Towards Cellulosic Biofuels Evolution: Using the Petro-Industry Model

While the United States owns only three percent (3%) of the total world petro-oil reserves, it uses over twenty-five percent (25%) of its total global output on an annual basis. Furthermore, the US petro-oil consumption is expected to double by 2050. While the sources for US oil are innumerable, many of the countries which contribute vastly to the US oil supply are economically and politically unstable. This has led to concerns about the security of the US oil supply, since a major political disturbance could be devastating. This article describes a model for the production of affordable and renewable biofuels as well as recombinant high-value industrial co-products from crop residues— waste products in today’s farming environment without competition between commodities critical to global food and feed supplies. This model represents a uniquely attractive business case giving the environmental and economic advantage it would have over petro-oil derived fuels and byproducts. Moreover, it can assist the developed nations to reduce their dependence on imported petro-oil fuels as well as improves the lives of agriculture producers in developed and developing nations around the globe.