazyme, another firm based in South San Francisco, wants to use single-celled algae to make its fuel. This is not a new idea. Craig Venter, who led the privately financed version of the Human Genome Project, is trying it too, through his latest venture, Synthetic Genomics, in San Diego. Synthetic Genomics is backed by the biggest oil beast of them all, ExxonMobil―and several other firms have similar ideas, if not the same heavyweight backing. Solazyme's approach is unusual, though. Instead of growing its algae in sunlit ponds it keeps them in the dark and feeds them with sugar.
在许多方面，旧金山湾区dropin的竞争者的最后一个是最让人感兴趣的。即S，另一家南旧金山的公司，S打算使用单细胞的藻类生产燃料。然而这并不是一个新主意。Craig Venter（他带领着一只由私人基金支持的人类基因组工程队伍），通过他最新的冒险----圣地亚哥人造基因组----也正在尝试。人造基因组由他们中间最大的石油巨头E支持，并且一些其他公司也存在类似的想法，。然而，S的方法并不寻常。它们并不是在阳光照射的池塘培养藻类们，而是将它们置于黑暗中并喂它们蔗糖。
At first sight this seems bonkers. The attraction of algae would seem to lie in the possibility that, since they photosynthesise, they could be engineered to contain the whole sunlight-to-fuel process in one genetically engineered package. Sunshine being free, this looked a brilliant idea. But looks can be deceptive. If you keep your algae in ponds the rays do not always strike them at the best angle and the algae sometimes shade one another if they are growing densely. Photobioreactors―complicated systems of transparent piping through which alga-rich water is pumped―overcome those problems, but they cost a lot and are hard to keep clean. Solazyme tried both of these approaches, and almost went bankrupt in the process. Then its founders, Jonathan Wolfson and Harrison Dillon, asked themselves whether it might not be cheaper to ignore the photosynthetic step, buy the sugar that photosynthesis produces instead, and concentrate on getting the algae to turn it into oil.
乍一看这有点疯狂。藻类的吸引看起来似乎在于这样的可能性（因为他们要进行光合作用）----他们能够在一个基因工程包里面被设计成含有全部太阳光照着的燃料过程。而阳关是免费的，这看起来是一个聪明的想法。但是表象可能带有欺骗性。假如你将藻类放在池塘中的话，太阳光线并不总是从最佳的角度射向它们，倘若他们的生长密度又大，则藻类们有时会一个接一个的处于背阴状态。生物反应器----一种由通过使用透明的水管抽取藻类富集的水的这样一个复杂系统----克服了那些问题，但是这样做的成本很大并且难以保持清洁。S已经试了两种方法，在这个过程中几近破产。然而接下来，S的创办者J和H问他们自己：如果直接忽略掉光合作用这个环节是否会更经济，相反去采购光合作用生产的糖分，并把精力集中在使藻类将蔗糖转化为油的过程。
Which is what the firm now does. It also has a nice little earner in the form of a contract with the American navy. The navy intends that, by 2020, half the fuel it uses (over six billion litres a year, mainly diesel and jet fuel) will be from renewable sources. Over the past year Solazyme has been providing it with trial quantities of both from its production facilities in Pennsylvania and Iowa. The algal oils are not themselves good fuel; but a refinery in Houston takes care of that, producing shipshape alkanes of the sort the navy likes.
这些就是公司目前正在做的事情。公司也有一个很好的小赚钱人，以合同的形式与美国海军（合作）。美国海军打算到2020年为止，其所使用的一半燃料（6亿升/年，主要是柴油和航空油）来自可再生能源。在过去的一年里，S一直向其提供来自宾州和爱荷华生产企业所生产的一定的试用量。藻类油本身并不是很好的燃料，但是一个位于休斯顿的精炼厂会处理它们，最终生产出井然有序的海军喜欢的那类烷烃。
High-fibre diet
高纤维食物
The success of all this obviously depends on the price of sugar, which is rising. Historically, the cost of making Brazilian ethanol has been about 26 cents a litre. Diesel will cost more, but petroleum-based diesel sells in America for 57 cents a litre before distribution costs and tax, so there should be room for profit. Nevertheless, if drop-in fuels are to become a truly big business they need a wider range of feedstocks.
很明显所有这些成功靠的是蔗糖的价格，但是它正在上涨。从历史上看，巴西制造乙醇的成本大约是26美分/升。柴油的成本要更大些，但是分配成本和税收之前，在美国以汽油为基础的柴油卖到57美分/升，因此仍然有盈利的空间。然而，假如dropin燃料想成为一个真正意义上的大买卖，它们就需要有更多的可选择的给料。
Until recently, the assumption has been that cellulose would take over from sugar and starch as the feedstock for making biofuels. Making cellulose into sugar is technically possible, and many firms are working on that possibility. Some are using enzymes. Some are using micro-organisms. Still others have a hybrid approach, part biotechnological and part traditional chemistry. And some go for pure chemistry, breaking the cellulose down into a gaseous mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide before building it back up into something more useful.
直到最近，假定仍然是以蔗糖和淀粉作为给料并从中提取纤维素，进而生产生物燃料。使纤维素变成糖分在技术上是可能的，并且很多公司正在努力。有的使用酶，有的使用微生物，还有的采用混合方法，部分是生物科技、部分是传统化学。也有的是纯粹的化学，将纤维素分解成一种氢和碳的气体混合物，然后再将其合成更为有用的东西。
The reason for this enthusiasm has been government mandates: America's Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS-2) and its European equivalent. On pain of fines, but with the carrot of subsidies, these require that a certain amount of renewable fuel be blended into petroleum-based fuels over the next decade or so. RFs-2 calls for a 10% blend of cellulosic fuel by 2022.
对此事有如此热情的原因是政府的要求：美国可再生能源标准和它的欧洲邻居。违者罚款，但是考虑到补贴这种胡萝卜，这些就要求在接下来的大约十年时间里，一定量的可再生能源必须被混合到以汽油为基础的燃料。美国可再生能源标准要求到2022年为止要达到混合使用10%的纤维素燃料。
The targets in RFS-2, though, represent a huge climbdown. Its predecessor, RFS-1, called for 379m litres of cellulosic ethanol to be produced in 2010; RFS-2 mandates only 25m litres. The industry in fact has a capacity of about 70m litres today, according to the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO), an American lobby group.
