Advanced BioFuels USA

In these Modern Times, we face what seem, sometimes, to be insurmountable challenges.

Oil producing countries have a disproportionate influence on our daily lives-from national security decision-making to family budgeting.  How can that power be peacefully mitigated?

Violence and hunger stalk many parts of the world.  How can humanitarian  needs be provided for by the more prosperous nations?  How can developing countries invest thoughtfully in sustainable, clean, useful endeavors?

Over the world, the freedom of individual motorized mobility-privately owned passenger vehicles-is enjoyed by expanding layers of the world’s population; leading to wars over declining resources, disruption in economies, increasing pollution that spreads beyond political borders.

It’s a bit arrogant to even imagine such a thing, but the promise of advanced biofuels addresses this turbulence.  Advanced biofuels are sustainable, renewable fuels.  Most often applied to transportation uses, advanced biofuels could also meet many other liquid fuel needs.

Advanced biofuels can be made by breaking down biomass into more manageable parts such as sugars (5-Carbon and 6-Carbon sugars), polymers, oils and other precursors that, when put back together to form longer chain hydrocarbons, from which can be made biogasolines, bio jet fuels, biocrude and building blocks for development of other biochemicals.  Early advanced biofuels technologies produce cellulosic ethanol from the cellulose in plants.  Technologies being researched now strive to use hemicelluloses, pectin and lignin, as well as algae.  Waste-to-fuel processes are nearing commercialization.

What might this mean for the world?  If a country could use residues from food production (for example, the pulp, seeds and rind left over from production of citrus juices or the 85% of the sugar beet plant that is left after the 15% that is sugar is removed), forestry waste (leaves, branches or waste from paper mills), sorted municipal solid waste, or could use energy crops tailored to grow where food crops struggle, fail or are not needed, then couldn’t the world be a better place?  The power of oil producers could be mitigated, farmers and food producers could produce products with added value, rural economies could be revitalized, dangerous pollutants could be reduced and the world’s energy resources could be expanded.

Certainly, no change comes without its own drawbacks.  And introduction of new technologies brings its own challenges.  However, who reading this web site wants to live without electricity without on-demand mobility, without planes, trains and automobiles? Without clean, running water and sanitary sewers?

With care, the promise of advanced biofuels can help us continue to enjoy a middle class life-and, perhaps, extend those comforts and conveniences at home and to other parts of the world.