PricewaterhouseCoopers, a large accountancy firm, reckons that lower feedstock and energy costs could result in 1m more American factory jobs by 2025.
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"The current delivered cost of biomass is comparable or even cheaper than petroleum-based feedstock on an energy basis, " said Huber.
All of these cleantech companies are building not geographic monopolies for which few alternatives exist, but commodity conversion businesses, whose economic viability is exquisitely sensitive to shifts in both feedstock prices and energy alternatives across global markets.
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Even if you assume that the soybean waste has energy value, as a feedstock for cattle, the process still results in an energy loss of 2%.
The chemicals business is also vulnerable, as it uses hydrocarbons both as a feedstock and as a source of energy.
The chemical industry, the nation's largest consumer of natural gas, both for energy and as a chemical feedstock, is rapidly moving offshore in search of cheaper gas--and taking jobs and capital with it.
Should a massive natural gas infrastructure build-out take place to move shale resources to market, with significant untapped feedstock potential, biogas could emerge as a clean energy Cinderella story over the next decade.
Hydrocarbons, helium, hydrogen, and volatiles in the solar system are important for human exploration and habitation because they will provide essential high-energy, high-density fuels and feedstock for off-world manufactured goods and materials for construction.
The question is when storing of electricity in batteries or a fuel cell feedstock will become more eonomicial than burning a form of chemical energy to gain mechanical power.
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