尽管与RFS-1相比，2的目标下降了很多。2的前任1要求2010年生产3.79亿升的纤维素乙醇；2相比之下只要求0.25亿升。但是据一个美国的院外活动集团----生物科技工业组织称，该工业领域在今天事实上拥有约0.7亿升的产能。
The reduced expectations reflect the fact that making fuel out of cellulose turns out to be hard and costly. Today's cellulosic ethanol is competitive with the petrol it is supposed to displace only when the price of crude oil reaches $120 a barrel. In Dr Shaw's view, a lot can be done by scaling up (and using the appropriate enzymes, of course, which Codexis will be only too happy to sell you). And big plants will, indeed, bring the price down―probably not to the point where cellulosic ethanol can compete in a fair fight, but quite possibly to a level at which fuel companies will make or buy the stuff rather than pay fines for not doing so.
减少的预期反映出这样一个事实：从纤维素中提取出燃料并不容易且成本高昂。目前的纤维素乙醇只有当原油价格升到120美元桶的时候才有竞争力。肖恩博士认为，通过按比例提高可以做很多事情（使用合适的酶，当然，C公司会很乐意卖给你）。事实上，大工厂会使价格降低----尽管不大可能达到纤维素乙醇有能力竞争在一个公平的比试中，但是达到这样一个水平式可能的：燃料公司make或者买这些东西而不是因为没有按要求做而付罚单。
Phil New, the head of biofuels at BP, says his firm is determined to comply with RFS-2. To that end it is planning a plant in Florida that will have a capacity of 137m litres when it comes on stream in 2013. It is one of seven cellulosic-ethanol fermentation plants with annual capacities above 38m litres (that is, 10m gallons) which BIO says should be running by 2013, with a further seven making ethanol using syngas conversion. However, such claims are not that different from those made three years ago―which singularly failed to bear fruit.
P，BP的生物燃料头头说，他的公司决定遵守2规定。To that end该公司计划在弗罗里达建设一个工厂，等到2013年投产后，产能可以达到1.37亿升。BP是七个年产能超过0.38亿升的纤维素乙醇发酵工厂之一，BIO称他们应该在2013年投之前全部投入生产，一个更远的七个使用混合气转换生产乙醇。然而，这样的宣言与3年前的没有太大的不同----然而之前的宣言竟实实在在的失败了。
Grassed up
If things work out better this time, it still leaves the question of where the cellulose is to come from. The answer is likely, in one form or another, to be grass.
即使这回事情开展的比上次顺利，仍然存在问题：纤维素从何而来？答案可能是草，以一种形式或另一种。
Though they look very different, sugar cane and corn are both grasses. So is wheat, which is corn's counterpart as the starch source of choice in the EU. A simple way of garnering cellulose is to gather up the leftovers when these crops have been processed―bagasse from sugar cane, stover from corn and straw from wheat.
尽管甘蔗和玉米看起来大部一样，但是他们本质上都是草。小麦也一样，而小麦正是玉米的替代物，作为淀粉来源的选择在欧盟。一个收集纤维素的简单方法是当作物被加工时---甘蔗的甘蔗渣，玉米的玉米杆，小麦的麦秸。
That is a start, but it will not be enough, Wood is a possibility, particularly if it is dealt with chemically, rather than biologically (much of the carbon in wood is in the form of lignin, a molecule that is even tougher than cellulose). But energy-rich grasses look like the best bet. Ceres, which is based in Thousand Oaks, California, has taken several species of fast-growing grass, notably switchgrass and sorghum, and supercharged them to grow even faster and put on more weight by using a mixture of selective breeding and genetic engineering. Part of America's prairies, the firm hopes, will revert to grassland and provide the cellulose that biofuels will need. The Energy Biosciences Institute that BP is funding at the University of Illinois, in Urbana-Champaign, is working on hybrid miscanthus, an ornamental grass that can produce truly remarkable yields.
这（虽）是个开始，但还远远不够，木头也是一个可能，尤其假如经过化学方式处理后，但生物方法处理不行（木头中很多的碳是以木质素的方式存在的，而这种分子比纤维素更难以对付）。但是富含能量的草类似乎是最好的方法。C是加州千橡树的一家公司，已经选用了几种生长迅速的草类，比较有代表性的如柳枝稷和高粱属的一些植物，并通过混合使用选种育种和基因工程来给他们增加动力并更快的增重。公司希望美国的一部分草原回复到草地并提供生物燃料所需的纤维素。由BP出资在伊利诺伊州大学建立的能源生物科学研究所正在研究混合芒草，一种产量确实很大的观赏草。
If the price were right, such energy crops might take America a fair bit of the way to the "energy independence" that early proselytisers for biofuels crowed about. A study carried out last year by Sandia National Laboratories, an American government outfit, suggests that in theory 285 billion litres of cellulosic biofuel a year could be extracted from the country's agriculture and forestry without breaking too much sweat. That is 1.8 billion barrels, compared with American oil imports of 4.3 billion barrels in 2009. Europe's higher human-population density leaves less space for energy crops. But there is clearly some room for expansion in the Old World as well as the New.
假如价格合适，这样的能源作物或许可以带领美国走向能源独立的路子，而这样的路子是那些生物能源改革者们所一直呼吁的。由圣地亚国家实验室（联邦政府的一个机构）去年进行的一个研究显示，理论上并不需要付出太多的汗水，每年就可以从整个国家的农业和林业中提取2850亿升的纤维素生物能源，即1800亿桶，而美国2009年的石油进口量是4300亿桶。欧洲更为密集的人口密度并没有为能源作物剩下多少空间。但是很明显在东半球还有地方进行作物推广种植。
Beyond the rich countries, capacity is greater still. In a fit of enthusiasm a few years ago Steven Chu, now America's energy secretary, floated the idea of a global glucose economy to replace oil. That is going a bit far. Brazil is a well-governed country, but other parts of the tropics, though endowed with sunshine and cheap land, are not always the sorts of places that the wise investor would pile into. And Brazil's blessings in terms of oodles of land that can grow cane with no irrigation are not widespread. Nevertheless, the country's success shows that international trade in biofuels is a possibility. If it brought economic development to less favoured lands, that would surely be welcome.
