Ethanol at about 14p a litre, how would this compare with power station fuel oil?

Question

Uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

"We will produce ethanol for under US$1.00 per gallon."

http://www.coskataenergy.com/http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23

http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23

Answer 1

Since fuel oil has more energy per litre than ethanol, 1 litre of fuel oil will take you further than 1 litre of ethanol.  At that price  it sounds promising for the ethanol to be very competitive despite needing more for the same distance.

Answer 2

Yeah, it would be great.  But how much can you make?

If you look at the Coskata website, all they have is a slick Flash animation which gives you a marketing-pitch view.  There is nothing about process efficiency (gasification incurs losses, bacteria of any kind use energy to live and breed, and distillation costs more), and nothing about the amount of feedstock potentially available.

14p/litre or $1/gallon is GREAT... as far as it goes.  If you can make 100 liters/person/year, not so great.  If you have to feed the forests to this thing to replace oil, it will be as big a disaster as the palm-oil plantations.