除了那些富国，产能还是很大的。在几年前的一阵狂热中，现在是美国能源部长的朱棣文就产生了用全球葡萄糖经济来替代石油经济的想法。这当然有点过头了。巴西是一个治理的很好的国家，但是世界上的其他热带并不总是明智的投资者愿意投钱的地方，尽管这些地区的阳关充足且土地便宜。大量的可以生长甘蔗而无需灌溉的土地虽说是巴西的福气，但是这些土地的分布也不是非常广泛。然而，巴西的成功表明了生物燃料的国际贸易是可能的。假如贸易将经济发展带到不招喜欢的土地，肯定会受欢迎的。
Drop in or drop out
顺便走访或者放弃
Such a future, though, depends on cars continuing to be powered by liquid fuels. A large shift to electric cars would put the kibosh on the biofuel market as currently conceived by most of its supporters; but it would not necessarily kill the principle of using plants to convert sunlight into car-power. The goal of reducing emissions needs low-carbon generators to power the grid the electric cars draw juice from. Put the energy crops in generators instead of distilleries and off you go.
然而，这样的一个未来的前提是汽车继续由液体燃料提供动力。正如目前很多生物燃料的支持者认为的那样，向电力汽车的巨大转变或将挫败生物燃料市场；但不一定会使利用植物将阳光转换为汽车动力的原则失效。减排的目标需要低碳发动机来支持grid，而电力汽车正是从grid中汲取的能量。将能源作物放进发动机中而不是蒸馏间，你就可以上路了。
Richard Hamilton, the boss of Ceres, says he is indifferent as to whether his grasses end up in petrol tanks or power stations. Others think making them into electricity might be a better answer anyway. A study published last year by Elliott Campbell, of the University of California, Merced, and his colleagues suggested that turning crops into electricity, not fuel, would propel America's cars 80% farther and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions even more. Electrons are easy to transport and burning uses all of the fuel value of a plant―including that stored in the lignin which current processing methods find hard to deal with.
C公司的老板理查德汉米尔顿说他并不在乎他种的草是否终结于汽油箱或者发电站。另外一些人则认为无论如何，将它们转化为电或许是一个更好的答案。加利福尼亚大学的EC和他的同事们去年所公布的一项研究表明，将作物转变为电而不是燃料会使美国汽车增产80%，同时减少温室气体的排放，甚至更多。电子容易输送并且可以全部利用植物所含的能量----包括哪些储存在木质素中的能量，而这些以目前的工艺是很难处理的。
The electrification of cars, however the electricity might be generated, would be the end of the road for ethanol. But not necessarily for drop-ins. There is no realistic prospect for widespread electric air travel: the jet engines on aircraft need the high-energy density that only chemical fuels can provide. So if you want low-carbon flying, drop-in biofuels are the only game in town. And civil aviation alone is expected to use 250 billion litres of fuel this year, is growing fast and could pay a premium if its emissions were subject to a cap or a tax. Over the long run, the future for biofuels may be looking up.
尽管可以发电，为汽车充电意味着乙醇已经走到尽头。但是并不意味着diopin也是如此。广泛的以电力为驱动的空中旅行很不现实：飞机发动机需要高密度的能量，而这些只有化学燃料才可提供。因此加入你要低碳飞行，dropin燃料就成为城市里的唯一选择。单单是民营航空今年预计就要使用2500亿升燃料，增长的非常迅速，并且假如它的排放物必须服从一个上限或者要交税，则民营航空可能会付费（使用生物燃料）。因此从长期来看，生物燃料的未来可能会好起来。
上面的文章中有很多地方，我故意把它生硬的直译出来，这些地方也是我搞不清楚前后逻辑关系的地方，所以我通过直译试图将这些不懂放大，进而成为我进步的痕迹，所以没有过分牵强的意译，希望各位可以指正。总的来说，这篇文章我觉得是专业术语比较多，但是不是说太影响理解。另外，本篇文章的翻译过程，我大概有10多处左右不懂的地方。牵涉到方方面的英语知识，但是我个人认为很多由于背景知识和语法的共同作用。然而背景知识不可一蹴而就，所以我把它归结为语法知识的欠缺，尽管语法还是懂一些的。所以恳请诸位只要能看到有点别扭的地方，大可点出来，留言当然是最好的方式了，因为大家都可以看到，或许我们的问题也是大家的问题呢。我觉得，既然翻译了一篇文章，就彻底的吃透它，力图从这一篇文章中就可以领悟到很多翻译的知识和技巧，这一点我认为非常重要，甚至比匆忙的翻译多篇更有价值。所以，我个人觉得，拿这一文章为例，投入20个小时，乃至50个小时都不过分。我是宁可断其一指，不伤其十指。不说了，请大家批评！谢谢
后乙醇世界
Biofuels are back. This time they might even work
生物燃料回来了。这一次他们可能会很起作用。
013 Briefing - The future of biofuels.mp3 (7.37 MB, 下载次数: 16) Oct 28th 2010 | London and san francisco
2010年10月28日 伦敦和洛杉矶
MAKE something people want to buy at a price they can afford. Hardly a revolutionary business strategy, but one that the American biofuels industry has, to date, eschewed. Now a new wave of companies think that they have the technology to change the game and make unsubsidised profits. If they can do so reliably, and on a large scale, biofuels may have a lot more success in freeing the world from fossil fuels than they have had until now.
将人们想买的东西的价格定在他们可以接受的范围内。这几乎算不上一个革命性的商业战略，但是到目前为止，美国的生物燃料行业却并没有这么做。当下，一批新公司认为他们有技术，而这些技术就可以改变游戏（规则）从而获得非补助性的利润。假如这些企业确实可以这么做下去，并且保持如此大的规模，那么与他们目前可以做到的相比，生物燃料或许在将世界从化石燃料中解放出来这一方面会做出更大的贡献。（……就其将世界从化石燃料中解放这方面来说，生物燃料或将取得比之前更大成功）
The original 1970s appeal of biofuels was the opportunity to stick up a finger or two, depending on the local bodily idiom, to the oil sheikhs. Over time, the opportunity to fight global warming added to the original energy-security appeal. Make petrol out of plants in a sufficiently clever way and you can drive around with no net emissions of carbon dioxide as well as no net payments to the mad, the bad and the greedy. A great idea all round, then.
早先20世纪70年代对生物燃料的呼吁源自有机会向石油国竖起一个或者两个指头，依靠当地的身体习语。时至今日，阻击全球变暖的契机也对原始能源安全提出了更高的要求。以高效聪明的方式从植物中提取汽油，你开车就不会产生二氧化碳了。那么，一个伟大的想法就出现了。
Sadly, in America, it did not work out like that. First, the fuel was not petrol. Instead, it was ethanol, which stores less energy per litre, tends to absorb water and is corrosive; people will use it only if it is cheap or if you force them to through mandatory blending. In Brazil, which turned to biofuels after the 1970s oil shocks, the price of ethanol eventually became low enough for the fuel to find a market, thanks to highly productive sugar plantations and distilleries powered by the pulp left when that sugar was extracted from its cane. As a result Brazil is now a biofuels superpower. North American ethanol is mostly made from corn (maize), which is less efficient, and often produced in distilleries powered by coal; it is thus neither as cheap nor as environmentally benign. But American agribusiness, which knows a good thing when it sees one, used its political clout to arrange subsidies and tariffs that made corn-ethanol profitable and that kept out the alternative from Brazil.
不幸的是，在美国并不是这样的。首先，燃料不是汽油而是乙醇，而每升乙醇所含的能量比汽油要少、容易吸水且易腐蚀；仅当它比较便宜或者相关部门通过强制性的混合强迫他们使用时，人们才会使用。而在巴西，20世纪70年代石油危机之后就转向生物燃料了，由于高产的蔗糖种植园和酿造厂（由蔗糖从甘蔗茎中提取出来后所剩的残渣来提供动力），乙醇的价格最终变得很低从而使得它有自己的市场。而北美的乙醇主要是从玉米中提取的，效率更低，并且生产蒸馏间的动力提供主要依靠煤炭；既不经济也不环保。但是美国的农业综合企业通过使用它们的政治影响力来（与政府）协商补贴和关税，以此使得从玉米中提取乙醇有利可图并且能够把来自巴西的乙醇拒在国门之外。
This still left the problem: using corn limits the size of the industry and pits it against the interests of people who want food. Boosters claimed that cellulose, from which the stalks, leaves and wood of plants are made , could if suitably treated become a substitute for the starch in corn. Both starch and cellulose consist of sugar molecules, linked together in different ways, and sugar is what fermentation feeds on. But cellulosic biofuel has so far failed, on an epic scale, to deliver. At the moment, only a handful of factories around the world produce biofuel from cellulose. And that fuel is still ethanol.
但是这仍然存在问题：用玉米来制造乙醇限制了自身的工业规模，并且与那些需要食物的人存在竞争（冲突）。倡导者们声称纤维素（组成植物的根、茎、叶和木材）如果能够被恰当处理，就能够成为玉米中所含的淀粉的替代物。因为淀粉和纤维素都是由糖分子组成，只是它们之间的连排列方式不同罢了，还有一点需要指出，糖是发酵的必需物。但是所谓的"纤维质生物燃料"到目前为止在大规模意义来说并不成功。目前，全世界只有很少一部分工厂用纤维素制造乙醇。并且燃料仍然是乙醇。
This is what companies working on a new generation of biofuels want to change. Instead of ethanol, they plan to make hydrocarbons, molecules chemically much more similar to those that already power planes, trains and automobiles. These will, they say, be "drop-in" fuels, any quantity of which can be put into the appropriate fuel tanks and pipelines with no fuss whatsoever. For that reason alone, they are worth more than ethanol.
这正是那些正在研究新一代生物燃料的公司想要改变的。它们计划要让烃和分子在化学上更接近诸如目前为飞机、火车和汽车提供动力的能源。这些公司宣称，这些新的生物燃料会成为"随时可能实现的"的燃料，任何量的这种燃料都能够被放入合适的燃料箱和管道，而不需为此大惊小怪。仅仅是这一个原因，这些燃料就比乙醇更有价值。
Appropriately designed drop-in fuels can substitute for diesel and aviation fuel, which ethanol cannot. That increases the size of the potential market. They also have advantages on the production side. Because crude oils from different places have different chemical compositions, containing some molecules engines won't like, oil refineries today need to do a lot of careful tweaking. The same applies to the production of biodiesel from plant oils. Genetically engineered bugs making hydrocarbons more or less from scratch could guarantee consistent quality without the hassle, thus perhaps commanding a premium with no extra effort. Meanwhile the feedstock could be nice and cheap: Brazilian sugar. Tariffs that block Brazilian ethanol from northern markets do not apply to drop-in hydrocarbons.
适合的设计的dropin燃料能够够替代柴油和航空用油，乙醇是做不到这点的。这就放大了潜在市场的规模。在生产方面它们也有优势。因为来自各地的原油中含有不同的化学物质，而这些化学物质含有一些发动机不偏好的分子，以至于现在的炼油厂不得不做很多谨慎的调整。从植物油中提取生物柴油也是一样的。组成烃的基因工程的补丁或多或少的能够确保持续的质量要求而不会出现什么麻烦，因此就有可能获得一个收益而无需额外的努力。同时，所需原料很合适并且便宜：巴西蔗糖。阻止巴西乙醇到北美市场的关税并不适用于dropin烃类。
Scale models
成比例的模型
If this approach works, it will not only be beneficial in its own right―modestly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while making money for its investors―it will also provide a lasting market incentive to scientists to devise better ways of turning cellulose into sugar. This gives the prospects for this generation of biofuels a plausibility that was missing from its predecessors. The drop-in firms are starting to come out of the laboratory, float themselves on the stockmarket, team up with oil companies and build their first factories. The dice, in other words, are rolling.
假如这种方法有效，它将不仅仅是对自己有利-----为投资者带来回报的同时在一定程度上减少温室气体的排放-----它也会为科学家致力于设计出更好的方法来把纤维素转化为蔗糖提供一个持久的市场激励。这就给了勘探这一代生物燃料的工作一个理由，而这个理由是上一代所缺失的。Dropin公司开始从实验室中走出来，深入股市，并与那些石油公司合作进而建立他们的首家工厂。换句话说，骰子开始滚动了。
One of the leaders of the drop-in drive is Alan Shaw, the boss of Codexis, a firm based in Redwood City, California, which makes specialised enzymes that perform tricky chemical conversions. In Dr Shaw's opinion, the industry's problem has not been bad products so much as a failure to think big.
Dropin的其中一个领航者是阿兰肖恩，C公司的老板，该公司位于加利福尼亚红木市，生产一种专业酶，这种酶起到灵活的化学转换作用。在肖恩看来，dropin工业的问题不在于劣质产品，更不在于安于现状。
Dr Shaw proposes to remedy that. In collaboration with Shell, an Anglo-Dutch oil company, and Cosan, Brazil's third-largest sugar producer, he plans to build a factory capable of producing 400m litres (2.5m barrels, or 105m gallons) of drop-in fuel every year. The other companies will provide money, reaction vessels and sugar. He will provide the enzymes and genetically engineered bacteria needed to make a drop-in fuel.
肖恩博士打算采取补救措施。通过与壳牌和寇森的合作，他打算建立一家年产能4亿升（250万桶或者1.05亿加仑）dropin燃料的工厂。剩下的公司将会提供资金、反应管道和蔗糖。并由他自己提供酶和生产dropin燃料所需的基因工程细菌。
The project is part of a joint venture by Shell and Cosan; with a capacity of more than 2 billion litres a year, it is the world's largest biofuel operation, and it owns a 16.4% stake in Codexis. At the moment, the joint venture's business is based on fermenting cane sugar into ethanol, but the new plant would start changing that. Codexis's enzymes and bacteria can turn sugar into molecules called straight-chain alkanes which have between 12 and 16 carbon atoms in them. Such alkanes are the main ingredients of diesel fuel.
改项目是壳牌和寇森合资公司的一部分，拥有每年超过2亿升的产能，是世界上最大的生物燃料业务，它持有C公司16.4%的股票。现在，合资公司的生意靠的是发酵蔗糖产出乙醇，但是新工厂将开始改变这种生产方式。C公司的酶和细菌能够将蔗糖转为叫做直链烷烃的分子，该类型的分子含有12到16个碳原子。这种烷烃是柴油的主要成分。
In April Codexis became the first start-up involved in drop-in fuels to float itself on a stockmarket―which in this case was NASDAQ, America's main market for high-tech stocks. But it is not the last. Another firm that recently completed its NASDAQ flotation is Amyris, of Emeryville, which is also in the San Francisco Bay area. Amyris started off using large-scale genetic engineering, also known as synthetic biology, to create bugs that make a malaria drug. But now it, too, has a product that it claims is a drop-in biodiesel. And it, too, has hooked up with an oil company: Total, of France, which owns 17% of the firm.
4月C公司成为第一家有关dropin燃料的上市公司----并且是纳斯达克，美国主要的高科技股票市场。但它并不是最后一家。另一家最近在纳斯达克完成上市的公司是E市的A公司，也在旧金山湾地区。A公司开始于使用大规模的基因工程，也叫做综合生物，来生产制造疟疾药品的不bugs。但它目前也生产了一种声称是dropin生物柴油的产品。并且该公司也与一家叫做T的法国公司成立了一家合资公司，其中T公司持有17%的股票。
Amyris's biodiesel is made of more complicated molecules than Codexis's (they are known, technically, as terpenes), and the firm employs genetically engineered yeast, rather than bacteria. But Brazilian sugar is again used as the raw material. Amyris has formed a joint venture with Santelisa Vale, Brazil's second-largest sugar company, and is busy refitting some of that firm's ethanol plants in order to make drop-in diesel.
与C公司相比（C公司使用的东西在技术上被叫做terpenes），A公司的生物柴油是用更为复杂的分子生产的，并且公司使用的是基因工程酵母而不是细菌。但是来自巴西的蔗糖仍然是原材料。A公司已经与一家叫做S的巴西第二大蔗糖公司建立了一家合资公司，目前正忙着重组那家公司的乙醇工厂来生产dropin柴油。
The Codexis-Cosan-Shell partnership and the Amyris-Santelisa-Total one are the furthest along of the drop-in fuel businesses, but others are coming up on the rails. LS9, which is based in South San Francisco (a separate municipality that has a cluster of biotech companies), also uses bacteria to make straight-chain alkanes. It is converting a fermentation plant in Florida into a test facility to see if what works in the laboratory will work at scale. And Virent, based in Madison, Wisconsin, is making alkanes out of sugars using a chemical, rather than a biological, process.
CCS三家公司的合作及AST是在dropin燃料业务方面走的最远的企业，但是其他一些企业也正在努力中。L是一家南旧金山（仅有的一个拥有很多生物科技公司的城市）的公司，也是使用细菌来生产直链烷烃。L正在将一家弗罗里达的发酵车间转为一个测试设备，以此来观察在实验室里的成功否是在外面也是如此。而V是一家来自威斯康兴州曼迪逊的公司，使用化学而不是生物工艺从蔗糖中提取烷烃。
Gevo, of Englewood, Colorado, which filed for flotation on NASDAQ in August, is planning to make another type of post-ethanol fuel: butanol. Like Codexis, it will use enzymes and genetically engineered bugs to do this; like Amyris and LS9, it will retrofit existing ethanol plants to keep the cost down. The aim is to turn out an annual 2 billion litres of butanol by 2014. BP, a British petroleum company, is building a butanol pilot plant to do this near Hull in the north of England and also has big ambitions for the fuel.
科罗拉多州的E市的G公司计划生产另一种类型的后乙醇燃料----丁醇，该公司准备8月在纳斯达克上市。与C公司一样，G公司将会使用酶和基因工程bugs来生产新燃料；而与A和L公司一样，它也打算改造现存的乙醇工厂以保持低成本。该公司的目标是到2014年实现年产量2亿升的甲醇的产能。BP是一家英国是由公司，也有对燃料市场很大的雄心，今年正在建造一个甲醇实验厂，该工厂位于英格兰北部的HULL附近。
Like ethanol, butanol is an alcohol. That means each of its molecules contains an oxygen atom as well as the carbon and hydrogen found in an alkane. Butanol, however, has four carbon atoms in its molecules, whereas ethanol has two. That gives butanol more energy for a given mass and makes it more alkane-like in its properties; nor does it absorb water as readily as ethanol. Moreover, the production process for butanol is more efficient than the processes that produce alkanes; proportionately more of the energy from the feedstock (various crops for Gevo, wheat for BP) ends up in the final fuel. And BP will certainly be able to bring to the party the ambitious scale that Dr Shaw praises.
同乙醇一样，丁醇也是一种乙醇。就是说每个分子也都含有氧原子以及在烷烃中存在的碳和氢。但是每个丁醇分子有四个碳原子，而乙醇是两个。这就使得丁醇在同等质量下更有能量，性质更像烷烃；与乙醇一样，丁醇也很容易吸收水分。而且，丁醇的加工过程比生产烷烃更有效率；成比例的更多的来自各种给料（G的给料有各种各种的作物，而BP只用小麦）的能量在最后燃料中结束。BP未来肯定能够实现肖恩博士所称赞的野心勃勃的比例。
The last of the Bay-area drop-in contenders is, in many ways, the most intriguing. Solazyme, another firm based in South San Francisco, wants to use single-celled algae to make its fuel. This is not a new idea. Craig Venter, who led the privately financed version of the Human Genome Project, is trying it too, through his latest venture, Synthetic Genomics, in San Diego. Synthetic Genomics is backed by the biggest oil beast of them all, ExxonMobil―and several other firms have similar ideas, if not the same heavyweight backing. Solazyme's approach is unusual, though. Instead of growing its algae in sunlit ponds it keeps them in the dark and feeds them with sugar.
在许多方面，旧金山湾区dropin的竞争者的最后一个是最让人感兴趣的。即S，另一家南旧金山的公司，S打算使用单细胞的藻类生产燃料。然而这并不是一个新主意。Craig Venter（他带领着一只由私人基金支持的人类基因组工程队伍），通过他最新的冒险----圣地亚哥人造基因组----也正在尝试。人造基因组由他们中间最大的石油巨头E支持，并且一些其他公司也存在类似的想法，。然而，S的方法并不寻常。它们并不是在阳光照射的池塘培养藻类们，而是将它们置于黑暗中并喂它们蔗糖。
At first sight this seems bonkers. The attraction of algae would seem to lie in the possibility that, since they photosynthesise, they could be engineered to contain the whole sunlight-to-fuel process in one genetically engineered package. Sunshine being free, this looked a brilliant idea. But looks can be deceptive. If you keep your algae in ponds the rays do not always strike them at the best angle and the algae sometimes shade one another if they are growing densely. Photobioreactors―complicated systems of transparent piping through which alga-rich water is pumped―overcome those problems, but they cost a lot and are hard to keep clean. Solazyme tried both of these approaches, and almost went bankrupt in the process. Then its founders, Jonathan Wolfson and Harrison Dillon, asked themselves whether it might not be cheaper to ignore the photosynthetic step, buy the sugar that photosynthesis produces instead, and concentrate on getting the algae to turn it into oil.
乍一看这有点疯狂。藻类的吸引看起来似乎在于这样的可能性（因为他们要进行光合作用）----他们能够在一个基因工程包里面被设计成含有全部太阳光照着的燃料过程。而阳关是免费的，这看起来是一个聪明的想法。但是表象可能带有欺骗性。假如你将藻类放在池塘中的话，太阳光线并不总是从最佳的角度射向它们，倘若他们的生长密度又大，则藻类们有时会一个接一个的处于背阴状态。生物反应器----一种由通过使用透明的水管抽取藻类富集的水的这样一个复杂系统----克服了那些问题，但是这样做的成本很大并且难以保持清洁。S已经试了两种方法，在这个过程中几近破产。然而接下来，S的创办者J和H问他们自己：如果直接忽略掉光合作用这个环节是否会更经济，相反去采购光合作用生产的糖分，并把精力集中在使藻类将蔗糖转化为油的过程。
Which is what the firm now does. It also has a nice little earner in the form of a contract with the American navy. The navy intends that, by 2020, half the fuel it uses (over six billion litres a year, mainly diesel and jet fuel) will be from renewable sources. Over the past year Solazyme has been providing it with trial quantities of both from its production facilities in Pennsylvania and Iowa. The algal oils are not themselves good fuel; but a refinery in Houston takes care of that, producing shipshape alkanes of the sort the navy likes.
这些就是公司目前正在做的事情。公司也有一个很好的小赚钱人，以合同的形式与美国海军（合作）。美国海军打算到2020年为止，其所使用的一半燃料（6亿升/年，主要是柴油和航空油）来自可再生能源。在过去的一年里，S一直向其提供来自宾州和爱荷华生产企业所生产的一定的试用量。藻类油本身并不是很好的燃料，但是一个位于休斯顿的精炼厂会处理它们，最终生产出井然有序的海军喜欢的那类烷烃。
High-fibre diet
高纤维食物
The success of all this obviously depends on the price of sugar, which is rising. Historically, the cost of making Brazilian ethanol has been about 26 cents a litre. Diesel will cost more, but petroleum-based diesel sells in America for 57 cents a litre before distribution costs and tax, so there should be room for profit. Nevertheless, if drop-in fuels are to become a truly big business they need a wider range of feedstocks.
很明显所有这些成功靠的是蔗糖的价格，但是它正在上涨。从历史上看，巴西制造乙醇的成本大约是26美分/升。柴油的成本要更大些，但是分配成本和税收之前，在美国以汽油为基础的柴油卖到57美分/升，因此仍然有盈利的空间。然而，假如dropin燃料想成为一个真正意义上的大买卖，它们就需要有更多的可选择的给料。
Until recently, the assumption has been that cellulose would take over from sugar and starch as the feedstock for making biofuels. Making cellulose into sugar is technically possible, and many firms are working on that possibility. Some are using enzymes. Some are using micro-organisms. Still others have a hybrid approach, part biotechnological and part traditional chemistry. And some go for pure chemistry, breaking the cellulose down into a gaseous mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide before building it back up into something more useful.
直到最近，假定仍然是以蔗糖和淀粉作为给料并从中提取纤维素，进而生产生物燃料。使纤维素变成糖分在技术上是可能的，并且很多公司正在努力。有的使用酶，有的使用微生物，还有的采用混合方法，部分是生物科技、部分是传统化学。也有的是纯粹的化学，将纤维素分解成一种氢和碳的气体混合物，然后再将其合成更为有用的东西。
The reason for this enthusiasm has been government mandates: America's Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS-2) and its European equivalent. On pain of fines, but with the carrot of subsidies, these require that a certain amount of renewable fuel be blended into petroleum-based fuels over the next decade or so. RFs-2 calls for a 10% blend of cellulosic fuel by 2022.
对此事有如此热情的原因是政府的要求：美国可再生能源标准和它的欧洲邻居。违者罚款，但是考虑到补贴这种胡萝卜，这些就要求在接下来的大约十年时间里，一定量的可再生能源必须被混合到以汽油为基础的燃料。美国可再生能源标准要求到2022年为止要达到混合使用10%的纤维素燃料。
The targets in RFS-2, though, represent a huge climbdown. Its predecessor, RFS-1, called for 379m litres of cellulosic ethanol to be produced in 2010; RFS-2 mandates only 25m litres. The industry in fact has a capacity of about 70m litres today, according to the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO), an American lobby group.
尽管与RFS-1相比，2的目标下降了很多。2的前任1要求2010年生产3.79亿升的纤维素乙醇；2相比之下只要求0.25亿升。但是据一个美国的院外活动集团----生物科技工业组织称，该工业领域在今天事实上拥有约0.7亿升的产能。
The reduced expectations reflect the fact that making fuel out of cellulose turns out to be hard and costly. Today's cellulosic ethanol is competitive with the petrol it is supposed to displace only when the price of crude oil reaches $120 a barrel. In Dr Shaw's view, a lot can be done by scaling up (and using the appropriate enzymes, of course, which Codexis will be only too happy to sell you). And big plants will, indeed, bring the price down―probably not to the point where cellulosic ethanol can compete in a fair fight, but quite possibly to a level at which fuel companies will make or buy the stuff rather than pay fines for not doing so.
减少的预期反映出这样一个事实：从纤维素中提取出燃料并不容易且成本高昂。目前的纤维素乙醇只有当原油价格升到120美元桶的时候才有竞争力。肖恩博士认为，通过按比例提高可以做很多事情（使用合适的酶，当然，C公司会很乐意卖给你）。事实上，大工厂会使价格降低----尽管不大可能达到纤维素乙醇有能力竞争在一个公平的比试中，但是达到这样一个水平式可能的：燃料公司make或者买这些东西而不是因为没有按要求做而付罚单。
Phil New, the head of biofuels at BP, says his firm is determined to comply with RFS-2. To that end it is planning a plant in Florida that will have a capacity of 137m litres when it comes on stream in 2013. It is one of seven cellulosic-ethanol fermentation plants with annual capacities above 38m litres (that is, 10m gallons) which BIO says should be running by 2013, with a further seven making ethanol using syngas conversion. However, such claims are not that different from those made three years ago―which singularly failed to bear fruit.
P，BP的生物燃料头头说，他的公司决定遵守2规定。To that end该公司计划在弗罗里达建设一个工厂，等到2013年投产后，产能可以达到1.37亿升。BP是七个年产能超过0.38亿升的纤维素乙醇发酵工厂之一，BIO称他们应该在2013年投之前全部投入生产，一个更远的七个使用混合气转换生产乙醇。然而，这样的宣言与3年前的没有太大的不同----然而之前的宣言竟实实在在的失败了。
Grassed up
If things work out better this time, it still leaves the question of where the cellulose is to come from. The answer is likely, in one form or another, to be grass.
即使这回事情开展的比上次顺利，仍然存在问题：纤维素从何而来？答案可能是草，以一种形式或另一种。
Though they look very different, sugar cane and corn are both grasses. So is wheat, which is corn's counterpart as the starch source of choice in the EU. A simple way of garnering cellulose is to gather up the leftovers when these crops have been processed―bagasse from sugar cane, stover from corn and straw from wheat.
尽管甘蔗和玉米看起来大部一样，但是他们本质上都是草。小麦也一样，而小麦正是玉米的替代物，作为淀粉来源的选择在欧盟。一个收集纤维素的简单方法是当作物被加工时---甘蔗的甘蔗渣，玉米的玉米杆，小麦的麦秸。
That is a start, but it will not be enough, Wood is a possibility, particularly if it is dealt with chemically, rather than biologically (much of the carbon in wood is in the form of lignin, a molecule that is even tougher than cellulose). But energy-rich grasses look like the best bet. Ceres, which is based in Thousand Oaks, California, has taken several species of fast-growing grass, notably switchgrass and sorghum, and supercharged them to grow even faster and put on more weight by using a mixture of selective breeding and genetic engineering. Part of America's prairies, the firm hopes, will revert to grassland and provide the cellulose that biofuels will need. The Energy Biosciences Institute that BP is funding at the University of Illinois, in Urbana-Champaign, is working on hybrid miscanthus, an ornamental grass that can produce truly remarkable yields.
这（虽）是个开始，但还远远不够，木头也是一个可能，尤其假如经过化学方式处理后，但生物方法处理不行（木头中很多的碳是以木质素的方式存在的，而这种分子比纤维素更难以对付）。但是富含能量的草类似乎是最好的方法。C是加州千橡树的一家公司，已经选用了几种生长迅速的草类，比较有代表性的如柳枝稷和高粱属的一些植物，并通过混合使用选种育种和基因工程来给他们增加动力并更快的增重。公司希望美国的一部分草原回复到草地并提供生物燃料所需的纤维素。由BP出资在伊利诺伊州大学建立的能源生物科学研究所正在研究混合芒草，一种产量确实很大的观赏草。
If the price were right, such energy crops might take America a fair bit of the way to the "energy independence" that early proselytisers for biofuels crowed about. A study carried out last year by Sandia National Laboratories, an American government outfit, suggests that in theory 285 billion litres of cellulosic biofuel a year could be extracted from the country's agriculture and forestry without breaking too much sweat. That is 1.8 billion barrels, compared with American oil imports of 4.3 billion barrels in 2009. Europe's higher human-population density leaves less space for energy crops. But there is clearly some room for expansion in the Old World as well as the New.
假如价格合适，这样的能源作物或许可以带领美国走向能源独立的路子，而这样的路子是那些生物能源改革者们所一直呼吁的。由圣地亚国家实验室（联邦政府的一个机构）去年进行的一个研究显示，理论上并不需要付出太多的汗水，每年就可以从整个国家的农业和林业中提取2850亿升的纤维素生物能源，即1800亿桶，而美国2009年的石油进口量是4300亿桶。欧洲更为密集的人口密度并没有为能源作物剩下多少空间。但是很明显在东半球还有地方进行作物推广种植。
Beyond the rich countries, capacity is greater still. In a fit of enthusiasm a few years ago Steven Chu, now America's energy secretary, floated the idea of a global glucose economy to replace oil. That is going a bit far. Brazil is a well-governed country, but other parts of the tropics, though endowed with sunshine and cheap land, are not always the sorts of places that the wise investor would pile into. And Brazil's blessings in terms of oodles of land that can grow cane with no irrigation are not widespread. Nevertheless, the country's success shows that international trade in biofuels is a possibility. If it brought economic development to less favoured lands, that would surely be welcome.
除了那些富国，产能还是很大的。在几年前的一阵狂热中，现在是美国能源部长的朱棣文就产生了用全球葡萄糖经济来替代石油经济的想法。这当然有点过头了。巴西是一个治理的很好的国家，但是世界上的其他热带并不总是明智的投资者愿意投钱的地方，尽管这些地区的阳关充足且土地便宜。大量的可以生长甘蔗而无需灌溉的土地虽说是巴西的福气，但是这些土地的分布也不是非常广泛。然而，巴西的成功表明了生物燃料的国际贸易是可能的。假如贸易将经济发展带到不招喜欢的土地，肯定会受欢迎的。
Drop in or drop out
顺便走访或者放弃
Such a future, though, depends on cars continuing to be powered by liquid fuels. A large shift to electric cars would put the kibosh on the biofuel market as currently conceived by most of its supporters; but it would not necessarily kill the principle of using plants to convert sunlight into car-power. The goal of reducing emissions needs low-carbon generators to power the grid the electric cars draw juice from. Put the energy crops in generators instead of distilleries and off you go.
然而，这样的一个未来的前提是汽车继续由液体燃料提供动力。正如目前很多生物燃料的支持者认为的那样，向电力汽车的巨大转变或将挫败生物燃料市场；但不一定会使利用植物将阳光转换为汽车动力的原则失效。减排的目标需要低碳发动机来支持grid，而电力汽车正是从grid中汲取的能量。将能源作物放进发动机中而不是蒸馏间，你就可以上路了。
Richard Hamilton, the boss of Ceres, says he is indifferent as to whether his grasses end up in petrol tanks or power stations. Others think making them into electricity might be a better answer anyway. A study published last year by Elliott Campbell, of the University of California, Merced, and his colleagues suggested that turning crops into electricity, not fuel, would propel America's cars 80% farther and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions even more. Electrons are easy to transport and burning uses all of the fuel value of a plant―including that stored in the lignin which current processing methods find hard to deal with.
C公司的老板理查德汉米尔顿说他并不在乎他种的草是否终结于汽油箱或者发电站。另外一些人则认为无论如何，将它们转化为电或许是一个更好的答案。加利福尼亚大学的EC和他的同事们去年所公布的一项研究表明，将作物转变为电而不是燃料会使美国汽车增产80%，同时减少温室气体的排放，甚至更多。电子容易输送并且可以全部利用植物所含的能量----包括哪些储存在木质素中的能量，而这些以目前的工艺是很难处理的。
The electrification of cars, however the electricity might be generated, would be the end of the road for ethanol. But not necessarily for drop-ins. There is no realistic prospect for widespread electric air travel: the jet engines on aircraft need the high-energy density that only chemical fuels can provide. So if you want low-carbon flying, drop-in biofuels are the only game in town. And civil aviation alone is expected to use 250 billion litres of fuel this year, is growing fast and could pay a premium if its emissions were subject to a cap or a tax. Over the long run, the future for biofuels may be looking up.
尽管可以发电，为汽车充电意味着乙醇已经走到尽头。但是并不意味着diopin也是如此。广泛的以电力为驱动的空中旅行很不现实：飞机发动机需要高密度的能量，而这些只有化学燃料才可提供。因此加入你要低碳飞行，dropin燃料就成为城市里的唯一选择。单单是民营航空今年预计就要使用2500亿升燃料，增长的非常迅速，并且假如它的排放物必须服从一个上限或者要交税，则民营航空可能会付费（使用生物燃料）。因此从长期来看，生物燃料的未来可能会好起来。
上面的文章中有很多地方，我故意把它生硬的直译出来，这些地方也是我搞不清楚前后逻辑关系的地方，所以我通过直译试图将这些不懂放大，进而成为我进步的痕迹，所以没有过分牵强的意译，希望各位可以指正。总的来说，这篇文章我觉得是专业术语比较多，但是不是说太影响理解。另外，本篇文章的翻译过程，我大概有10多处左右不懂的地方。牵涉到方方面的英语知识，但是我个人认为很多由于背景知识和语法的共同作用。然而背景知识不可一蹴而就，所以我把它归结为语法知识的欠缺，尽管语法还是懂一些的。所以恳请诸位只要能看到有点别扭的地方，大可点出来，留言当然是最好的方式了，因为大家都可以看到，或许我们的问题也是大家的问题呢。我觉得，既然翻译了一篇文章，就彻底的吃透它，力图从这一篇文章中就可以领悟到很多翻译的知识和技巧，这一点我认为非常重要，甚至比匆忙的翻译多篇更有价值。所以，我个人觉得，拿这一文章为例，投入20个小时，乃至50个小时都不过分。我是宁可断其一指，不伤其十指。不说了，请大家批评！谢谢
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